The Year of Reading Proust discussion

This thread is for the discussion that will take place through Sunday, 1 Sept. of Sodom and Gomorrah, finish.

What a shocking image to present Charlus and Morel as Raphael and Tobias...

Charlus's earlier invocation of protection by the three archangels, is brought in this section to a sort of "paroxysme":

Can we see Charlus and Morel like these two?

Morel, maybe, but Charlus, I don't think the hair is quite right somehow....

Fionnuala wrote: "Morel, maybe, but Charlus, I don't think the hair is quite right somehow...."

Yes, you are right. It's the hair.

And now Docteur Charcot is mentioned. He was also present in this other book on Tchaikovsky that I have finished recentlyLa baronne et le musicien: Madame von Meck et Tchaïkovski.

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-93).

And of course, Yvette Guilbert.. There is such a wealth of images of her...

Starting with a photograph,



A portrait by Philipp Klein (1895)



And, of course, Toulouse-Lautrec. One at the Thyssen from 1893.

That's Mademoiselle Yvette Guilbert, of course, Kall, n'est-ce pas?

On page 270, I've just found the answer to a little puzzle I'd wondered about since page 145. Who was the unknown individual who pronounced Saint-Loup's name as Saint-Loupe for a number of weeks just to please Mme de Cambremer: Brichot!
That he is such an authority on names makes it even funnier.

Nothing to add...just a small wisp of trailing mauve to celebrate the fact that as of today my bookmark is at the beginning of this week's section...coinciding with Monday, the beginning of the week! :-D

I'll be back after I've read a bit...

Proust wrote a review of a "critic" reviewing Yvette Gilbert. One of his earliest articles, 1891, translated by Chris Taylor. http://www.yorktaylors.free-online.co...


Yvette Guilbert by Jules Cheret

Video-documentary: "Il était une fois Yvette Guilbert (1974)"
Recommended...even for non-French speakers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r84he...

Kalliope wrote: "And of course, Yvette Guilbert.. There is such a wealth of images of her...

Starting with a photograph...A portrait by Philipp Klein (1895)..."

I have never seen this Klein photograph! I think it captures her "life-force." Yvette was so genuinely expressive, especially in her silent movies.

Found this amazing quote about how she developed her on-stage persona.

"I was looking for an impression of extreme simplicity, which allied itself harmoniously with the lines of my slim body and my small head...I wanted above all to appear highly distinguished, so that I could risk anything, in a repertoire that I had decided would be a ribald one.... To assemble an exhibition of humorous sketches in song, depicting all the indecencies, all the excesses, all the vices of my “contemporaries,” and to enable them to laugh at themselves...that was to be my innovation, my big idea." — Yvette Guilbert
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2005/t...

Fionnuala wrote: "That's Mademoiselle Yvette Guilbert, of course, Kall, n'est-ce pas?

On page 270, I've just found the answer to a little puzzle I'd wondered about since page 145. Who was the unknown individual who..."

Wow...Fionnula, you just created the first question in the Proust Not-Trivia Game. Two sets of questions: 1st time readers would get double credit for their team, just for joining "the tribe" (as Saint-Loup would say). A 2014 project...

Intoxicated by his love, or by his self-love, the Baron did not see or pretended not to see the violinist's wry grimace, for, leaving him by himself in the cafe, he said to me with a proud smile: "Did you notice how, when I compared him to the son of Tobit, he became wild with joy? That was because, being extremely intelligent, he at once understood that the Father with whom he was henceforth to live was not his father after the flesh, who must be some horrible mustachioed valet, but his spiritual father, that is to say Myself. ML p. 644

Maybe I'll never know for sure; no one could be certain, except perhaps Céleste who heard him softly laughing in the next room--and about what she wouldn't know--but I hear Proust laughing as he wrote the Baron speaking of Morel's "father after the flesh, who must be some horrible mustachioed valet, but his spiritual father, that is to say Myself." As I belly laughed when I read it, I suspect Proust, if not laughed, chuckled over it when he wrote the sentence: a writer must be amused by his own jokes--it's how he knows they're funny.

Besides Proust is delighted at detailing the Baron's excesses and the the Baron is so charmingly yet appallingly excessive--he's bathos in all senses of the word--what a fun character to write, so well read, because religious, about Tobit, so lacking, because loving, about Morel.

Fionnuala wrote: "
On page 270, I've just found the answer to a little puzzle I'd wondered about since page 145. Who was the unknown individual who..."

Thank you for this Fionnuala. I had not linked the two episodes. It must be Brichot. Wonderful attentive reading.

Ce Ce wrote: "Nothing to add...just a small wisp of trailing mauve to celebrate the fact that as of today my bookmark is at the beginning of this week's section...coinciding with Monday, the beginning of the wee..."

CeCe... I was already going to congratulate you in last week's Thread...

I am delighted you will be with us now.

Marcelita wrote: "Yvette Guilbert by Jules Cheret

....."

The Cheret poster is included in the catalogue: Femmes peintres et salons au temps de Marcel Proust: de Madeleine Lemaire à Berthe Morisot, for those who have it.

There's one puzzle that is left unsolved though - we get the narrator mentioning how he listened to the story of Swann, but he doesn't tell us WHO.

The journey on the train:

As Proust writes and I quote again: ...these dinners at La Raspeliere..."represented a real journey," a journey whose charm appeared to me all the more intense in that it was not an end in itself and one did not look to find pleasure in it—this being reserved for the gathering for which we were bound and which could not fail to be greatly modified by all the atmosphere that surrounded it. ML p. 591

Albertine and the Narrator board the "wheezy little train" at Balbec on ML p. 592 and leave the train to enter "the carriages which had come to meet us" to take them to La Raspeliere on ML p. 675.

83 pages.

Here I quote the Modern Library Synopsis of what happened in those 83 pages for a train ride that took an "hour". Some of the narration was in the 'present' on the train but much of it was told in flashbacks, flash forwards or in stories the 1st person Narrator began but the telling was finished by an omniscient narrator.

M. de Charlus in the little train (593). He becomes temporarily the faithfullest of the faithful (602). Princess Sherbatoff gives me the cold shoulder after a meeting on the train with Mme de Villeparisis (605). M. de Charlus's blindness (609). Discussion between Brichot and Charlus about Chateaubriand and Balzac (611). M. de Charlus discretion about his favourite subject in Morel's presence (616). Albertine's clothes, inspired by Elstir's taste, admired by M. de Charlus (618). Morel's admiration for my great uncle (620). M. de Charlus's "Balzacian" melancholy (623). Morel reminds me of Rachel (625). M. de Charlus's fictitious duel (632). Morel dissuades him (638). Cottard, an alarmed but disappointed second (641). Morel's demands for money (645). The de luxe brothel at Maineville (647). Morel's assignation there with the Prince de Guermantes, of which M. de Charlus gets wind (650). Discomfiture of the Prince de Guermantes (655). Grattevast: the Comte de Crecy (657). The turkeys carved by the hotel manager (659). Origins of the Crecy family: Odette's first husband (661). Hermenonville: M. de Chevregny: a provincial with a passion for Paris (662). Mme de Cambremer's three adjectives again (663; cf. 468). Unsatisfactory relations between the Verdurins and the Cambremers (664, 674). Brichot's secret passion for Mme de Cambremer junior (668). M. and Mme Fere (671). The long drive between the station and La Raspeliere (675).

Before embarking on the return journey from La Raspeliere to Balbec, Proust writes one sentence, and only one, about the gathering that has 286 words, ML p. 675.

286 words.

Kalliope wrote: "The Cheret poster is included in the catalogue: Femmes peintres et salons au temps de Marcel Proust: de Madeleine Lemaire à Berthe Morisot, for those who have it. ."

Yes, I found it.
Also loved, in the same book, the interesting account of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux's salon by Colette. These lines in particular made me think immediately of Mme Verdurin:
Deux salons de dimension médiocre, réunis en un seul, furent longtemps le lieu qui consacrait des réputations de compositeurs et de virtuoses, sous l'égide d'une bonne musicienne. A la vérité, Mme de Saint-Marceaux semblait ne rechercher personne et l'on briguait la faveur de devenir un familier des mercredis...Pourtant nous nous sentions gouvernés par une hôtesse d'esprit et de parler prompts, intolérante au fond, le nez en bec, l'oeil agile, qui bataillait pour la musique et s'en grisait.

Colette goes on to describe the playful rivalry at the salon between Fauré and Messager who used to engage in a duel à quatre mains on the piano, each trying to outdo the other. Ravel also frequented Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux's salon.
I bet you would love to have been there, Kalliope...

Phillida, yes, the unified plot: Proust's method has been intriguing me for quite a while, this circling around a small group of characters, linking them all together in skilful and original ways, and as you say, putting seemingly minor plot threads in place early on so that they can be used to full effect when he chooses, all this and more, I feel it can only get better.

Karen, about the WHO, I feel, now that I've seen the full extent of the Narrator's jealousy of Albertine's possible other life, which he likens to his feeling when his mother sometimes didn't appear at his bedside for the goodnight kiss because of other more interesting people she was spending time with, and to Swann's jealousy at Odette's other relationships with possibly more interesting people too, that it is almost by osmosis that he has absorbed Swann's experience, their similar transports of jealousy uniting them into almost one person. Does that make any sense?

And to follow the "sacrilège" and the "profanation" of the earlier image of Charlus and Morel as Raphaël et Tobie, we have the wonderful "tirade" of Charlus on the irony that the Marais, where so many of the streets have a Christian name and or origin, has become the Jewish quarter.

And these words (sacrilège, profanation) together with "sadisme" seem to be preparing us for the determinant remembering of the first scene of profanation that we have seen in La recherche: Mlle Vinteuil and her friend with the photo of the recently deceased father.

Berlioz is mentioned for the first time in this section. And a footnote tells us that L'Enchantement du Vendredi saint was one Proust's favorite pieces by Wagner.

And similarly to the long sections on etymology, the Charlus speech on the Marais streets is, according to a footnote of the GF edition, based on a book published in 1910 "Promenades dans toutes les rues de Paris" by the marquis de Rochegude.

Phillida wrote: "If I had to choose a favorite ISOLT volume I'd choose Sodom and Gomorrah. Let's see.
Reading the seascape and landscape descriptions is almost as good as experiencing paintings.

I could go on, but would anyone read further."

Yep...
(Weirdly, went to bed around 10:30, but suddenly found myself wide awake and thinking through your eyes. A siren post...)

"Aristocracy, bourgeoisie, working class in one compound...."
"How ever did Proust manage to get me into a pro-aristocrat position?"
"And the little train...tying it all together."
"...a unified plot developing."

Agree, that the visual passages are those one can separate and place in a 'traveling companion,' to pull out and re-read if fortunately faced with its relative.

Now, the upward route of each remaining volume...our own "little crawler."
My favorite may be The Captive, the one some believe it's fine to skip-not to even stop!

And, I will be looking for you, Phillida, to "go on."

Kalliope wrote: "And similarly to the long sections on etymology, the Charlus speech on the Marais streets is, according to a footnote of the GF edition, based on a book published in 1910 "Promenades dans toutes le..."

"Promenades dans toutes les rues de Paris" by the Marquis de Rochegude.
http://ia700306.us.archive.org/32/ite...
http://archive.org/details/promenades...

More on Kalliope's addition of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux as one of the models for Mme. Verdurin. According to Myriam Chimènes, her salon was the also a model for the Princesse de Polignac's (the musician magnet).

Here is an excerpt from JOURNAL DE MARGUERITE DE SAINT-MARCEAUX (1894-1927) by MYRIAM CHIMENES.
http://www.sauramps.com/journal-de-ma...

A Myriam Chimènes' article for "weeders." (09/2012):
"Une Verdurin beaucoup plus Verdurin" que le personnage ?
http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/vi...
(I like to collect archives: http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/in...)

Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "And similarly to the long sections on etymology, the Charlus speech on the Marais streets is, according to a footnote of the GF edition, based on a book published in 1910 "Promenad..."

The journals of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux are in my Wishlist. It is a reading for next year. The book is expensivish (and long!). I opened the book data in GR.


As for "Une Verdurin plus Verdurin..." it seems to originate in a letter from Lucien Daudet to Marcel Proust from 1922.

More on Marguerite:

http://www.singer-polignac.org/fr/mis...

Fionnuala wrote: " "Also loved, in the same book, the interesting account of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux's salon by Colette. These lines in particular made me think immediately of Mme Verdurin:
..."

There is also a extract from an article by Proust published in Le Figaro in 1903 on the Madeleine Lemaire Salon. It lists the very long record of top top nobility and Ambassadors that attend her gatherings. I can no longer see Lemaire as the "Patronne".

Also, given what a caricature Mme Verdurin is, I do not believe that Proust would have been so rude to Lemaire. We should not forget that she had the gesture of illustrating his first book, Le Plaisir et les jours, when he was not an established writer.

And yes, I would have loved to have listened to Fauré and Messager playing at four hands...!!!!

Kalliope wrote: "The journals of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux ...."

I read in the singer-polignac article that she was married first to a painter and then to a sculptor - doesn't she remind you a bit of Thérèse Martin-Bellème in Anatole France's Le lys rouge?

Fionnuala wrote: "I read in the singer-polignac article that she was married first to a painter and then to a sculptor - doesn't she remind you a ..."

Gosh, you have a good memory.. you are right...

Actually, that may be a good novel to revisit.

Phillida wrote: "If I had to choose a favorite ISOLT volume I'd choose Sodom and Gomorrah. Let's see.
Reading the seascape and landscape descriptions is almost as good as experiencing paintings.
We ..."

Very interesting comment on the unified plot of this volume.

The Guermantes was also quite unified, but for me the best writing was in the first Balbec visit, in Les jeunes filles.

I can't help but seeing the train scenes as happening as if it were a stage, with people entering and exiting it from the sides...

Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: " "Also loved, in the same book, the interesting account of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux's salon by Colette. These lines in particular made me think immediately of Mme Verdurin:

Also, given what a caricature Mme Verdurin is, I do not believe that Proust would have been so rude to Lemaire...."

Oh, beware of writers (Capote's "La Côte Basque 1965")!
Proust had some fallout from his portrayals, but Truman lost a way of life.
(The Comtesse de Chevigné, one of the models for the Duchese de Guermantes, was so angry, she burned Proust's letters.)

"... Proust already saw his friends not just as themselves but as the products of his imagination." Carter's biography, p 121.

"Marcel studied Mme Lemaire and the way she ruled her salon with an authoritarian air, her love of music, her way of doubling over in laughter, her hatred of “bores,” and her hostility toward “deserters”—those who strayed away from the fold of the “faithful,” as she called her adored regulars."
Carter, p 145.

Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: " "Also loved, in the same book, the interesting account of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux's salon by Colette. These lines in particular made me think immediately of..."

Yes, the idea of Lemaire as the main model as the source I think originates in Tadié and Carter follows it. I wrote a review of Carter's bio for which Carter thanked me.

I am just beginning to have my doubts now that more research is being produced about all these Salons.

I am seeing all these characters more and more as Proust's fictional abilities.. mixing traits or incidents from various people, whether men or women, and then producing his own personalities.

@Phillida, S & G is definitely my favourite volume so far - for all the reasons you give, yes. I feel I'm beginning to get the interest on all my investment.

@Fionnuala: I do see what you mean, yes. So that although the narrator says he heard this account of Swann's love, he may have only heard some of the bare facts and filled the rest in himself with the sort of dynamics that he detects in all the other love affairs he sees - the dynamics of Samson and Delilah, from the epigraph at the beginning.(As I said in my review)
On the other hand I do suspect Charlus.

@Kalliope: yes, that little train! That's how I saw it too, a sort of moving theatre, or even a moving little mini-salon of just the narrator and Albertine, with guests coming to pay homage to them at various points along the line. I had a vision of them being carried back and forth, back and forth, and all the characters we've met so far coming to the window of their carriage now and again, in a sort of dream landscape.

·Karen· wrote: "yes, that little train! That's how I saw it too, a sort of moving theatre, or even a moving little mini-salon of just the narrator and Albertine, with guests coming to pay homage to them at various points along the line. I had a vision of them being carried back and forth, back and forth, and all the characters we've met so far coming to the window of their carriage now and again, in a sort of dream landscape. "

Does anyone remember the theme of my review of Du Côté de chez Swan - a train journey.
Does anyone remember the theme of my review of A l'Ombre des Jeunes Filles - a theatre stage.
Just saying...

About Charlus, Karen, it's odd but I keep forgetting that he was such a close friend of Swann.
Is that because he never, or rarely, mentions him?
Why is he not totally cut up about Swann's death?
Where is his very good friend, Odette, holidaying this particular summer?
I've been expecting her to turn up in Balbec at any moment.
And final puzzle, why is M. Pierre de Verjus, Comte de Crécy called de Crécy? (Or Verjus, for that matter?)
Will there be a connection with Odette? The Narrator has very conveniently forgotten to ask him about that.
I feel that he can't have just appeared for no reason, no such thing as a free dinner, etc.

And just to show I'm not completely plot-focused, here's a marvellous passage from the final pages:
Depuis longtemps déjà ma mère ressemblait à ma grand'mère bien plus qu'à la jeune et rieuse maman qu'avait connue mon enfance. Mais je n'y avais plus songé. Ainsi, quand on est resté longtemps à lire, distrait, on ne s'est pas aperçu que passait l'heure, et tout d'un coup on voit autour de soi le soleil, qu'il y avait la veille à la même heure, éveiller autour de lui les mêmes harmonies, les mêmes correspondances qui préparent le couchant.

Several echoes here of the Combray section of the first volume - I can see how he is perhaps preparing us to come full circle.

Terrific discussion so far (I also enjoyed finding out that it was Brichot who had continuously mis-pronounced Saint-Loup's name), but I've just gone through the "Bloch/Charlus" section, and shows Proust's great development of the character.

Fionnuala wrote: "Why is he [Charlus] not totally cut up about Swann's death?"

Perhaps he is, but feels it beneath him to stoop to displays of emotion, or exposition of his own "weakness?" Or perhaps there is more to come, more information that would support both the Narrator's brief mention of Swann's death, and Charlus's indifference...?

Martin wrote: "Perhaps he is, but feels it beneath him to stoop to displays of emotion, or exposition of his own "weakness?" Or perhaps there is more to come, more information that would support both the Narrator's brief mention of Swann's death, and Charlus's indifference...? "

Yes, Martin, of course, that is the best explanation, that all will be revealed later in this mille-feuille of a book. I keep forgetting that, my mind focuses in on detail too much sometimes...

Fionnuala wrote: Yes, Martin, of course, that is the best explanation, that all will be revealed later in this mille-feuille of a book. I keep forgetting that, my mind focuses in on detail too much sometimes...


Oooh Fionnuala, I do like your description- a mille feuille of a book and the image it conjures in my head. Clever!

Phillida wrote: "Kalliope wrote:
"but for me the best writing was in the first Balbec visit, in Les jeunes filles."

Yes, wonderful writing in Jeunes Filles. Maybe ISOLT volumes are a bit like the last Beetho..."

Excellent comment Phillida.. the best one is the one in front of one's eyes.

Fionnuala wrote: "Bougre! La Prisonnière doesn't start with “On other evenings, I undressed...” as the English version is supposed to...so I haven't solved my problem. It doesn't begin with the first line of La Fug..."

I also ordered the GF but I have as well an old Gallimard.. will check later if they are starting in the same place.

Fionnuala wrote: "
Will there be a connection with Odette? The Narrator has very conveniently forgotten to ask him about that. ..."

He hasn't forgotten. He just thought it was best not to...

Je pensai plusieurs fois à lui dire, pour l'amuser, que je connaissais Mme Swann qui, comme cocotte, était connue autrefois sous le nom d'Odette de Crécy; mais, bien que le duc d'Alençon n'eût pu se froisser qu'on parlât avec lui d'Émilienne d'Alençon, je ne me sentis pas assez lié avec M. de Crécy pour conduire avec lui la plaisanterie jusque-là.

I will add the page later on, since we have the same edition.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: Yes, Martin, of course, that is the best explanation, that all will be revealed later in this mille-feuille of a book. I keep forgetting that, my mind focuses in on detail too much..."

Yes, the Mille Feuille is an excellent image...!! (and cake)

Fionnuala also suggested the Palimpsest in the past.

Kalliope wrote: "He hasn't forgotten. He just thought it was best not to..."

Yes, I had noticed that but sort of presumed it was a convenient excuse for not asking the obvious question in order to hold off for later..

Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "He hasn't forgotten. He just thought it was best not to..."

Yes, I had noticed that but sort of presumed it was a convenient excuse for not asking the obvious question in order to..."

I agree, we get the sense that something should be coming later on.. otherwise what is his significance.


There is also another mysterious character... The one who would like to stay at le Palace instead of the Grand Hôtel at Balbec...

Kalliope wrote: "There is also another mysterious character... The one who would like to stay at le Palace instead of the Grand Hôtel at Balbec... "

The 'arrivant élégant" who wanted to take Mme Verdurin to the brothel? Yes, very mysterious.

Fionnuala wrote: "The 'arrivant élégant" who wanted to take Mme V..."

Yes, that one...

Kalliope wrote: "I also ordered the GF but I have as well an old Gallimard.. will check later if they are starting in the same place. "

Just saw this comment after I'd deleted mine and reposted in the lounge, thinking that my edition problems were not a relevant topic for this week's discussion.
But do check...

Fionnuala wrote: "
Just saw this comment after I'd deleted mine and reposted in..."

I answered you there.. I think we are OK.

Sorry, another Sorolla... they come so easily to my mind when reading the beach scenes in Proust.

.. au spectacle que le matin on pouvait avoir de là m'avait dit Elstir, à l'heure que précède le soleil levé, où toutes les voleurs de l'arc-en-ciel se réfractent sur les rochers, et où tant de fois il avait réveille le petit garçon qui, une année, lui avait servi de modèle pour le peindre tout nu, sur le sable.





Just a comment, when I was growing up it was quite normal for the children to play and run around naked in the beach..

Wonderful! Is that Sorolla again?

Fionnuala wrote: "Wonderful! Is that Sorolla again?"

Yes, yes. Sorolla again. This one is particularly famous because of his ability to paint wet skin. Brilliant (literally).

Ah, I hadn't noticed the artist's name in first line of your post.
I've had another look at the painting and indeed Sorolla does paint wet skin very well, in fact the boys remind me, a little unfortunately of M Verdurin's comment about the Demoiselles de Caen, they are so perfectly à point.