The Year of Reading Proust discussion

This thread is for the discussion that will take place through Sunday, 8 Sept. of The Captive, to page 93 (to the paragraph beginning: “On other evenings, I undressed...”)

I had a great deal of trouble finding the place to mark the end of this week's reading: for some strange reason (I suppose it depends which text is being used?) the pertinent final sentence in my folio classique edition does not start with the words "D'autres fois", in fact those words are missing entirely, it starts:

"Je me déshabillais, je me couchais, et, Albertine assise sur un coin du lit, nous reprenions notre partie ou notre conversation interrompues de baisers ;"

This is page 68 in folio classique. I did cross check with the schedule that Richard did using the online French version, which does have the words "d'autres fois".
http://alarecherchedutempsperdu.org/m...

·Karen· wrote: "I had a great deal of trouble finding the place to mark the end of this week's reading: for some strange reason (I suppose it depends which text is being used?) the pertinent final sentence in my f..."

My edition G-F also begins without the "D'autrefois", page 169 (the actual novel starts around page 100).

I have found differences in the French editions before. I have the audio, an old Folio classique, and the current G-F and there are some subtle differences, sometimes between the three.

Mariano Fortuny Madrazo figures prominently in this section.

We have right now an exhibition in El Prado in which there are a few of the paintings by his father Mariano Fortuny Marsal.

There is this lovely one with the future designer, sitting naked in the middle of all that luxurious material.

The painter's children, María Luísa and Mariano, in the Japanese salón. 1874.




In the Prado page you can actually enlarge the picture and see the young Mariano.


http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-co...

Wondering why the Narrator stayed home when Albertine went for a drive, what he did, how he spent his time...

But it was most of all in myself that I heard, with
intoxication, a new sound rendered by the hidden violin. Its strings
are tightened or relaxed by mere changes of temperature, of light, in
the world outside. In our person, an instrument which the uniformity
of habit has rendered silent, song is born of these digressions, these
variations, the source of all music: the change of climate on certain
days makes us pass at once from one note to another. We recapture the
forgotten air the mathematical inevitability of which we might have
deduced, and which for the first few moments we sing without
recognizing it. By themselves these modifications (which, albeit
coming from without, were internal) refashioned for me the world
outside. Communicating doors, long barred, opened themselves in my
brain. The life of certain towns, the gaiety of certain expeditions
resumed their place in my consciousness. All a throb in harmony with
the vibrating string, I would have sacrificed my dull life in the
past, and all my life to come, erased with the india-rubber of habit,
for one of these special, unique moments. Moncrieff

It's no secret http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=affaMp... that Proust teaches me how to write. What I'm learning is to be looser, to Stop Making Sense as the Talking Heads sang, to enjoy myself in the wonder of word after word, thought after thought of writing as I suspect Proust did.

The Narrator says that he doesn't love Albertine, yet he's jealous when he thinks her attention strays to another. He discloses that if her "assignations" were with his approval--under his roof--or in a place beyond his imagination that jealousy wouldn't bother him, that the "mendacity" of it wouldn't disturb him. But I'm ready for him to change his tune, change his reasons, to contradict himself and later feel the opposite and maybe even change again--this is what I mean by writing "looser", many situations are possible, even more than tolerable, adventurous and pleasing.

Marcel Proust is celebrated as a prose stylist. As is Walter Pater, a favorite of Virginia Woolf, who, as Proust, was indebted to John Ruskin for his style of writing. A review of Walter Pater said he was a great stylist 'because he said nothing'. Here (excerpted from message 5) we have Proust saying 'little' on the individual sentence level--in the manner of a great stylist--but when we connect the sentences into an utterance they relate and have a meaning, but combined they have as many meanings as they have competant readers. A poetics of prose. One thinks of Stéphane Mallarmé, John Asberry and even William Carlos Williams in Paterson and many other writers but mostly poets. A true democracy of writing here.

We recapture the forgotten air the mathematical inevitability of which we might have deduced, and which for the first few moments we sing without recognizing it.

By themselves these modifications (which, albeit
coming from without, were internal) refashioned for me the world outside.

Communicating doors, long barred, opened themselves in my
brain.

The life of certain towns, the gaiety of certain expeditions
resumed their place in my consciousness.

Kalliope wrote: "Mariano Fortuny Madrazo figures prominently in this section.

I have read the section for this week -and a bit more- and i can´t see where Mariano F.M.figures.

Wonderful picture.I used to see that type of pictures in very old fairies´books i read as a child .

Eugene wrote: "It's no secret http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=affaMp... that Proust teaches me how to write. What I'm learning is to be looser,

I think the Narrator is the kind of person that loves to love a person that makes him come alive with feelings of jealousy and if everything is fine and no tormented passiosns aroused then he tires of the affair.

I wonder why the funny types came out in the two posts above.

Patricia wrote: "I wonder why the funny types came out in the two posts above."

I will give you some quotes on the Fortuny later on.

The reason your response comes out in italics is because you post your reply in betweent the html signs that are automatically generated when you press reply.

you have to post your comment after the angular brackets and the letter i.

I cannot write it for you to see because it becomes an instruction. It does not stay as a text.

...revivified...by the exhilarating virtues of solitude. ML p. 22

Proust writes of the older Narrator, determined by the sophistication of the voice, reflecting from without on his being alone but how living with Albertine will deprive him:

...of the joys of solitude. ML p. 26

The 1st person writing of this 4 page meditation pleases me, but we can't be certain to whom the voice belongs, the younger Narrator from within or his older self. Perhaps Proust would have added clarifying indications, had he lived, to the passage when revising the galleys. Or perhaps not, as the younger Narrator gets older the stylistic differences between him and his from without self diminish. Is it intentional, we ask?

No matter, the writing is beautiful as read.

I feel such a sense of sadness, when I read The Captive.

At the end of September, 1922, two months before Proust died, he was still re-writing The Captive for the forth time.

"On October 12, as Proust's condition worsened, Rivière wrote to thank him for having returned the proofs of the passage "Albertine sleeping."
Carter's biography, p. 798.

And maybe, knowing how ill he was, Proust finally decided to give the narrator a name:

"Then she would find her tongue and say: 'My—' or 'My darling—' followed by my Christian name, which, if we give the narrator the same name as the author of this book, would be 'My Marcel,' or 'My darling Marcel.'" MP

Thoughts...some to return to later this week.

Albertine in his father's tapestried study...the bathroom partition being so thin that they were able to communicate...the "little person inside" (philosopher) ...women's intelligence...the return of Céleste ...jealousy being a "congenital disease"... sometimes it's better not to know things (ignorance is bliss)... sound of another bell...the brilliant violin passage...joys of solitude...Fortuny!...re-visiting the red shoes...Callot, Doucet, and Pacquin..."weird" characters...Jupien's niece "in trouble" ... "Morel is mine." ...syringa (another name for lilacs); Elstir, Bergotte, Vinteuil..."to play freely in the fluid spaces of the mind." ... "blissful expression as I shut a book," ... OCD-checking the bolted door...tea-gowns...rings: the Baron's, the Comte de Crécy, and Albertine's...can't really know another...the sleeping Albertine and the untouched letters in the kimono's pocket..."My darling Marcel."

I recall being quite moved when I read the 'darling Marcel' line too, Marcelita. It humanises the narrator a little, yet its also him being more playful. It does seem to be a little out of the blue though. I am reminded too of how Proust -that is Proust as Proust not Proust as Narrator! - praises Francoise too (if I recall correctly....it has been a long time.) These moments of 'intrusion' all the more powerful for being so rare in the novel. It is as if we are briefly slyly lifted out of the novel's terms and constructions to be shown that yes, although we may learn from a novel and see ourselves and our actions refracted through and reflected in it, it is real life (and real love?) that matter. Then, master as he is, we are gently bade back into the dream of Proust's work, the words, like Mama's kiss, a benison to hurry our dreaming (- or in the case of Captive/Fugitive, a kiss to assuage nightmares? ?)

Regardless, Captive/Fugitive (Fugitive especially) are my favourite in the series. Dazzling insights.

May I also say, M. Eugene, bonjour, and salut! I hope you are well, and a
your points on which voice is which, are as ever, very thought provoking indeed.

Nick wrote: "I recall being quite moved when I read the 'darling Marcel' line too, Marcelita. It humanises the narrator a little, yet its also him being more playful. It does seem to be a little out of the blue..."

Nick, few agree with us, alas, giving The Captive/The Fugitive a "Blue Ribbon."
However, some of the most memorable scenes are in these volumes.

I remember reading a special passage...and weeping. So visceral...it is still difficult to read today, without the ache resurfacing.

I've only just started reading this week's section, and almost immediately I feel that this volume is very different. Would you agree?

Very much so, Reem. I'd been thinking the same thing, and wondering whether it was because I've switched translations from the original Moncrieff (Chatto & Windus) and am reading now the Captive in a 1983 (Penguin) edition translated by Moncrieff and revised by Andreas Mayor.

I happened to read Moncrieff's introduction to the Captive in the Chatto edition (warning - introduction full of spoilers) in which he wrote he'd felt the unrevised typeset from which he'd based his version to be full of errors and didn't have access to the previous corrected typescript. He states that he has taken the liberty to make some changes he considered typesetter errors, for example:
In spite of myself, I would continue to smile for some moments, when, for instance, having discovered Françoise was not in my room, she accosted me with: "Heavenly deity reclining on a bed!" "But why, Céleste," I would say, "why deity?" (Chatto p13)

In spite of myself, I would continue to smile for some moments, when, for instance, having ascertained that Albertine was not in my room, she accosted me with: "Heavenly deity perched on a bed!" "But why, Céleste," I would say, "why deity?" (Penguin - which reverts the character name back to the typeset copy)

I had been searching for an adjective to describe the difference between the "feel" of this volume compared to the others and the best I could come up with was gritty or unpolished. Never having had a definitive published text prior to his death explains why the next three volumes are considerably shorter as Proust is reputed to have expanded and expanded as he revised, and even while proofreading the set type. Seemingly also why it feels different.

Are you noticing this difference with the same translation, Reem?

I think that from now on it will be very hard to draw firm conclusions from what we read.

Proust did not have enough time to revise his text and the editors have had and are having a difficult time in establishing a single text.

I am dealing with several French editions. And now checking the quote in Unregistered*'s post, in my Kindle edition, I read:

Malgré moi je souriais pendant quelques instants, quand, par example, ayant profité de ce qu'elle avait appris qu'Albertine n'était pas là, elle m'abordait par ces mots: "divinité du ciel déposée sur un lit!" Je disais: "Mais, voyons, Françoise, pourquoi divinité du ciel"?.

This morning however, I read and listened to the Audio version and it was Céleste who was talking about the Divinity. Later on I will put the quote from my G-F edition.

My G-F edition is under the supervisio of Milly. Not all volumes have his foot notes and comments, but this one does.

In a footnote he says that according to a thesis by a couple of Japanese scholars, the mention of the name Marcel, would have probably been edited out by Proust had he been able to.

Drafts of earlier parts also contained the name Marcel, and he got rid of it.

These scholars believe that in his revisions he was trying to create more distance between the Narrator and himself. It seems the name Marcel is mentioned only twice in the whole work, and both in this volume.

I will add the refence to this post, later on today.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I've only just started reading this week's section, and almost immediately I feel that this volume is very different. Would you agree?"

Reem, I also notice a difference. I have to think more about this, but the Narrator does not seem to be too continuous with the one ending the previous volume, when the plot seems to be a straight continuation.

He is older here and with a more delicate health. His habit of humigating his room is mentioned here for the first time.

I am fascinated by his sel-knowledge and this quote Par la souffrance seule subsistait mon ennuyeux attachement. makes me think he is the Prisoner.

Hey Nic good to see you again.

"My Darling Marcel."

Because of the conditionally of the "if" clause, what Albertine says is not definitive, "if we give the narrator the same name as the author of this book". But this conditionality makes Albertine's waking utterance more poignant as Proust writes to the reader here--for me it has a desperation, a breathlessness to it & a resignation to Proust's impending mortality made more dear by seeing & feeling the beauty of Albertine asleep. The Narrator (the author too) becomes so vulnerable here.

Besides, if this is not the first instance of Albertine speaking in quotes, it is the first direct quotation of any character speaking in the language of intimacy, of passion. This passage, it's culmination, this awakening is almost shocking in it's difference from what precedes it.

"I had embarked on the tide of Albertine's sleep."

Unregistered* wrote: "I had been searching for an adjective to describe the difference between the "feel" of this volume compared to the others and the best I could come up with was gritty or unpolished..."

I get this sense too. It's not bad, it's just that there are moments where the text doesn't quite have that warm flow to it; as if the river of prose struggles over a shallow sand bar.

Still, I am enjoying it.

Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I've only just started reading this week's section, and almost immediately I feel that this volume is very different. Would you agree?"

Reem, I also notice a differen..."

@ Unregistered, Are you noticing this difference with the same translation, Reem?

For me, the difference was not from different translations but more along the line that our narrator had changed, that something had happened to him, and he was now altered. Those of you familiar with Carter's biography, did anything in particular happen to him when he was writing this volume? Was this when his mother died? The mood is different although I agree Kalliope that the plot continues the same.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Reem, I also ..."

I agree with you Reem. Though the plot line seems to be seamless with the previous volume, I agree the Narrator has changed. He seems ten years older. And there is strange lassitude combined with the extraordinary depth of his self-knowledge.

We have seen a great deal of how he observes society, now he is directing his attention to himself.

Okay it isn't because of his mother because she died in 1905, and he started to write La Recherche in 1908. I still " feel" that something had to have happened.

Maybe that is the difference Kalliope, directing the attention inwards creates a very different reaction. All those lovely demons!

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Okay it isn't because of his mother because she died in 1905 and he started to write La Recherche in 1908. I still " feel" that something had to have happened."

Agostinelli had died (May 1914)

The whole Albertine episode did not form part of the first planning of the work.

Reem wrote: "I still 'feel' something happened..."

Yes, he died.

Before he could finish this volume--as I reported last week in a comment--in a letter to his publisher sent shortly before his death, Proust said he had no energy left "to tie up loose ends".

Kalliope wrote: ".."

My paperback G-F edition has Albertine and Céleste, while the ebook format also in French had Albertine and Françoise.

Malgré moi je souriais pendant quelques instants, quand, par example, ayant profité de ce qu'elle avait appris qu'Albertine n'était pas là, elle m'abordait par ces mots: "divinité du ciel déposée sur un lit!" Je disais: "Mais, voyons, Céleste, pourquoi divinité du ciel"?.

While Unregistered* above shows Françoise and Céleste for the Moncrieff and Albertine and Céleste for the Penguin. The latter coincides with my G-F edition.

Kalliope wrote: "My G-F edition is under the supervisio of Milly. Not all volumes have his foot notes and comments, but this one does.

In a footnote he says that according to a thesis by a couple of Japanese scho..."

Jean Milly writes in his footnote:

M. Suzuki et K. Yoshikawa ont montré que le prénom --Marcel-- fréquent dans les premiers cahiers de brouillon, a été progressivement supprimé par Proust dans les états postérieurs. Peut-être aurait-il même été supprimé totalement dans La Prisonnière si ce roman avait été révisé jusqu'au bout.

Kalliope wrote: "Kalliope wrote: ".."

My paperback G-F edition has Albertine and Céleste, while the ebook format also in French had Albertine and Françoise.

Malgré moi je souriais pendant quelques instants, quand..."

I'm only catching up on this week's reading but what struck me about this passage was the use of the deity and the bird images, both of which recall Celeste's language when we met her briefly in Sodome et Gomorrhe rather than anything we'd ever heard Françoise say in the earlier volumes. It's as if Proust is gliding between his own present and his Narrator's past.

Fionnuala wrote: "what struck me about this passage was the use of the deity and the bird images, both of which recall Celeste's language when we met her briefly in Sodome et Gomorrhe rather than anything we'd ever heard Françoise say in the earlier volumes
..."

You are completely right, this is Céleste's language. Not Françoise's.

Liking the Narrator to a "colombe" is a celestial imagery.

On the Duchesse de Guermantes disliking Maeterlinck..

..je comprennais que je l'eusse entendu se moquer de Maeterlinck....

This Belgian poet was the author of the play that Debussy used for his opera. Eventually the composer and the writer came to a serious disagreement.

Eugene wrote: "Reem wrote: "I still 'feel' something happened..."

Yes, he died.

Before he could finish this volume--as I reported last week in a comment--in a letter to his publisher sent shortly before his dea..."

Oh, Eugene, I do hope you meant that Agostinelli died, and not Proust. Otherwise, it is just so funny!!!

Eugene wrote: "Reem wrote: "I still 'feel' something happened..."

Yes, he died.

Before he could finish this volume--as I reported last week in a comment--in a letter to his publisher sent shortly before his dea..."

LOL Eugene, that is priceless! lol Laura. Kalliope, I think you're right. Because Proust was always going back and forth adding and deleting, we don't really know what was going on when he wrote these pages. I think I agree with you that it was written as he was mourning Agostonelli because there is a change of mood.

Eugene, what happened to your photo?

Martin wrote: there are moments where the text doesn't quite have that warm flow to it; as if the river of prose struggles over a shallow sand bar.

As it seems it's not just my having changed translations, I've continued thinking this through while continuing my reading and my sense is that the cadences of the long sentences do not flow as smoothly. I think Martin is quite close only it's me that has to struggle, rereading and parsing out the sense of consecutive phrases.

At the outset of Swann it took weeks to gear my mind to the flow of the writing but over time the sense of the prose flowed more readily. Maybe it's just changing gear to an older narrative voice ... ?

or maybe Proust would have seemlessly continued if he'd lived longer ... ?

@Reem

My iMac's being reformatted; I'm posting through the Gr mobile app on my iPhone which has no picture, I guess.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I've only just started reading this week's section, and almost immediately I feel that this volume is very different. Would you agree?"

Those of you familiar with Carter's biography, did anything in particular happen to him when he was writing this volume?

See message 13:
At the end of September, 1922, two months before Proust died, he was still re-writing The Captive for the forth time.

"On October 12, as Proust's condition worsened, Rivière wrote to thank him for having returned the proofs of the passage 'Albertine sleeping.'"
Carter's biography, p. 798.

"Watching Albertine Sleeping" is one of his last "polished" passages.

Proust was taking many drugs...and I thought of Fionnuala's statement of "gliding between his own present and his Narrator's past.

Kalliope wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "My G-F edition is under the supervisio of Milly. Not all volumes have his foot notes and comments, but this one does.

In a footnote he says that according to a thesis by a couple of Japanese scholars.."

One of these scholars is Kazuyoshi YOSHIKAWA.
He is one of the most respected Proustians in the world.

Kazuyoshi YOSHIKAWA, PR.
Kyoto University (Japan)
http://www.japan-acad.go.jp/pdf/yoush...

K. Yoshikawa worked with the renown Philip Kolb, collecting Proust's letters in 21 volumes (in French). After Kolb died, Kazuyoshi Yoshikawa published the "Index," which is indispensable according to several Proust researchers.

Correspondance / Correspondence
FR Correspondance de Marcel Proust. Ed. Philip Kolb. Paris: Plon, 1970-1993 (21 vols).
FR Index Général de la Correspondance de Marcel Proust. Ed. Kazuyoshi Yoshikawa. Presses de l'Université de Kyoto, 1998.
http://www.library.illinois.edu/kolbp...

Latest book:
"Proust and Pictorial Art" preface by Jean-Yves Tadié Éditions Honoré Champion, coll. "Research Proustian", No. 14, 2010, 410 p.
http://www.fabula.org/actualites/k-yo...

He spoke at the Harvard conference last April and this June at the 5th Le Balbec Normand in Cabourg, on "The Magic Lantern."

Kalliope wrote: "Kalliope wrote: ".."
My paperback G-F edition has Albertine and Céleste, while the ebook format also in French had Albertine and Françoise.
Malgré moi je souriais pendant quelques instants, quand..."

It's moments like this, when I would love to page through the galleys/notebooks of La Prisonnière in the BnF...to see if Proust first wrote "Françoise" or "Céleste."
http://gallica.bnf.fr/Search?ArianeWi...

I was confused, on the first reading, thinking he may have "outed" Françoise as Céleste, but then I heard Céleste's bird-language.

Remembering how Proust tinkered with the opening sentence 13 times...I can only imagine how many times he may have edited this passage, considering he re-wrote "The Captive" four times.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Eugene wrote: "Reem wrote: "I still 'feel' something happened..."
Yes, he died.
Before he could finish this volume--as I reported last week in a comment--in a letter to his publisher sent shortly..

"...written as he was mourning Agostonelli."

I'm not so sure...remembering the way Proust described his grief (delayed) for his grandmother.

Bill Carter once pointed out a specific passage, in The Captive, where Proust stopped editing before he died. I will try to find and post.

Maybe the change in voice/tone was a combination of Proust contemplating his own death (and the use of drugs to write) coupled with an unedited galley.

My first thought as I completed this section was that Sodom & Gomorrah was a moving stage...expansive... traveling through the countryside...characters coming and going...filled with lively exchange & socializing.

In stark contrast the first 92 pages of The Captive take place in the Guermantes' complex: the Narrator's bedroom (Albertine is in his father's adjacent study with paper thin walls), the courtyard (including Jupien's & his daughter's) and Mme. Guermantes' quarters.

Dressmakers are mentioned...but we don't actually visit. Albertine takes drives but we don't accompany her. Bloch visits and misinterprets the voices he hears in the Narrator's bedroom. Charlus and Morel come to Jupien's (located in the courtyard) daily.

The Narrator's sphere has shrunk dramatically. Along with the smallness of his physical world his thoughts turned inward. Nick's words "refracted and reflected" are perfect for the complex inward journey exploring the Narrator, Albertine, Charlus and Morel. No one is as they seem...no one is wholly admirable. I physically felt the closeness and the melancholy as I closed the book on page 92.

There was no theater...and no flourish of the curtain coming down. I felt the beginning of the end. Mortality. The relationship with Albertine would end with the end of life...the Narrator's or hers.

"...there would continue for me [the Narrator] another, pitiless path interrupted only by an occasional respite; so that my suffering, had I thought about it, could end only with Albertine's life or with my own." ML pp 19 & 20

The beautiful long passage of Albertine sleeping...evoked the eternal sleep of death for me...even as she breathed and murmured...her many personalities flitting across her face.

"She had called back into herself everything of her that lay outside, had withdrawn, enclosed, reabsorbed herself into her body. In keeping her in front of my eyes, in my hands, I had an impression of possessing her entirely which I never had when she was awake. Her life was submitted to me, exhaled towards me its gentle breath." ML pp 84 & 85

NOTE: After I posted this I started wondering is this "ending with my life or hers" literally mortality or the death of giving yourself away bit by bit until you no longer know who you are. I guess it remains to be seen for those of us reading the first time.

"...late every night , before leaving me, she [Albertine] used to slide her tongue between my lips like a portion of daily bread, a nourishing food that had the almost sacred character of all flesh upon which the sufferings that we have endured on its account have come in time to confer a sort of spiritual grace..." ML p 2

My Catholic school education came alive...the Last Supper, the Eucharist, the sacrament of Holy Communion...so of course I googled...and found the New Testament reference.

"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me'". (1 Corinthians 11:23-24)

The Narrator then bypasses memory of "the night that Captain de Borodino allowed [him] to spend in the barracks, a favour which cured what was after all only a passing distemper" and instead called to mind "the night on which my father sent Mamma to sleep in the little bed beside mine."

He goes on to say "So true is it that life when it chooses to deliver us once more from sufferings that seemed inescapable, does so in different, at times diametrically opposed conditions, so much so that it seems almost sacrilegious to note the identical nature of the consolations vouchsafed!"

Sacrilegious and psychologically complex...my mind was (is) reeling.

Ce Ce, your last two posts are so thought provoking...like Nick's words "refracted and reflected."
The change in direction you so exquisitely described...and the narrator's meditations on a deliverance of sufferings.

Ce Ce, your posts are keenly perceptive and so beautifully expressed that I can feel the sadness of Proust's final days.

Marcelita, it is so nice to have you share your links with us. Much appreciated!

As I have been following Proust's aesthetics, in these threads and in my reviews, I found this passage fascinating:

L'art extrait du réel le plus familier existe en effet et son domaine est peut-être le plus grand. Mais il n'en est pas moins vrai qu'un grand intérêt , parfois de la beauté, peut naître d'actions découlant d'une forme d'esprit si éloignée de tout ce que nous sentons, de tout ce que nous croyons, que nous ne pouvons même arriver à les comprendre, qu'elles s'étalent devant nous comme un spectacle sans cause.

The first part sounds a mixture between a concession and an interest in the art of the kind seen in Dutch 17thC painting. But the second part is the one that really interests him and that he has been pursuing so far in his writing.

Wonderful passage.

Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "My G-F edition is under the supervisio of Milly. Not all volumes have his foot notes and comments, but this one does.

In a footnote he says that according to a t..."

Yoshikawa's book is an interesting response to the one by Karpeles. Unfortunately it is very expensive.

It looks less attractive because Karpeles' is such a good companion thanks to the illustrations. But it probably goes beyond the named paintings. There are several which are inferred and those Karpeles does not include. And his analysis is just the preface. After all, K is an artist while Yoshikawa is a specialist. But I wonder if it goes beyond the detective role.

Another book on aesthetics, which must touch painting but must have a more philosophical approach, has been published in Spain by Victor Gómez Pin.

I will try and find out more about it. Gómez Pin is a philosopher.

http://www.casadellibro.com/libro-la-...

Ce Ce wrote: "My first thought as I completed this section was that Sodom & Gomorrah was a moving stage...expansive... traveling through the countryside...characters coming and going...filled with lively exchang..."

Yes, CeCe.. I soon got the feeling that the Narrator has made himself Prisoner...

Kalliope wrote: "I soon got the feeling that the Narrator has made himself Prisoner..."

I just quickly read through this section one more time today...Yes, truly a prison of his own making. As a reader I felt imprisoned with him...it's tangible...a physical sensation.

I'm also trying to forgive the Narrator for stating women are intellectually inferior. Sorry, I can't find the exact quote. I think I've somehow blinded myself to it.

And then there was using Albertine, not so purely, while she was sleeping.

Thank you Marcelita and Reem...

Kalliope wrote: "As I have been following Proust's aesthetics, in these threads and in my reviews, I found this passage fascinating:

L'art extrait du réel le plus familier existe en effet et son domaine est peut-ê..."

Kalliope, I'm trying to place where this is in this section. I know we are reading different editions in different language...but could you give a general sense of what is occurring or how far into the week's reading?