The Year of Reading Proust discussion

This thread is for the discussion that will take place through Sunday, 24 Nov. of Time Regained, to page 88 (to the paragraph beginning: “I had, in any case, not remained long...”)

Looking forward to this. I've been absent but will be back for this one!

Joshua wrote: "Looking forward to this. I've been absent but will be back for this one!"

I see the return of a "moderator" who isn't even posting on schedule. I think all you absent moderators need to thank Kalliope for doing all the work around here. Without Kalliope, there would not have been a year of reading Proust. Nice of you to drop by Joshua. I'm sure we all look forward to what you have to share with us.

Thank you Reem and Jaye.

Anyway... Congratulations on those who have reached this last volume. We are all looking forward to it.

And thank you to all of you who have also kept up with the comments in the weekly threads consistently throughout the year...

And now for the final volume..

:)

For the readers of the French GF edition.. the weekly threads are much easier to find in this volume, since they are all at the beginning of a paragraph, but since I have just marked my volume, here are the page breaks.

week 2 - p. 127
week 3 - p. 199
week 4 - p. 270
week 5 - p. 320
week 6 - p. 406

And this volume starts in CD# 100... of the Audio Thélème edition.

I like that the steeple of the church at Combray is visible from the Narrator's bedroom in Tansonville. This is another example of mirroring - the past reflected through the window.
It seems to me that some of the sentences from the last section of volume six are transcribed word for word here - the bit about the women who go to Marienbad in an effort to stay young and the description of how Saint-Loup has aged which fits very closely to the description of Legrandin in volume six..

Thank you for the page breaks, Kalliope. They will be useful when I finallygethome and can continue the reading via the GF edition.

My Kindle app doesn't have page numbers, only locations, that refer to the hard copy; I guess that in order to scan passages that I want to share I must go to an older Habit: read the hard copy and mark it up with pencil.

But let me go to Amazon to see if they have a newer version with page numbers and see if I can download it...

I, as this novel ends, feel that I must pay attention to the smaller, which--in reality for me--are the larger, aspects of Proust's art, i.e. his writing at the sentence level to 'get a base hit' (to move the scoring runner along) rather than to 'swing for the fences' (to score all runners at once)--using baseball terminology--to determine its secret structures but these secrets are readily open to the reader as this is a simple novel explained in its pages if you feel comfortable with Proust's syntax which is what makes the simple Narrator a complicated character.

Here we have the Narrator knowing more (the reader too) than either Gilberte and Robert (do you feel the music of the 'know' and the 'don't know'); Proust finishes off the last sentence of the paragraph with a simile that he parenthetically qualifies in its midst, twice. Unusual yes, but not for him and competent in its ambiguity to refer to several things at the same time...and yes, of course...quite beautiful.

During our walks Gilberte intimated to me that Robert was turning away from her, but only in order to run after other women. And it is true that many women encumbered his life, yet always these associations, like certain masculine friendships in the lives of men who love women, had that quality of ineffectual resistance, of purposelessly filling an empty space that often in a house may be seen in objects which are not there to be used. ML p. 11

The recent Kindle sample of this volume from Amazon didn't have pages numbers either.

Fionnuala wrote: "I like that the steeple of the church at Combray is visible from the Narrator's bedroom in Tansonville. This is another example of mirroring - the past reflected through the window.
It seems to me..."

Yes, I was surprised to see so many elements repeated from the last volume.

As for the clocher of the Combray church, we can also see it from our computer screens....also magic...







And here is a window, not the Tansonville one, but Marcel Proust's at Illiers-Combray..

And if he developed the theme of Death and Redemption in the Albertine cycle we now assist to another Redemption as Swann appears again in the Verdurin's Salon.

And I am amused to learn that their new place on the Quai de Conti was the former hôtel of the Ambassador of Venice. How very suitable....

His attitude now to the church in Combray gave me the chills, remembering also our summer visit.

J'étais triste en remontant dans ma chambre de penser que je n'avais pas été une seule fois revoir l'église de Combray qui semblait m'attendre au milieu des verdures dans une fenêtre, toute violacée. Je me disais: Tant pis ce sera pour une autre année, si je ne meurs pas d'ici là, ne voyant pas d'autre obstacle que ma mort et n'imaginant pas celle de l'église qui me semblait devoir durer longtemps après ma mort comme elle avait duré longtemps avant ma naissance.p. 76

His realization that the church will survive him and having visited the church after it had survived him.....and more could be said.

Chilling.

Fionnuala wrote: "I like that the steeple of the church at Combray is visible from the Narrator's bedroom in Tansonville. This is another example of mirroring - the past reflected through the window.
It seems to me..."

Yep quite a bit of "déjà-lu" in these opening pages. As you say many recall the ending of Albertine and others (in particular the opening paragraph which according to footnote #1 in the GF edition is a marginal addition posterior to the "premier jet" of the text) mirror the opening of La Recherche with the motifs of the bedroom, Combray, the two sides, the church's steeple, etc. And the involontary memory of our limbs:

Ce n'était pas que j'eusse pensé à elle, ni rêvé d'elle, ni que je la prisse pour Gilberte. Ma mémoire avait perdu l'amour d'Albertine, mais il semble qu'il y ait une mémoire involontaire des membres, pâle et stérile imitation de l'autre, qui vive plus longtemps comme certains animaux ou végétaux inintelligents vivent plus longtemps que l'homme. Les jambes, les bras sont pleins de souvenirs engourdis. Une réminiscence éclose en mon bras m'avait fait, chercher derrière mon dos la sonnette, comme dans ma chambre de Paris. p 67

compared to that great sentence at the beginning of Swann's Way:

Quelquefois, comme Ève naquit d'une côte d'Adam, une femme naissait pendant mon sommeil d'une fausse position de ma cuisse. Formée du plaisir que j'étais sur le point de goûter, je m'imaginais que c'était elle qui me l'offrait. Mon corps qui sentait dans le sien ma propre chaleur voulait s'y rejoindre, je m'éveillais. Du côté de chez Swann

Kalliope: thanks for the page numbers in the GF edition! :)

Another echo is found in the Guermantes ornithological traits found in Saint-Loup:

... même immobile, la couleur qui était la sienne plus que de tous les Guermantes, d'être seulement de l'ensoleillement d'une journée d'or devenue solide, lui donnait comme un plumage si étrange, faisait de lui une espèce si rare, si précieuse, qu'on aurait voulu la posséder pour une collection ornithologique; mais quand, de plus, cette lumière changée en oiseau se mettait en mouvement, en action, quand par exemple je voyais Robert de Saint-Loup entrer dans une soirée où j'étais, il avait des redressements de sa tête si joyeusement et si fièrement huppée sous l'aigrette d'or de ses cheveux un peu déplumés, des mouvements de cou tellement plus souples, plus fiers et plus coquets que n'en ont les humains, que devant la curiosité et l'admiration moitié mondaine, moitié zoologique qu'il vous inspirait, on se demandait si c'était dans le faubourg Saint-Germain qu'on se trouvait ou au Jardin des Plantes et si on regardait un grand seigneur traverser un salon, ou se promener dans sa cage un merveilleux oiseau. Pour peu qu'on y mît un peu d'imagination, le ramage ne se prêtait pas moins à cette interprétation que le plumage. p72-73

The line about Saint-Loup being like a bird in a cage makes me think of "La Cage aux Folles." :D

And a bit of cultural background: the words "plumage" (a bird's feathers) et "ramage" (a bird's voice) directly recall Jean de La Fontaine's "Le Corbeau et le Renard," where the flattering Renard offers famous sweet words to the naive Corbeau to steal the Corbeau's coveted cheese:

"Sans mentir, si votre ramage
Se rapporte à votre plumage,
Vous êtes le Phénix des hôtes de ces bois."
http://www.jdlf.com/lesfables/livrei/...




One of the models for Saint-Loup: Boni de Castellane


http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boni_de_...


In Guermantes' Way the Narrator had already compared the Duchesse de Guermantes' allure (and nose) to that of birds:

... dans l'oubli mythologique de sa grandeur native, elle regardait si sa voilette était bien tirée, aplatissait ses manches, ajustait son manteau, comme le cygne divin fait tous les mouvements de son espèce animale, garde ses yeux peints des deux côtés de son bec sans y mettre de regards et se jette tout d'un coup sur un bouton ou un parapluie, en cygne, sans se souvenir qu'il est un Dieu.

and

Une fois ce ne fut pas seulement une femme à bec d'oiseau que je vis, mais comme un oiseau même: la robe et jusqu'au toquet de Mme de Guermantes étaient en fourrures et, ne laissant ainsi voir aucune étoffe, elle semblait naturellement fourrée, comme certains vautours dont le plumage épais, uni, fauve et doux, a l'air d'une sorte de pelage. Au milieu de ce plumage naturel, la petite tête recourbait son bec d'oiseau et les yeux à fleur de tête étaient perçants et bleus.

One of the models for La Duchesse de Guermantes: la Comtesse de Chevigné


http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laure_de...

Some Quotable Proust:

Une femme qu'on aime suffit rarement à tous nos besoins et on la trompe avec une femme qu'on n'aime pas. p 73

>_<

Another repetition is Gilberte trying to copy Rachel's style to appeal to Saint-Loup, with pathetic results:

Un jour où Robert devait venir le soir pour vingt-quatre heures à Tansonville, je fus stupéfait de la voir venir, se mettre à table si étrangement différente de ce qu'elle était, non seulement autrefois, mais même les jours habituels, que je restai stupéfait comme si j'avais eu devant moi une actrice, une espèce de Théodora. p 71


Sarah Bernhardt in Théodora (1884), a play by Victorien Sardou

A further repetition from Albertine is the Narrator reasserting his lack of writing talent and the comforting but sad idea that literature doesn't hold the profound truths he once thought it did:

...mon absence de disposition pour les lettres, pressentie jadis du côté de Guermantes, (...) me parut quelque chose de moins regrettable, comme si la littérature ne révélait pas de vérité profonde, et en même temps il me semblait triste que la littérature ne fût pas ce que j'avais cru. D'autre part, moins regrettable me semblait l'état maladif qui allait me confiner dans une maison de santé, si les belles choses dont parlent les livres n'étaient pas plus belles que ce que j'avais vu. p 78

In Albertine Disparue:

Les promenades que nous faisions ainsi, c'était bien souvent celles que je faisais jadis enfant: or comment n'eussé-je pas éprouvé, bien plus vivement encore que jadis du côté de Guermantes, le sentiment que jamais je ne serais capable d'écrire, auquel s'ajoutait celui que mon imagination et ma sensibilité s'étaient affaiblies, quand je vis combien peu j'étais curieux de Combray? Et j'étais désolé de voir combien peu je revivais mes années d'autrefois. p353

But we know how wonderfully the Narrator is able to write about Combray...

Is anybody reading La Pléiade edition?. I think Cassian was using it.


My audio edition which I think follows La Pléaide has a large chunk which I have not encountered in my GF edition yet... It may be included later on, since in the two previous volumes I found this kind of discrepancy in the placing of some fragments.

In the section on the "liftier", the boy at the elevator, there is an additional part in between (p.123):

C'est cela qui lui enlèvera le bénéfice le plus grand d'une attaque, celui de la surprise, l'armée sera peut-être celle qu i aura les meilleurs yeux.

Eh bien el la pauvre Françoise a-t-elle réussi à faire réformer son neveu?

The missing fragment goes on about the "liftier" and how the Narrator met him and his story contradicted that of Saint-Loup's.

I have to say that I expected this volume to be more polished than it is.

Is this section in the English translation?

The Narrator often makes comments, which sound like general observations on the behavior of people, but which to me sound he is referring to himself.

The following sample is accompanied with a change in the tone of voice and intonation of the reader of this volume in my audio edition.

This reader sounds so blasé....!!!.. and it goes well with:

.. même l'impatience de ces hommes toujours blasés, que sont les gens trop intelligents pour la vie relativement oisive qu'ils mènent, et où leurs facultés ne se réalisent pas. Sans doute l'oisiveté même de ceux-là peut se traduire par de la nonchalance. p.67.

Kalliope wrote: "..". même l'impatience de ces hommes toujours blasés, que sont les gens trop intelligents pour la vie relativement oisive qu'ils mènent, et où leurs facultés ne se réalisent pas. Sans doute l'oisiveté même de ceux-là peut se traduire par de la nonchalance. p.67..."

I thought he was referring to himself in that quote too.
Then I came to the clever pastiche of the Goncourt brothers which seems to serve several purposes: it allows Proust to skip back in time to Un Amour de Swann. That is fascinating for those of us who loved that section. It also allows Proust to give us new information about the Verdurins - M. Verdurin was an art critic? The pastiche demonstrates the difference too between the Goncourts' style and his own writing - I was very struck by the fact that the account, in spite of long sentences and flowery adjectives, wasn't very enjoyable to read. Give me Proust as Proust anytime.
Will reading the Goncourts convince the Narrator that he can write after all?

Kalliope wrote: "His attitude now to the church in Combray gave me the chills, remembering also our summer visit.

J'étais triste en remontant dans ma chambre de penser que je n'avais pas été une seule fois revoir ..."

Didn't we discover that the church had been renovated around 1919 which he probably heard about. And perhaps that's what he really meant when he said he couldn't imagine, on the occasion of his visit to 'Tansonville', the disappearance of the church, just his own eventual death. But the church he had known as a child did sort of disappear eventually...

Book Portrait wrote: "One of the models for La Duchesse de Guermantes: la Comtesse de Chevigné."

There was another portrait posted earlier of the Comptesse at the bottom of a staircase wearing a huge white collar in which I thought she looked really like an exotic bird.

Book Portrait wrote: "Another echo is found in the Guermantes ornithological traits found in Saint-Loup:

... même immobile, la couleur qui était la sienne plus que de tous les Guermantes, d'être seulement de l'ensoleil..."

Thank you, BP. The footnotes in the GF edition make reference to the parallels and echoes between the beginning of this volume and the Guermantes tome, and mention the bird imagery of the Duchesse.

The birds of course also refer to the theme of Albertine and the two birds drinking from a fountain as seen in muslim-oriental-byzantine mosaics, and he refers to the image of the bird in captivity at the very beginning of the novel....chaque oiseau le metre en cage et l'apprivoiser.

For me, though, the imagery that stays in my mind most strongly for the Guermantes is the aquatic one developed in the scene at the Opèra.

Fionnuala wrote: "Book Portrait wrote: "One of the models for La Duchesse de Guermantes: la Comtesse de Chevigné."

There was another portrait posted earlier of the Comptesse at the bottom of a staircase wearing a h..."

Yes, and there was a portrait by Sargent of a young man with blond her and mustache and very inviting lips that I think Marcelita posted and which to me is the best image of Saint-Loup... When Marcelita emerges for her "week-of-the-year-celebrations" we will ask her.. I can also look for it may be tomorrow.

I am finding a tone in this volume of "lassitude" mixed with wisdom. And although we have sensed humor and irony before, in this volume, may be because of the certain weariness and detachment I sense (again, may be influenced by the reader of the audio), a stronger presence of this mordant humor.

I laughed out loud several times.

When the name Charlie could just be dropped suddenly inadvertently by Robert in his discourse - .. je croyais par moments que le nom Charlie, allait malgré Robert, "sortie". p. 70

Ridiculing Gilberte when she comes to dinner wearing a lot of make-up, and then has to use a handkerchief.. leaving it like a palette... Par toutes les couleurs qui restèrent sur le mouchoir, en faisant une riche palette, je vis qu'elle était complètement peinte. p. 71.

The whole description of Saint-Loup as an exotic bird is hilarious... On aurait voulu le posséder pour une collection ornithologique. and a bit later... .. devant l'admiration motié mondaine motié zoologique qu'il vous inspirait.... p. 72.

There are more later on.. I will post them later.

So poignant that the Vivonne leaves him emotionally cold.

The Marquis de St Loup is really a far cry from his introduction in A l'Ombre.. He seems to be morphing constantly. The Narrator's description of him as some bird in the Jardin des Plantes was very funny. And yes, when he puts plumage and ramage together your mind automatically continues the fable.

Who was Theodore again? I completely forgot.

Jocelyne wrote: "The Marquis de St Loup is really a far cry from his introduction in A l'Ombre.. He seems to be morphing constantly. The Narrator's description of him as some bird in the Jardin des Plantes was ver..."

Jocelyne,

This is the best place to check Who's Who...

www.proust-personnages.fr

Kalliope wrote: "I am finding a tone in this volume of "lassitude" mixed with wisdom. And although we have sensed humor and irony before, in this volume, may be because of the certain weariness and detachment I se..."

Another one that cracked me up...

Within the Goncourt pastiche..., enumerating the characters chez Mme Verdurin...

Il y a là Cottard le docteur, sa femme, le sculpteur polonais Viradobetski, Swann le collectionneur, une grand dame russe, une princesse au nom en of qui m'échappe et Cottard me souffle à l'oreille que c'est elle qui aurait tiré à bout portant sur l'archiduque Rodolphe.. p. 80-81.

Our dear Princesse Sherbatoff, one of my favorite characters, with her accent....

The footnote tells us that the date for the posthumous Goncourt Journal would be 1889 and points out that Swann's presence would indicate an earlier date.

I was getting so used to dead characters appearing again that I was no longer giving any chronologic significance to the (re)appearance of a character...

This sounds like a good section, but I still have to catch up on those 100 pages I missed!!!

The passage following the Goncourt pastiche from p. 38 to 46 is rich in the reasons why the Narrator thinks he can't write satisfactorily.

But I felt vaguely depressed. Certainly, I had never concealed from myself that I knew neither how to listen nor, once I was not alone, how to look. My eyes were blind to the sort of necklace an old woman might be wearing, and the things I might be told about her pearls never entered my ears.

...I could in any case reassure myself on various counts. First, in so far as my own character was concerned, my incapacity for looking and listening, which the passage from the Journal had so painfully illustrated to me, was nevertheless not total. There was in me a personage who knew more or less how to look, but it was an intermittent personage, coming to life only in the presence of some general essence common to a number of things, these essences being its nourishment and its joy. Then the personage looked and listened, but at a certain depth only, without my powers of superficial observation being enhanced. ML p. 38

Here he speaks of what he must overcome to be a writer--in my opinion--if you know why Giotto was celebrated by Vasari and other more recent art historians, you know how he will come to writing, if he does.

When I read this post-pastiche passage I found that he tries too hard and misses what he thinks he should be seeing and hearing (and writing thereof). And he feels a little desperate because time aka health is running out on him.

Another thing that should be noted in a complicated passage like this is how the oppositions, but really how the near oppositions make for the complexity of thought, remembering that the mind and language operate by discriminations and near discriminations (or slight oppositions or parenthetical qualifications) that make for finer language and more complex thoughts.

A dictionary doesn't tell you what a thing is, it tells you what it isn't: it's red means it's not blue, not yellow or not orange or not an apple, grapes, bananas, etc. nor a million other qualities or objects; you and your language discriminate between red and every other thing, that's what makes red red and a rose is a rose is a rose, what the mind does, and why Proust is such a fine writer.

Yes, having read on past the Goncourt pastiche, I realise the Narrator is still questioning his own powers of observation - I think he wrote something similar in Le Côté de Guermantes when someone, was it Mme Cambremer, asked him about the details of the decor at La Raspelière. He seemed very aware of his lack of observation skills and yet we marvel all the time at those same skills.

Jocelyn: Theodore is introduced in "Combray" where he is Camus the grocer's assistant...the one Tante Leonie always sends Francoise to, when she sees "a person (or even a dog)she doesn't know at all."

Fionnuala wrote: "Yes, having read on past the Goncourt pastiche, I realise the Narrator is still questioning his own powers of observation - I think he wrote something similar in Le Côté de Guermantes when someone,..."

Yes, I remember him mentioning his poor observational skills before. I think everyone would love to be a 'poor' observer like the Narrator. He certainly sharpened his skills by the time he set out to write. What a visual writer, and what a wealth of details!
The volume started on a tone of lassitude as Kall mentioned earlier and now is seems to be brimming with restlessness with his description of the the passing fashions, the shifting alliances, the fleeting linguistic affectations.

The Narrator's adopting the nickname Dans les choux, as if it were a regular name is quite amusing. It reminded me of the name which the Narrator's family had given to one of their neighbors in Combray, "Tu m'en diras des nouvelles".

@Elizabeth, wow! Not only do you read everything, but you retain everything! Thank you.

Kalliope wrote: I was getting so used to dead characters appearing again that I was no longer giving any chronologic significance to the (re)appearance of a character...

If one understood what you say one would think...but whatever you meant. Let me take a tangent off the "dead characters appearing" which are something that Proust would have changed had he lived to revise these last three posthumous volumes as he revised earlier volumes. Dead or alive, his characters would have remained consistently one way or the other. But what about the parts of the story that are not so easy to recognize, the invisible parts that we have no way of knowing if they would be included, edited-out or changed on his reconsideration in revision.

In the earlier volumes, we know how Proust worked from having access to his notebooks and galleys. He revised and revised his revisions... But he seemed to always know where he was going as he had a general vision of the ends of the stories. I can only sense the not known to me, to the reader, the invisible that he would have changed--certain and vast portions of the text that we read--by my sensing judgement, as evidenced by the lack of cohesion in story line among other miscues in these posthumous volumes assembled by editors.

How would he have changed what we read now; we'll never know. He must have thought about these unfinished volumes that he was sure not to finish; what did he feel, what did he say, what did he write?

But what surprises me most is why isn't ISOLT considered an unfinished novel by the scholars and academics who have devoted their lives and livelihoods to it? Why haven't they specified it as such? As a casual reader, along with the author I'm sure, I think it unfinished.

Phillida wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "The Narrator often makes comments, which sound like general observations on the behavior of people, but which to me sound he is referring to himself.

Kalliope, I think you are r..."

Yes, Phillida. We have to keep sometimes our distance. We are also reading him a hundred years later when the world has changed.

It is a delight to read the section after the Goncourt imitation. Not only did the pastiche make me laugh several times, but it also reads like a wonderful declaration of aesthetic intentions.

After proving that, if he wanted to, he could write with the superficial preciosity of the Goncourts, the Narrator/Proust goes on to say why that is not what he is looking for as well as what it is that engages him. And he does so by taking the accusation that he is not an observant person by the horns.

The kind of insipid writing found chez les Goncourt could have put him off Literature, but it did not (je pouvais me rassurer à divers point de vue). Because if the Goncourt Mémoirs had indeed proved to him that his perceptions and attention did not record things in the same way, it was because he was looking for something deeper (une essence générale). His attention could not be continuous and record everything. Instead it did so in an “intermittent” fashion, because it would only be activated by that which interested him and which had to have a certain depth (à une certaine profondeur seulement). He does not record what people say, but the way they do it (la manière), because that is what reveals to him the character of any given person (elle était révelatrice de leur caractère). And that is what he is looking for (c’était un objet qui avait toujours été plus particulièrement le but de ma recherche) and what gives him pleasure (me donnait un plaisir spécifique).

And what could have seemed to others a certain spiritual drowsiness in him (engourdissement spirituel) could be woken up suddenly and go on the chase (se mettait tout à coup joyeusement en chasse) after the deeper identity of things which lay beyond their immediate appearance (au-delà de l’apparence elle-même).

So, he is not interested, like the Goncourts, in the obvious charm of things that can be easily imitated and copied (le charme apparent, copiable). He chooses to ignore that. At dinners he did not just look at the other guests, but je les radiographiais.

And typical of him, he moves on to exemplify further this ability to go deeper into things by making a comparison between two different kinds of painters, of portraitists, who will depict the same person differently. One will render the documantaire et même historique aspects while the other will represent une vérité d’art. He is obviously placing himself in the second category.

He does regret, though, that he has been sometimes too frivolous when in society (either seeking too much to please or too busy with his obsessions on Albertine and Gilberte). He finds that his attention must have been kindled by his imagination behorehand (j’étais incapable de voir ce dont le désir n’avait pas été eveillé en moi par quelque lecture), and when that did not take place, then his interest in people and/or things could then be revealed to him later on (ensuite, une fois que leur image m’avait été présentée dans la solitude par un artiste). When that happened, his imagination started to fly and paint (Alors mon imagination était partie, avait commencé à peindre). He regrets therefore that sometimes he has missed his opportunity to dig deeper into the personalities that have interested him when they are no longer accessible.

But he knows that to pay attention to the superficial particularities or irrelevant traits of a character (as do the Goncourts) could also detract the writer from revealing the value of life (relever la valeur de la vie) and from concentrating on the deeper values and showing that the genius of an artist is found in his works (leur génie est manifesté par leurs oeuvres).

So, no, the Goncourt writing has not turned him away from Literature nor made him doubt the power of art. On the contrary, it has affirmed his beliefs.

Kalliope wrote: "It is a delight to read the section after the Goncourt imitation. Not only did the pastiche make me laugh several times, but it also reads like a wonderful declaration of intention..."

I haven't had a chance to read much further but you make some very good points here, Kalliope. I'll get back to this later.

Eugene wrote: "But what surprises me most is why isn't ISOLT considered an unfinished novel by the scholars and academics who have devoted their lives and livelihoods to it? Why haven't they specified it as such? As a casual reader, along with the author I'm sure, I think it unfinished."

I would tend to agree with you, but perhaps that is what makes it so (pardon the cliche) timeless. I'm going to step into dangerous pseudo-philosophical meandering:

It's not done because time is not done, until our own threads end. And even when we try to recapture the past, it's like trying to pull ourselves into a helicopter using spaghetti instead of a rope. To me the title "Time Regained" is almost a subtle joke: You can't "regain" time; you can merely realize that you sit within this continuum, and must live within the "chronology", though trips to the past are merely memories, or searches.

/end pre-coffee philosophy

Kalliope: "superficial preciosity"; you have described the bros Goncourt (who, by the way, were terrible mysogynists) style perfectly. And we know from "Swann's Way" that the Verdurin salon was not like that at all!

Elizabeth wrote: "Kalliope: "superficial preciosity"; you have described the bros Goncourt (who, by the way, were terrible mysogynists) style perfectly. And we know from "Swann's Way" that the Verdurin salon was n..."

There has been some discussion on the Goncourt brothers and the Mémoires recently in (my) GR feed.... Have you read these too, Elizabeth?

More threads from the beginning being picked up. I had felt puzzled that the Narrator, when he reported on the grandmother's two companion books--the Letters from the Mme de Sévigné and the Mémoirs from Mme de Beausergent--, was mixing a real epistolar collection with a fictional Mémoir.

The Mme de Beausergent now also turns out to be the sister of Mme de Villeparisis and of the Princesse de Hanovre, and the aunt of the Duque de Guermantes.

I have Mémoires. Récits d'une tante, de 1820 à 1848, tome 2 on my shelves....

The idea or the artist as mirror is picked up again...

Si j'avais compris jadis que ce n'est pas le plus spirituel, le plus instruit, le mieux relationné des hommes, mais celui qui sait devenir miroir et peut refléter ainsi sa vie, fût-elle médiocre...p. 93

Marcelita... Where are you?..

We need you to show us these cylinder hats that the ladies were wearing during the war in France....

Please, post....

"Cothurne".. I had to look this up, and in reference to Talma.

The latter was the actor François-Joseph Talma (1763-1826). And here he is wearing the "cothurnes" as he is dressed up as Britannicus for a representation at the Comédie Française of Racine's play.

These days I am reading , which is a fun read... Anyway, the author talks about the discoveries and excavations at Tell-el-Amarna during 1913 in which the famous Nefertiti was discovered amongst other things...

So, may be this is the origin of the cylinder-hats that became the fashion rage in Paris during 1014-16, and which Proust discusses. The Egyptomania...

.. au lieu d'ornements égyptiens rappelant la campagne d'Egypte...





And it was during the 1920s that Cartier developed their Egyptian designs too.....

http://www.jewelsdujour.com/2012/11/t...

Together with Talma, there is Mme Tallien or Thérèse Tallien, the beauty from the First Directoire..., originally Juana María Ignazia Teresa de Cabarrús y Galabert ..., and from Madrid..

I had not heard of her.. and she had a fantastic story to offer...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thérésa_...





Will be on the lookout for a Biography.. May be Elizabeth knows...

The painting above is by Gérard and is in the Musée Carnavalet... Here is their link.

http://www.carnavalet.paris.fr/en/col...

A great deal of Balzac mentioned in this section. I have read a fair amount of Balzac (years ago now) but have not read , but the footnotes indicate that it deals with female homosexuality.

The title makes me think of Debussy's "La fille aux cheveux de lin".

Composed for piano, but here in a very interesting violin+piano version...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r32Ckv...

Balzac's books and are also included in this section. The latter I almost bought this summer in Paris, in a lovely edition, from one of the booksellers along the banks of the Seine.

"The day before yesterday Verdurin drops in here to carry me off to dine with him—Verdurin, former critic of the Revue, author of that book on Whistler in which the workmanship, the painterly coloration, of the American eccentric is interpreted sometimes with great delicacy by the lover of all the refinements, all the prettinesses of the painted canvas, that Verdurin is. ... ML p. 27-38

Reading the mocking Goncourt pastiche (all of Proust's pastiches were humorist; see The Lemoine Affair, etc.) that Proust writes and includes in ISOLT, mixing real people with his fictional creations, poking fun at the real Goncourts while having it read by another fictional creation of the novel, the Narrator, along with the novel's real reader.

...—'No, no, no, not at all,' he (Cottard) insists with authority—but from the habit the Emperor had of always, even on the field of battle, clutching in his hand the licorice tablets which he took to relieve the pain in his liver. For he had a disease of the liver and that is what he died of', concludes the Doctor."

Then Proust follows the Goncourt pastiche with the Narrator's meditation on his inability to write in its varied forms; but isn't Proust's purpose to show how the Narrator dupes himself and doesn't see the humor of the pastiche in this serious meditation just following it, which he doesn't--but is this humor too, isn't Proust mocking the Narrator, isn't this a more witty kind of humor than the slapstick of the pastiche going on--are we to laugh at the Narrator who doesn't laugh at the pastiche. I see no reason not too.

The footnotes draw attention to the mentioning of the "Parc de Montboissier" from Chateubriand's Mémoires d'outre-tombe, Tome 1: Livres I à XII, and to the note that Proust made to himself to check the name of the bird and the name of the flower.... This shows how Proust was so very particular about the details and specificity of those elements that some readers have, sadly, not been able to appreciate.

On peut s'en rendre compte pratiquement à la beauté des pages qu'il inspire: un chant d'oiseau dans le parc de Montboissier...... Ils ont cependant inspiré à Chateaubriand dans les "Mémoires d'Outre-tombe, des pages d'une valeur infiniment plus grande. p. 101.