The Year of Reading Proust discussion

This thread is for the discussion that will take place through Sunday, 13 Jan. of Swann's Way, to page 139 in ML / page 102 in LD (page break, next section starts: “While I was reading in the garden...” / “While I read in the garden...”)

There is obviously an issue, possibly a very serious issue with memory, especially that of Proust's short term memory that factors into this novel that has me wondering if Proust ever kept any notebooks in which he documented things, so as not to forget them.

"And even today, if in a large provincial town or a part of Paris I do not know well, a passing stranger who has "put me on the straight path" shows me in the distance, as a reference point, some hospital belfry, some convent steeple lifting the peak of its ecclesiastical cap at the corner of the street that I am supposed to take, if only my memory can obscurely find in it some small feature resembling the dear departed form, the stranger, if he turns around to make sure I am not going astray, may, to his astonishment, see me, forgetting the walk I had begun or the necessary errand, remain there in front of the steeple for hours, motionless, trying to remember, feeling deep in myself lands recovered from oblivion draining and rebuilding themselves; and then no doubt, and more anxiously than a short time before when I asked him to direct me, I am still seeking my path, I am turning a corner... but... I am doing so in my heart..." (68)



Remaining there for hours when it was probably only moments, he comes off as if he is a bit of a scatterbrain which is at odds with his intense focusing skills. There is something very absurd about all this.

The writer Bergotte in ISOLT is a compilation of writers, but probably inspired mostly by Anatole France.

Here's an interesting blog on that.

Anatole France:

Jim, I moved the materials that would help in understanding Proust's usage of space to the auxiliary materials section:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...

This section contains some detail about the Combray church.

Well, I have to say that with this description of the Church at Combray, I have finally encountered the Proust that I was dreading. I have had to trace back my reading several times so as to be able to identify the whole sentence structure and find my way along all the meanderings.

I am glad that things in French have genders. This helps a great deal in tracing back the pronouns.

He (Proust) even begins new paragraphs starting with pronouns that refer to something or someone mentioned in the previous paragraph.

I may write out the whole section on the church because it is so beautiful. Like a painting.

I am following here my reply to Aloha, from last week's comments (#359 by Aloha). In reference to space..

.."Un édifice occupant, si l'on peut dire, un espace à quattre dimensions -- la quatrième étant celle du Temps" (p. 77, Gallimard)

I know what you mean about some confusion in voice, Kalli. I will have to find where it was, but I kind of stumbled over one passage in Davis, where I didn't know who was speaking, but came to the conclusion that it was actually the sunny day, the Sun itself perhaps speaking! Granted, I was tired and it was past midnight, so I might have been wrong there.

Kalliope wrote: "I am following here my reply to Aloha, from last week's comments (#359 by Aloha). In reference to space..

.."Un édifice occupant, si l'on peut dire, un espace à quattre dimensions -- la quatrième..."

Thank you, Kalliope. The following is the Moncrieff translation. I've added his following description of the church, which is significant to his building the structure of his novel after the gothic church. I'm going to put the spoiler tag just in case anybody wants to discover it for themselves.

(view spoiler)[“an edifice occupying, so to speak, a four-dimensional space—the name of the fourth being Time—extending through the centuries its ancient nave, which, bay after bay, chapel after chapel, seemed to stretch across and conquer not merely a few yards of soil, but each successive epoch from which it emerged triumphant, hiding the rugged barbarities of the eleventh century in the thickness of its walls, through which nothing could be seen of the heavy arches, long stopped and blinded with coarse blocks of ashlar, except where, near the porch, a deep cleft had been hollowed out by the tower staircase, and veiling it even there by the graceful Gothic arcades which crowded coquettishly around it like a row of grown-up sisters who, to hide him from the eyes of strangers, arrange themselves smilingly in front of a rustic, peevish and ill-dressed younger brother” (hide spoiler)]

Nick wrote: "I know what you mean about some confusion in voice, Kalli. I will have to find where it was, but I kind of stumbled over one passage in Davis, where I didn't know who was speaking, but can to the c..."

Yes... the same here...!!!!!.. I also stumbled there.

I remember tracing back and finding the sun... but the one I am thinking of is a bit after the church part... I had to write down in the margins the "subject" which in my sample was not even the sun, but the "sensation de la splendeur de la lumière".. tricky, tricky.. This is the section in which the flies remind him of a little concert played by a chamber orchestra....!!!

In light of the above information, I am reposting the two posts that I moved to the auxiliary thread in order to have a continuous train of thought within this thread. It is significant for deeper understanding of his passages regarding the Combray church, and helping to see the building of his novel structure.

Interesting note from Proust about how he built his novel like a church. This excerpt is from Literary Architecture, which you can download from the link for free. It looks like a terrific book.

When, in 1919, Marcel Proust wrote to the Comte Jean de Gaigneron, he commended, with almost excessive ingenuousness, the Comte's insight into his novel A la recherche du temps perdu . Proust also confided to the Comte what now seems but a gratuitous revelation, that the structure of A la recherche is like a cathedral.

"When you speak to me of cathedrals, I cannot but feel touched at the evidence of an intuition which has led you to guess [deviner ] what I had never mentioned to anyone, and here set down in writing for the first time—that I once planned to give to each part of my book a succession of titles, such as Porch, Windows in the Apse , etc. . . . so as to defend myself in advance against the sort of stupid criticism which has been made to the effect that my books lack construction, whereas I hope to prove to you that their sole merit lies in the solidity of their tiniest parts. I gave up the idea of using these architectural titles because I found them too pretentious, but I am touched at finding that you have dug them up by a sort of intelligent divination.[1]"

The Comte de Gaigneron had divined what became public and explicit only subsequently, in the posthumous publication of the last volumes of A la recherche . There, in now celebrated passages, Proust's narrator declares his structural purpose, taking care to avoid the pretension Proust expressly eschewed in selecting his titles. Architect and dressmaker, Marcel balances the enormity of his "architectural labours"—to "build" a book "like a church"—with the humility of a seamstress's craft. He plans to work in the manner of his nurse, Françoise:
As all the unpretentious persons who live close beside us acquire a certain intuitive comprehension of our work . . . I would work near her [Françoise] and almost in her manner—at least as she used to, for she was now so old she could scarcely see any more—for, pinning on an extra sheet here and there, I would construct my book, I dare not say ambitiously "like a cathedral," but simply like a dress.
(II, 1113)

But once he has thus qualified his ambitiousness, Marcel abandons the simile of artist-dressmaker, elaborating instead his task as church architect...

John Ruskin's influence on Proust's thoughts on Gothic architecture:

Proust was influenced by the art critic John Ruskin, who went in detail about gothic architecture. In his essay, The Nature of Gothic, he listed the characteristics of Gothic architecture:

I believe, then, that the characteristic or of Gothic are the following, placed in the order of their importance :

1. Savageness.

2. Changefulness.

3. Naturalism.

4. Grotesquenes.

5. Rigidity.

6. Redundance.

These characters are here expressed as belonging to the building; as belonging to the builder they would be expressed thus :1. Savageness or Rudeness. 2. Love of Change. 3. Love of Nature 4. Disturbed Imagination. 5.Obstinacy. 6.Generosity. And I repeat that the withdrawal of any one, or any two will not at once destroy the Gothic character of a building, but the removal of a majority of them will. I shall proceed to examine them in their order.

Aloha wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "I am following here my reply to Aloha, from last week's comments (#359 by Aloha). In reference to space..

.."Un édifice occupant, si l'on peut dire, un espace à quattre dimension..."

Yes, he is traveling across the history of the church from its heavy Romanesque from the 11th century, described as “rude et farouche” to the more delicate Gothic of later times (possibly late 12th and 13th centuries) with its “gracieuses arcades”.

He loved Gothic (I also like Romanesque).

Proustitute wrote: "Thanks for bringing the Ruskin to this week's discussion, Kalliope.

Those preliminary reads were designed to help!"

Actually, it was Aloha, who first remembered... There is more on this topic, Gothic architecture and Proust, in the Auxiliary Reading thread.

I reposted here with spoiler tags. Jim thought that it should belong in the auxiliary thread, but since we're hot on the topic, I copied it back in here.

Proustitute wrote: "I think it fits here quite well, and people would do well to read Ruskin if they haven't!"

If they want to read a shorter version of Ruskin's thinking on Gothic architecture, I included a link in the above post on Ruskin's influence.

On Gothic architecture and its structure (copied from Auxiliary read thread - I do not know how to "move", I am repeating then).
--------------

Aloha wrote: "Proust was influenced by the art critic John Ruskin, who went in detail about gothic architecture. In his essay, The Nature of Gothic, he listed the characteristics of Gothic architecture:
I belie..."

Thanks for this link.. I have to read Ruskin's Stones of Venice.

I also think that it is the structure of Gothic buildings, --the way the very high vaults can be sustained by a whole system of ribs that spread out the weight and distribute it to another system of buttresses (mostly flying buttresses), which eventually hold up the whole edifice--, that is key to understanding what Proust saw in cathedrals: a guide to build up his work structurally. An inner grid of themes, without which the whole thing would fall apart, connects all sections.

Here is a graph on the ribs from the vaults and the flying buttresses.

The Morris column Marcel must have run up to in eager anticipation of shows still exists, across the road from the family home in Paris at 9 Boulevard Malesherbes. Cause I am a geek, I took a picture of it with the home in the background. I could answer your questions regarding the iconology of the covers but don't want to give spoilers unless you are ok with that :)

Jonathan wrote: "I liked the description of Marcel's ecstatic expectations of the theater and how they're stirred up by posters he sees on the Morris column: "daydreams conditioned both by the images inseparable fr..."

I'm in the middle of reading The Poetics of Space. IMO, it is THE most important book in understanding ISOLT. Although it came out in 1958, I am blown away by how much insight it gives to Proust's work. Before I knew that it came after Proust, I was hoping that Proust was influenced by it, but it looks like it might be influenced by Proust. Here is a passage relating to theater in the book that you would find interesting:

"In the theater of the past that is constituted by memory, the stage setting maintains the characters in their dominant roles. At times we think we know ourselves in time, when all we know is a sequence of fixations in the spaces of the being's stability -a being who does not want to melt away, and who, even in the past, when he sets out in search of things past, wants time to "suspend" its flight. In its countless alveoli space contains compressed time. That is what space is for."

Aloba writes: "In the theater of the past that is constituted by memory, the stage setting maintains the characters in their dominant roles. At times we think we know ourselves in time, when all we know is a sequence of fixations in the spaces of the being's stability -a being who does not want to melt away, and who, even in the past, when he sets out in search of things past, wants time to "suspend" its flight. In its countless alveoli space contains compressed time. That is what space is for."
Amazing find and so thought-provoking. Can this be related to the memory palace?

Yes, ReemK10. Bachelard discussed memory extensively. Run, don't walk, to acquire this book.

Kalliope wrote: "On Gothic architecture and its structure (copied from Auxiliary read thread - I do not know how to "move", I am repeating then).
--------------

Aloha wrote: "Proust was influenced by the art criti..."

Thanks for reposting that here, Kalliope. I vaguely recall in art school the symbolic significance of Gothic architecture. I think that is important to know to pick up the details laid out by Proust. I'm trying to find on the web some links that may enlighten us. Here is one, though not as detailed as I would like:

http://architecture.about.com/od/earl...

Good ole Oprah even talked about it:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/C...

A bit New-Age, but contained more information on the spiritual elements of the Gothic cathedrals:

http://www.soulsofdistortion.nl/The%2...

Not that I am an expert on that, reem, but to me the memory palace idea and similar medieval systems are for recall and memorisation into long term memory only, whereas Bachelard is more about the phenomenological, the experiential and the geographic. I.e. memory is space, not memory by using space. One is mnemonic and a system, the other (Bachelard) the phenomenology of natural encounter. Something like that!

Nick wrote: "Not that I am an expert on that, reem, but to me the memory palace idea and similar medieval systems are for recall and memorisation into long term memory only, whereas Bachelard is more about the ..."

I think the two ideas are combined in Proust. For example, that is seen in the Gothic cathedral where each part of the cathedral plan represents something, has certain direction, etc. Yet this is also combined with the spiritual significance of the layout.

Thanks Aloha and Nick. That's why I just love you guys as there is so much to learn from you! It sounds like such a fascinating subject to explore whether it is memory as space, or memory using space. I just ordered the book!

You'll love it, ReemK10. I'm going through the Combray church detail with a better eye now. I'm wondering about Proust's Narrator's description of the apse of the church of Combray (Moncrieff):

"And then the apse of Combray: what can one say of that? It was so crude, so devoid of artistic beauty, even of religious feeling. From the outside, since the street crossing which it commanded was on a lower level, its great wall was thrust upwards from a basement of unfaced ashlar, jagged with flints, in which there was nothing particularly ecclesiastical, the windows seemed to have been pierced at an abnormal height, and its whole appearance was that of a prison wall rather than of a church."

The apse of a church usually symbolizes the entrance into the Kingdom of God.

Aloha wrote: "You'll love it, ReemK10. I'm going through the Combray church detail with a better eye now. I'm wondering about Proust's Narrator's description of the apse of the church of Combray (Moncrieff):

..."

Well that's just it and why it will take a large group such as this, to decode Proust.Spending time in the presence of a great mind and having our thoughts awakened!

Don't forget John Ruskin's work. He was the one that inspired Proust. The Bachelard book came after Proust.

I like the movement of the Narrator's description of the apse of Combray to:

"I came upon three alley-ways that converged, and facing them an old wall, rough-hewn and unusually high, with windows pierced in it far overhead and the same asymmetrical appearance as the apse of Combray. And at that moment I did not say to myself, as I might have done at Chartres or at Rheims, with what power the religious feeling had been expressed therein, but instinctively I exclaimed: “The Church!”

The church! Homely and familiar, cheek by jowl in the Rue Saint-Hilaire, upon which its north door opened, with its two neighbours, Mme Loiseau’s house and M. Rapin’s pharmacy,..."(Moncrieff)

Then it opens to his neighborhood.

Aloha wrote:I'm in the middle of reading The Poetics of Space. IMO, it is THE most important book in understanding ISOLT. Although it came out in 1958, I am blown away by how much insight it gives to Proust's work. Before I knew that it came after Proust, I was hoping that Proust was influenced by it, but it looks like it might be influenced by Proust"

This is similar to the idea I used to have regarding Walter Benjamin and reproductions. And it turns out that Proust showed this idea before Benjamin. And we know Benjamin read Proust carefully, since he translated him into German...!!

I'm only halfway through this week's readings, but the discussion so far is helping me immensely. The sections about the church were also difficult for me.

It seems to me that these people are using space and objects to project themselves onto them. The narrator (Someone called him (view spoiler)[Marcel (hide spoiler)] in one of the discussion posts? I'm okay with that for now.) discusses the church's steeple and his memory of it as containing "a whole section of my inmost life" (90). The same idea of finding personal meaning in such objects comes up earlier when he discusses a stranger's opinions of his aunt's rooms. He describes the rooms as containing a "prosiacness which serves as a deep reservoir of poetry to the stranger who passes through their midst without having lived among them" (67). In both instances people are using these spaces to dig deeper into something else, I guess.

I've always meant to read Bachelard, and I wish I had already. It seems like it would have been useful for this section.

Another part that I particularly love is M. Legrandin's discussion with our narrator: "I have every useless thing in the world in my house there. The only thing wanting is the necessary thing, a great patch of open sky like this. Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life, little boy" (92). Man, I love the sky. I grew up in the desert and the sky has become very important to me. I love that something like this came up.

Reading Proust, I feel like I am discovering and connecting with some inner, secret religion.

Daniel wrote: "It seems to me that these people are using space and objects to project themselves onto them. The narrator (Someone called him Marcel in one of the discussion posts? I'm okay with that for now.) discusses the church's steeple and his memory of it as containing "a whole section of my inmost life" (90). The same idea of finding personal meaning in such objects comes up earlier when he discusses a stranger's opinions of his aunt's rooms. He describes the rooms as containing a "prosiacness which serves as a deep reservoir of poetry to the stranger who passes through their midst without having lived among them" (67). In both instances people are using these spaces to dig deeper into something else, I guess."

Daniel, what's interesting in the particular passage you pointed out was that the steeple of Combray is the fixed point, while the Narrator sees the steeple from varying angles. This is the reverse of last week's Narrator as child in bed scene, where the bed is the fixed point while everything else revolves around it, with the Magic Lantern as a nice symbol for that. And then there's the apse again in relation to the steeple:

"...or if, seen from the banks of the Vivonne, the apse, crouched muscularly and heightened by the perspective, seemed to spring upwards with the effort which the steeple was making to hurl its spire-point into the heart of heaven—it was always to the steeple that one must return, always the steeple that dominated everything else, summoning the houses from an unexpected pinnacle, raised before me like the finger of God, whose body might have been concealed below among the crowd of humans without fear of my confusing it with them."(Moncrieff)

Interesting passage from The Poetics of Space regarding house, rooms and containers:

"But from the very fact that it may be so easily developed, there is ground for taking the house as a tool for analysis of the human soul....Not only our memories, but the things we have forgotten are "housed." Our soul is an abode. And by remembering "houses" and "rooms," we learn to "abide" within ourselves. Now everything becomes clear, the house images move in both directions: they are in us as much as we are in them,...

After these two chapters on the houses of man, I studied a series of images which may be considered the houses of things: drawers, chests and wardrobes. What psychology lies behind their locks and keys! They bear within themselves a kind of esthetics of hidden things..."

Kalliope wrote: "Aloha wrote:I'm in the middle of reading The Poetics of Space. IMO, it is THE most important book in understanding ISOLT. Although it came out in 1958, I am blown away by how much insight it gives ..."

The Benjamin book is tops on my list to read, too, Kalliope.

I recommend sticking with "The Narrator", but to each his own! :D

The total panoramic vision of Combray rising up out of the tea cup is one of my favourite parts of ISOLT. The fragment (biscuit/memory) of the oral experience translates into visual totality ("all the flowers in our garden..."). This creates a certain tension between mouth and eyes. There is also a constant tension in novel between cooking and building - Françoise, the cook, is described as a master builder and a Gothic artist (her food is like a 13th century cathedral (97)). As well, building is compared to food (floors like honey and steeple like a loaf of bread).

The scene also illustrates an opposition between the sacred and profane (85) - a theme that runs through the novel. The narrator insists the the church is not the town - there is a clear line of demarcation - rather like Aunt's bed table with sacred books beside pepsin ("The Virgin and a bottle of Vichy-Celestins").

Every time I go to Paris I say I'm going to to to Illiers-Combray. But have yet to make it. Anyone ever go?

By the way, you can get a madeleine at any Starbucks :)

Jeffrey

Nick wrote: "I recommend sticking with "The Narrator", but to each his own! :D"

Yes, I also much prefer to use "The Narrator". And this is part of the attraction of this novel. In spite of telling us so much about himself, he does not give us his name (view spoiler)[(I think that towards the end he does name himself, but I am not certain) (hide spoiler)].

That might constitute a spoiler, Kalli! :¬P

(I've been to Illiers-Combray, Jeffrey :) I went in October. )

On Proust and Racine:

When discussing Giotto's Envy figure, the Narrator says: "... le serpent qui siffle aux lèvres..."

This is a nod to Racine that every school boy/girl in France would recognize. This is an alliteration from the famous line in Racine's Andromaque:

"Pour qui sont ces serpents qui sifflent sur vos têtes?"

Nick wrote: "That might constitute a spoiler, Kalli! :¬P

(I've been to Illiers-Combray, Jeffrey :) I went in October. )"

Thank you. Added spoiler tag.

Wow...thank you for that insight, Kalliope. I didn't realsie that line was perhaps referencing Racine. This is why bookgroups are so good.

It is difficult to sometimes know what constitutes a spoiler...! I have done a few myself, and Proustitute suggested I add some tags to a post of mine. He was right to suggest.

Nick wrote: "Wow...thank you for that insight, Kalliope. I didn't realsie that line was perhaps referencing Racine. This is why bookgroups are so good.

It is difficult to sometimes know what constitutes a spoi..."

Well, the "serpents qui sifflent" is the most famous line in Racine, it has almost become a joke.

I just love how you're all finding deeper meaning in the architecture of the church, while I've just spent two hours and a lot of time with WordReference.com just in order to get through the surface meaning of four pages (!). I'm very grateful when people here quote chunks of English (although I'd need to look up terms there too, ashlar, and what is pepsin anyway, surely it can't be the enzyme? Or can it? I fear I enjoy such rude health), as the only translation I have is German, where the sentences end up even more convoluted and less easy to parse than before.

Did Proust have an audience in mind when he was writing do you think?

More Racine.

The line "la fille de Minos et de Pasiphaé" is Phèdre.

Karen wrote: "I just love how you're all finding deeper meaning in the architecture of the church, while I've just spent two hours and a lot of time with WordReference.com just in order to get through the surfac..."

LOL! Maybe he didn't have German in mind, Karen.

The effect of this amazing description, both of the church and, perhaps even more so, of the belltower of St Hilaire (although maybe I just understood the belltower passages better) for me, apart from a certain sense of frustration, is to lend these piles of stones a definite quality of the numinous - that is, if numinous and definite can be anything other than an oxymoron - oh and look how the rhythms of A la Recherche are infecting my own sentences here - pushing off the crows, being able to play the piano with expression, singing with grand-mère.

C'était le clocher de Saint-Hilaire qui donnait à toutes les occupations, à toutes les heures, à tous les points de vue de la ville, leur figure, leur couronnement, leur consécration.

Something of the ineffable, rendering the most banal of actions, the buying of a handkerchief, somehow portentous. It's odd how such detail, which is normally associated with the effect of realism, (all those listings of agricultural equipment in Madame Bovary) here turns into something utterly magical, gives the whole thing an air of being endowed with magical qualities.

Karen, I think you are actually right, and Proust was really meaning pepsin, the enzyme.

Many people took crazy things in the early 20thC thinking they were harmless or good for health (e.g. Cocaine). Pepsin was probably one such thing. It helps digestion. A little research shows that Pepsi was derived from this, the effervescent effect (like Leonie's Vichy Water) was thought to help indigestion. And, in the early days, Coke had cocaine in it :)

And I quite agree, Proust can write the most magical things! I should find my photos of the Combray church and upload them somehow.

I've also visited Illiers-Combray, though it was years ago now. My strongest memory is of the church - small but open, warm colors, really exquisitely beautiful. I thought it was tremendously friendly and welcoming.

I also bought a little packet of madeleines from the pastry shop that advertised itself as "Tante Leonie's pastry shop" & claimed some link to actual Proustian pastry patrons. Then I got back to the little apartment where I was living in Paris at the time & offered my roommate one. He read the ingredients, said, "It's not real vanilla" & turned down my offer. Quite devastating.

Madame X wrote: "I also bought a little packet of madeleines from the pastry shop that advertised itself as "Tante Leonie's pastry shop" & claimed some link to actual Proustian pastry patrons. Then I got back to the little apartment where I was living in Paris at the time & offered my roommate one. He read the ingredients, said, "It's not real vanilla" & turned down my offer. Quite devastating.."

LOL! Nothing ruin a Proust madeleine dream like fake ingredients.

Madame X wrote: "I've also visited Illiers-Combray, though it was years ago now. My strongest memory is of the church - small but open, warm colors, really exquisitely beautiful. I thought it was tremendously frien..."

Had he read the story of the tea and madeleines before you offered them to him?

ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "Had he read the story of the tea and madeleines before you offered them to him? "

I have no idea. Would it shock you to hear that we didn't get along very well?

& Elizabeth - I imagine I remember the incident much better than I would have if he'd taken a madeleine and just said thank you.

I will say that my trip to Combray is probably my favorite piece of literary tourism that I've ever undertaken. I found the experience of being in the town - and taking the little walk they mark as, I think, the Guermantes' way (? - someone who's been there more recently might know better) deeply moving.

Church of Combray: