The Year of Reading Proust discussion

This thread is for the discussion that will take place through Sunday, 17 Nov. of The Fugitive, finish.

Jumping ahead, I have just read the visit to the Scrovegni chapel, where the Narrator now sees the full cycle of frescoes by Giotto and not just the chiaroscuro of the Vices and Virtues with which he became familiar in Combray thanks to Swann's engravings.

The emphasis is on the sky, the blue (azur, pierre bleuie..), the sun, and the flying angels.

I am photocopying this section and plan to read it again next Friday when I shall be at the Scrovegni...!!

:)

Wonderful passage on the role of the Reader in forming her/his own meaning out of any text. I will come back to this. This is almost po-mo.

And this is why Proust does not belong to anyone, while belonging to everyone. Everyone reads in his novel what one wants to read. There are as many La recherches as readers the novel has had, has, and will have.

Any reading, any interpretation will be based on the reader's expectations and prejudices and assumptions. Which means that none of them, really, can claim to equate what was in the mind of the author.

On devine en lisant, on crée; tout part d'une erreur initiale; celles qui suivent (et ce n'est pas seulement dans la lecture des lettres et des télégrammes, pas seulement dans toute lecture), si extraordinaires qu'elles puissent paraître à celui qui n'a pas le même point de départ, sont toutes naturelles. Une bonne partie de ce que nous croyons, et jusque dans les conclusions dernières c'est ainsi, avec un entêtement et une bonne foi égales, vient d'une première méprise sur les prémisses. p. 320

Giotto's angels...

I love the description of the angels - and it is good to be able to read Proust's description while looking at the images posted here:
et, comme ce sont des créatures réelles et effectivement volantes, on les voit s'élevant, décrivant des courbes, mettant la plus grande aisance à exécuter des loopings, fondant vers le sol la tête en bas à grand renfort d'ailes qui leur permettent de se maintainir dans des conditions contraires aux lois de la pesanteur, et ils font beaucoup plutôt penser à de jeunes élevés de Garros s'exerçant au vol plané qu'aux anges de la Renaissance et des époques suivantes, dont les ailes ne sont plus que des emblèmes et dont le maintien est habillement le même que celui de personnages célestes qui ne seraient pas ailés.
And we remember Agostinelli. But, always preoccupied with chronology, I'm wondering if Agostinelli's flying experiences didn't actually happen after Proust visited Padua? So is this '(e)motion recollected in tranquillity'?

Fionnuala wrote: "I love the description of the angels - and it is good to be able to read Proust's description while looking at the images posted here:
et, comme ce sont des créatures réelles et effectivement vola..."

Yes, the reference to Garros is rather spooky. When we finish the volume I want to consult Proust's Additions: The Making of 'a La Recherche Du Temps Perdu' to see what it says about what was written when.

Fionnuala wrote: "I love the description of the angels - and it is good to be able to read Proust's description while looking at the images posted here:
et, comme ce sont des créatures réelles et effectivement vola..."

We visited the Scrovegni chapel at night, and it is an unforgettable visit. One can stay only 15 minutes and before going in one has to spend 15 more minutes in a room which absorbs humidity from the bodies.

Even though I was very familiar with Giotto's frescoes, my heart jumped when I walked in. There is nothing like it. We had before visited the Padua Baptistry with the frescoes by Giusto de Menabuoi, which are of a later date, and though very beautiful also, are clearly inferior to Giotto's.

Now rereading the Narrator's description when he just enters the Arena Chapel... that is exactly how I felt, in the sense that, in spite of having seen a thousand times the reproductions, it is the intense blue of the frescoes that blinds one..

I entered it from the dark and from the "preparatory chamber"-- very different to the way the Narrator, crossing a sunlight arena, approached the church.

I will have to check the facts, but some work was done to the church during Proust's time.

Anyway, this is an surpassed description of the effect it produces when one enters it..

.. après avoir traversé en plein soleil le jardin de l'Arena, j'entrai dans la chapelle des Giotto où la voûte entière et le fond des fresques sont si bleus qu'il semble que la radieuse journée ait passé le seuil elle aussi avec le visiteur et soit venue un instant mettre à l'ombre et au frais son ciel pur; son ciel pur à peine un peu plus foncé d'être débarrassé des dorures de la lumière, comme en ces courts répits dont s'interrompent les plus beaux jours, quand, sans qu'on ait vu aucun nuage, le soleil ayant tourné ailleurs son regard, pour un moment, l'azur, plus doux encore, s'assombrit. p. 311.

Anyway, strongly recommended for anyone going to Venice... We took a car, but there are buses from the Marco Polo airport and it is not far. Here is the web for the tickets.

http://www.cappelladegliscrovegni.it/...

Fionnuala wrote: "I love the description of the angels - and it is good to be able to read Proust's description while looking at the images posted here:
et, comme ce sont des créatures réelles et effectivement vola..."

Fionnuala, you are reading the Kindle version, no?..., so you do not have your GF edition with you.

I have just reread this, and there is a footnote to the Garros name, in the GF edition.

The footnote says that the MS is not in his hand and that originally it had the brothers Wright, but that this has been crossed out and replaced by Garros. In the audio edition, which follows the Pléiade, it says Fonck. The footnote refers to another one later on, and also reminds us of who these personalities were and the dates.

Roland Garros died in 1918 in an air combat. The Wright brothers flew in 1903, and René Fonck was still alive in 1919. It seems he is mentioned later on in the book, so we shall return to this.

Kalliope wrote: "Roland Garros died in 1918 in an air combat. The Wright brothers flew in 1903, and René Fonck was still alive in 1919. It seems he is mentioned later on in the book, so we shall return to this. ."

That is very interesting, Kall. I thought of Agostinelli when I read Garros' name mainly because of Gautier-Vignal's account of Proust seeking his acquaintance after Agostinelli's death because of G-V's own links to Garros, and aviation in general, and the hope Proust held on to that Agostinelli might be found or at least the reason for the plane crash be discovered. This is particularly interesting in the light of the telegram scene. How he must have wished for such a telegram, so much more possible after a plane crash than after a riding accident.

Kalliope wrote: We visited the Scrovegni chapel at night, and it is an unforgettable visit.

Gorgeous! I'm sure you got goosebumps the minute you entered the chapel! All that blue! I know absolutely nothing about the Scrovegni chapel, so I googled and found this: http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/g...

I just watched part one and found it very educational in its explanation. I'll go watch the rest. This is a really nice treat for those of who want to see the chapel. Thank you Kalliope for being the catalyst!

A must see!!! Part 2 mentions the ultramarine blue that Proust mentioned way back.

“... asparagus, tinged with ultramarine and rosy pink which ran from their heads, finely stippled in mauve and azure, through a series of imperceptible changes to their white feet, still stained a little by the soil of their garden-bed: a rainbow-loveliness that was not of this world. I felt that these celestial hues indicated the presence of exquisite creatures who had been pleased to assume vegetable form, who, through the disguise which covered their firm and edible flesh, allowed me to discern in this radiance of earliest dawn, these hinted rainbows, these blue evening shades, that precious quality which I should recognise again when, all night long after a dinner at which I had partaken of them, they played (lyrical and coarse in their jesting as the fairies in Shakespeare’s Dream) at transforming my humble chamberpot into a bower of aromatic perfume.”

― Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

Did Proust mention this chapel? I'm just watching the lamentation scene, the grieving that Proust may be using as a parallel to his grief. I'm still behind so I haven't come across or perhaps noticed any reference to the chapel. Very clever though if this is the case!

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Kalliope wrote: We visited the Scrovegni chapel at night, and it is an unforgettable visit.

Gorgeous! I'm sure you got goosebumps the minute you entered the chapel! All that blue! I know absolutel..."

Reem, you are so good at finding things.. perfect introductory video... I also liked to see the engraving which showed the palace next to it... I think part of that palace fell and it could have dragged one of the walls of the chapel and the frescoes with it... And I think that happened around the time Proust visited... I have to check this...

Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Kalliope wrote: We visited the Scrovegni chapel at night, and it is an unforgettable visit.

Gorgeous! I'm sure you got goosebumps the minute you entered the chapel! A..."

Kalli, you will notice the structuring like a spiral mentioned as well. Actually I've been thinking about this, and how the part 1 video mentions the structuring of the chapel like a spiral with tiers, that maybe Proust had this architecture in mind while writing ISOLT and that it wasn't the church at Combray that resonated with him as much as it was the Scrovegni chapel. Perhaps? Or me on another wild goose chase? lol

I could not help but laugh, when the Narrator first mentions the song O Sole mio..., and which he then repeats a couple of times...

A friend had prepared this as our welcoming card to the trip to Venice...



Anyway, here are the three tenors singing it in Rome...

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


And the lyrics...


Neapolitan Italian Text

Che bella cosa na jurnata 'e sole,
n'aria serena doppo na tempesta!
Pe' ll'aria fresca pare già na festa...
Che bella cosa na jurnata 'e sole.

Ma n'atu sole
cchiù bello, oje ne'.
O sole mio
sta 'nfronte a te!
O sole
O sole mio
sta 'nfronte a te!
sta 'nfronte a te!

Quanno fa notte e 'o sole se ne scenne,
me vene quase 'na malincunia;
sotto 'a fenesta toia restarria
quanno fa notte e 'o sole se ne scenne.

Ma n'atu sole
cchiù bello, oje ne'.
O sole mio
sta 'nfronte a te!
O sole
O sole mio
sta 'nfronte a te!
sta 'nfronte a te!

English Translation

What a wonderful thing a sunny day
The serene air after a thunderstorm
The fresh air, and a party is already going on…
What a wonderful thing a sunny day.

But another sun,
that’s brighter still
It’s my own sun
that’s in your face!
The sun, my own sun
It’s in your face!
It’s in your face!

When night comes and the sun has gone down,
I start feeling blue;
I’d stay below your window
When night comes and the sun has gone down.

But another sun,
that’s brighter still
It’s my own sun
that’s in your face!
The sun, my own sun
It’s in your face!
It’s in your face!

And now Proust transforming this song of light and joy into an Elegy...

...le chant de Sole moi s'élevait comme un chant de déploration de la Venise que j'avais connue et semblait prendre à témoin mon malheur....

and later..

...cette occupation sans plaisir en elle même d'écouter Sole moi se chargeait d'une tristesse profonde, presque désespérée..... Et c'est peut-être cette tristesse, comme une sorte de froid engourdissant qui faisait le charme même, le charme désespéré mais fascinant de ce chant, chaque note que lançait la voix du chanteur avec une force et une ostentation presque musculaires venait me frapper en plein coeur.... s'il avait besoin de proclamer une fois de plus ma solitude et mon désespoir. pp. 317-318

"the muscular strength" of the voice certainly makes one think of Pavarotti....!!!

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Kalliope wrote: We visited the Scrovegni chapel at night, and it is an unforgettable visit.

Gorgeous! I'm sure you got goosebumps the minute you ente..."

That is an idea... certainly it must have impressed him.... He had already seen it when he began writing the novel, but he chose to refer only to the "grisailles" a the bottom of the wall, with the Vices and Virtues, in his Combray part, to acquire the full dimension and color later on, once he undertakes his redeeming trip to Venice...

When we read the secondary texts we may find a reference to this.

He mentions the effect that the horizon of the Arsenal pond or laguna as he approaches it...

Dans le bassin de l'Arsenal, à cause d'un élément scientifique lui aussi, la latitude, il y avait cette singularité des choses qui même semblables en apparence à celles de notre pays se révèlent étrangères, en exil sous d'autres cieux; je sentais que cet horizon si voisin que j'attendrais en une heure de barque c'était une courbature de la terre tout autre que celle de France.... si bien que ce bassin de l'Arsenal à la fois insignifiant et lointain me remplissait de ce mélange de dégout et d'effroi....p. 317.

I did not experience the same feelings when we visited the Arsenal laguna.. Beautiful at night (part of the Biennale is exhibited there - the craziest part, although may be some works were a bit "dégoutant" now that I think of it..).

Honestly Kalliope you bring so much to our reading that I feel sorry for the pour souls who have to read Proust on their own. That is not to take away from the rest of you that bring so much analysis to the discussion. And lucky the future readers who will find this group. There needs to be a blog post by our humble host Proustitute who set this up in the first place, that becomes a first hit on google so that people find this at the beginnig of their read. There are so many other blogs that surface first, but not ours, yet!

Kalliope wrote:That is an idea... certainly it must have impressed him.... He had already seen it when he began writing the novel, but he chose to refer only to the "grisailles" a the bottom of the wall, with the Vices and Virtues, in his Combray part, to acquire the full dimension and color later on, once he undertakes his redeeming trip to Venice...


Kalli you wrote this earlier:

What I found most extraordinary about the way he introduces Venice is by the parallel he establishes between this city of the imagination, Venice, with the village inhabiting also his imagination, as memories of a Temps Perdu.

!!!!!

This is much too irresistible , the impulse to google o sole mio! I found this:


http://www.miscelaneajournal.net/imag...

I will read it when I catch up. Here it is for you to read.

Kalliope wrote: "And this is why Proust does not belong to anyone, while belonging to everyone. Everyone reads in his novel what one wants to read. There are as many La recherches as readers the novel has had, has, and will have..."

Well stated. At first it was comforting to see myself within the Narrator's world, to be able to empathize with his various emotions, memories (olfactory, gustatory, etc). But now it is woven into the "fabric" of this reading experience.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "This is much too irresistible , the impulse to google o sole mio! I found this:

I will read it when I catch up. Here..."

Reem, you really are a fisher of precious catch in this internet.

I am printing this to read at the end of this volume (soon).

Interesting link on Proust and Venice... with Ruskin in the background.

http://www.thewordtravels.com/venice-...

Proust stayed at this hotel:

http://danieli.hotelinvenice.com/phot...

It was originally the Palazzo Dandolo, and as one could expect, more famous people stayed there...

The wiki article has some interesting info..

Martin wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "And this is why Proust does not belong to anyone, while belonging to everyone. Everyone reads in his novel what one wants to read. There are as many La recherches as readers the no..."

Thank you Martin. I also think that the fact that this is an extended read, the novel has had time to find its own place in each one of our minds... different places, different meanings, different associations....

And this is the Florian caffe, where Proust used to go...

Kalliope wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "This is much too irresistible , the impulse to google o sole mio! I found this:

I will read it when I catch up. Here..."

Reem, you really are a fisher of precious c..."

Thank you Kalliope! :)

Like Swann the Narrator compares the woman he loves most to a painting. But Venice is magic for the Narrator and for Proust too who finishes this sentence making it a double incantation.

A time has now come when, remembering the baptistery of St Mark's—contemplating the waters of the Jordan in which St John immerses Christ, while the gondola awaited us at the landing stage of the Piazzetta—it is no longer a matter of indifference to me that, beside me in that cool penumbra, there should have been a woman draped in her mourning with the respectful and enthusiastic fervour of the old woman in Carpaccio's St Ursula in the Accademia, and that that woman, with her red cheeks and sad eyes and in her black veils, whom nothing can ever remove from that softly lit sanctuary of St Mark's where I am always sure to find her because she has her place reserved there as immutably as a mosaic, should be my mother. ML p. 876

There is another side to Venice, a darker side, as chronicled in this novel's sojourn but told more specifically by Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and more recently by Ian McEwan's Comfort of Strangers along with many other earlier works. Yes there is a magic to Venice but magic gives as it takes away, nothing is free.

Here it seemed to be deliberately concealed in an interlacement of alleys, like those palaces in oriental tales whither mysterious agents convey by night a person who, brought back home before daybreak, can never find his way back to the magic dwelling which he ends by believing that he visited only in a dream. ML p. 882

And as there is no great difference between the memory of a dream and the memory of a reality, I finally wondered whether it was not during my sleep that there had occurred, in a dark patch of Venetian crystallization, that strange mirage which offered a vast piazza surrounded by romantic palaces to the meditative eye of the moon. ML p. 882

For I felt myself to be alone; things had become alien to me...The town that I saw before me had ceased to be Venice. Its personality, its name, seemed to me to be mendacious fictions which I no longer had the will to impress upon its stones. ML p. 884

And yet another example that continues the issue first raised in comment #42 in the Nov.3rd thread.

A post-modern concept that was further elaborated by other authors later, who then consciously experimented with it, but which Proust raised already.

The role of the reader in finalizing, a one version, of a given text.

The incident with the letter from Gilberte which makes him realize his mistake with the telegram.

Combien de lettres dit dans un mot une personne distraite et surtout prévenue, qui part de l'idée que la lettre est d'une certaine personne, combien de mots dans la phrase? On devine en lisant, on crée: tout part d'une erreur initiale; celles qui suivent (et ce n'est pas seulement dans la lecture des lettres et des télégrammes, pas seulement dans toute lecture), si extraordinaires qu'elles puissent paraître á celui qui n'a pas le même point de départ, sont toutes naturelles.p. 320

and he continues by then extending this idea to our thinking and beliefs in general...

Une bonne partie de ce que nous croyons, et jusque dans les conclusions dernières c'est ainsi, avec un entêtement et une bonne foi égales, vient d'une première méprise sur les prémisses.

The word "crépusculaire" acts like a key to memories of Albertine....

Proust used it in his last letter to Agostinelli...

The letter is quoted in the Intro of the GF edition..

Mon cher Alfred, je vous remercie de votre lettre une phrase était ravissante (crépusculaire..etc)....

And now it appears in this section...

.. in the part in which he finds the song O sole mil saddening...

.. le soleil arrêté derrière Saint-Georges le Majeur, si bien que cette lumière crépusculaire devait faire à jamais dans ma mémoire avec le frisson de mon émotion et la voix de bronze du chanteur, un alliage équivoque, immutable et poignant.p. 318-319:

we also see another "key" reappearing twice, but this one has had more than one value... the "clair de lune" or moon light.

entouré de charmants palais, pâle de clair de lune p. 314.

and une vaste place entourée de palais romantiques à la méditation prolongée du clair de lune.p. 315.

The section in which he tells us of his promenades along the narrow streets, the calli, brought memories and images from my recent visit.... With my images I am showing you "my" Proust..

Il était bien rare que je ne découvrisse pas au hasard de mes promenades quelque place inconnue et spacieuse dont aucun guide, aucun voyageur (Ruskin?) ne m'avait parlé. Je m'étais engagé dans un réseau de petites ruelles, de calli. p. 314

About the photo Book P posted of Proust sitting on a terrace looking out on the Laguna - I thought it fitted perfectly with the scene after the mother has left for the station and the Narrator orders a drink on the hotel terrace, and out on the water is the singer, balancing on his boat, singing his tear-jerker of a serenade for all the susceptible tourists perched on their wicker chairs overlooking the water. But what is our narrator thinking?
Bientôt, elle serait partie, je serais seul à Venise, seul avec la tristesse de la savoir peinée par moi, et sans sa présence pour me consoler
To paraphrase, he is thinking that soon his mother will have departed and he will be alone with the sadness of knowing he has caused her huge distress but without - and here I half expected him to say something like: 'without my being able to console her for the distress I caused'. But of course this is our dear narrator speaking so instead he says 'without her presence to console me for having caused her distress'. Or something to that effect. There is a subtle humour hiding in his words sometimes.

That word 'crépusculaire' is interesting, Kalliope, since it underlines how later events were inserted into an earlier account as in the example of Giotto's angels which were first compared to the Wright brothers and later to other French aviators.

Fionnuala wrote: "But of course this is our dear narrator speaking so instead he says 'without her presence to console me for having caused her distress.."

Yes...., I have to admit that I grew a bit irritated in this part... I just had to brush it off with his negative take of O sole mio, which seemed almost a joke..., it had more the effect of whining rather than real despair... So, I agree with your sensing a touch of humour.

And I think we should be pleased with ourselves in this group for having paid attention to the leitmotiv of Fortuny in the previous volume.

He is brought up again, now very closely to the Carpaccio pageants (included in Karpeles, so I will not post them here – I visited them last Tuesday, though) and in particular to the Saint Ursula series, and to one of the panels of the Miracle of the True Cross (incorrectly called by Proust Le patriarche di Grado exorcisant un possedé).

Looking at the Carpaccios he recognizes a cape or coat designed by Fortuny and worn by Albertine

je venais de reconnaître le manteau qu’Albertine avait pour venir avec moi en voiture découverte à Versailles... elle avait jeté sur les épaules un manteau de Fortuny qu’elle avait emporté avec elle le lendemain et que je n’avias revu depus dans mes souvenirs. Or c’était dans ce tableau de Carpaccio que le fils génial de Vénise l’avait pris. p. 311.

I have just finished reading Fortuny, Proust y los Ballets Rusos.

I plan to write a review but will include here some of his points.

Guillermo De Osma has produced the first comprehensive biography on Mariano de Fortuny y Madrazo.

In this small book (was given to me in my Venice trip), the author draws attention to:

The Redemptive role of Fortuny’s clothes, in particular the attention given to the couple of birds drinking, in an oriental (arabic – byzantine) style which we have posted in this forum. We had focused on their roles as symbols of death and resurrection.

He says that no dresses of Fortuny contained these birds, but his materials for walls and upholstery did (Marcelita posted a beautiful example).

He quotes a letter by Proust to Maria Hahn, in translation, El leitmotiv Fortuny, poco desarrollado pero vital, jugará un papel a la vez sensual, poético y doloroso (The Fortuny leitmotiv will play, if somewhat underdeveloped, still a vital role with sensual, poetic and painful qualities – my translation).

The author gives some historical facts, such as clarifying the relationship between Maria Hahn and Mariano de Fortuny, since Painter, Carter and Collier did not get it right. Maria Hahn, Reynaldo’s sister, was the second wife of Mariano’s uncle (Raymundo de Madrazo, sister to his mother Cecilia de Madrazo). The uncle Raymundo de Madrazo had had a son by his first marriage, Cocó (Federico) Madrazo, who was close in age to Reynaldo, Proust, and to his stepmother Maria. These four formed a quartet of friends in Venice. It has not been proven that Proust and Mariano ever met. But they could have easily met either in Venice or in Paris.

Something interesting... He emphasizes that Fortuny was first and foremost a painter, and not a clothes designer. He was also very active in stage settings and illumination (and we have seen how the theatrical also attracted Proust). It is thanks to his training as a painter that his clothes are so devoid of all the established accoutrements of the clothes for women prior WWI (corset, polisson... ). They are close to the bodies and delineate the figures that he would have been drawing endlessly in his academic studies of Nudes.

And we can of course think that given that we know that Albertine is the ghost of a man, this kind of costumes with no shape to them would be the most appropriate to insinuate the erotic in his “Albertine” because these gowns do not hide the body.

These dresses, with their allusion to ancient Greece also become “atemporal” and therefore suitable for Proust’s handling of time.

These clothes give a nude quality to the person wearing them, and therefore make them suitable for interiors only. Albertine wears Fortuny “robes de chambre”, “peignoirs”, “déshabillés”, “teagowns”.. and this suitability for interiors only adds to the intimacy of their relationship. She wore them for the enjoyment of the Narrator. These are gowns which bring out and offer the body rather than hide it.

Prior to WWI Fortuny’s dresses were not offered commercially. His first pieces, “écharpes Knossos” were shown at Mme Lemaire’s in 1908, and later, publicly, in an Expo in 1911. Users were Isadora Duncan, actress Eleanora Dure, the dancer Ruth Saint Denis, Princesse Murat.

He refers to Proust and Venice, which I may get...

There is the book Mariano Fortuny, arte, ciencia y diseño or Mariano Fortuny: His Life and Work.

I am trying to find out whether they are the same book, but just different editions. The one in English is very expensive. The other one is affordable.

And some trivia on Fortuny's dresses.

Anne Leibovitz dressed Susan Sontag in a Fortuny gown when the latter died. She was laid in one such gowns.

http://articles.philly.com/2006-10-26...

Palazzo Fortuny was originally called Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei. From the 15th century, it had first belonged to the wealthy Pesaro family but when they moved it became the site for a music academy the Accademia Filarmonica deli Orfei.

It is normally closed but for the Biennale they tend to open it and organize an exhibition that complements the permanent collection of Fortuny's things.



Inside court









View across the campo from inside the Fortuny.

And this is the altarpiece for the Pesaro family (first owners of the Palazzo above), by Titian, and which Proust must have seen. It is in the Frari church. I however did not see it, since the chapel was being renovated (to my sorrow).



The Pesaros are in the right hand corner.

I have moved on from the Venice section and there is a lot I want to discuss but I will be patient and just comment for the moment on the way all the loose threads in the fabric of the Recherche are being tucked away neatly. The concept of du côté de is elaborated and explained in ways I could only guess at in the earlier volumes. Remembering how we discussed alternative translations for the title of the first book, I now realise that without reaching the end, we could not begin to understand the full significance of the titles Proust chose so carefully.
I am very curious too about the last volume because this section reads so much like a final volume should. But I'm sure Proust has something up his sleeve....

Kalliope wrote: "And I think we should be pleased with ourselves in this group for having paid attention to the leitmotiv of Fortuny in the previous volume.

He is brought up again, now very closely to the Carpacci..."

To add to this I found this link that covers Fortuny quite well. Maybe it's been posted before, but definitely worth seeing again.



Incredibly beautiful!

Fortuny’s 1896 Flower Maidens from Parsifal is one of his cycle of 46 Wagnerian mythologies on show in Leipzig to celebrate the composer’s 200th birthday. At the Klinger Forum through July 8 (and possibly Bayreuth thereafter). Palazzo Fortuny, Musei Civici, Venice,

"Like much of the cultural elite of his time, Fortuny was besotted with Richard Wagner’s “music dramas” as well as with Wagner’s ideal of the unification of all art forms into a single event. Tapped to work on costumes and scenery for the 1900 La Scala production of “Tristan und Isolde,” he recognized that theatrical lighting failed Wagner’s unified-arts goals. He conducted experiments to find a way for light to flow and change with the texture of the music, that quickly transforms to enhance shifts of mood and atmosphere. He found that light reflected off various surfaces changes such properties as color and intensity, and patented a system to achieve this in 1901. He engineered his next invention, the Fortuny Cyclorama Dome, to allow illusions of a more extensive sky and distant horizon than perspective and stage size could create on their own. “Theatrical scenery will be able to transform itself in tune with music, within the latter’s domain,” he reported. ”That is to say in time whereas hitherto it has only been able to develop in space.”

More on his designs:
http://jdavidsen.wordpress.com/tag/fo...

No wonder
"Marcel Proust described Fortuny as “faithfully antique but powerfully original,” and mentioned him at least sixteen times in “Remembrance of Things Past,” where he was the only real character."

Fionnuala wrote: "I have moved on from the Venice section and there is a lot I want to discuss but I will be patient and just comment for the moment on the way all the loose threads in the fabric of the Recherche ar..."

I am soon leaving Venice... and will come back to this comment, Fio.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "And I think we should be pleased with ourselves in this group for having paid attention to the leitmotiv of Fortuny in the previous volume.

He is brought up again, now very closel..."

Again Reem finding treasures in the web.

I have to run now, and I want to come back to this... but here are a few pictures of a shop we found with lovely things and the Fortuny lamps that you have posted... near the Peggy Guggenheim museum..

Store is Venetia Studium

http://www.venetiastudium.com

And my pics...

The store



The Shade



And the ceiling lamps... at an angle to fit them all..

Normally I try to read the week's reading before I look at the thread because I don't like to know beforehand what to anticipate. This week, luckily I checked in here first, and saw all the photos shared by Kalliope, and BP and things that Fionnuala said, and the Khan Academy video links, and I'm so glad I did because the recognition only enhanced my reading experience. Venice is magical.I'm thrilled that Kalliope's trip was so perfectly timed!

Mamma looks at what she sees and speaks of it as if she were a tourist taking photos with a point and shoot camera of Venice for 'the folks back home' and they would be her mother, so in mourning is she. It's not real for Mamma without seeing it through someone else's eyes and I wonder how much more authentic on this Earth she feels having the loving devotion of her suffering child. They do have a bond, don't they.

"...How she would have loved the whole of Venice, and what informality, worthy of nature itself, she would have found in all these beauties, this plethora of objects that seem to need no formal arrangement but present themselves just as they are—the Doges' Palace with it! cubic shape, the columns which you say are those of Herod's palace, slap in the middle of the Piazzetta, and, even less deliberately placed, put there as though for want of anywhere better, the pillars from Acre, and those horses on the balcony of St Mark's! Your grandmother would have had as much pleasure seeing the sun setting over the Doges' Palace as over a mountain."

I finished the 6th volume tonight and if I had to criticize the novel I would say that primarily the novel swings from the pole of pleasure to its opposite, non-pleasure or suffering and it does it constantly. There is little in-between, there are few shades of gray of feeling except when the Narrator describes other people, their history, their traits, their "social personalities" and this is so refreshing in the latter portion of the last chapter of this volume where he speaks of his disappointment for the loss, or better the distancing, of his friendship with Saint Loup, his renewal of friendship with Gilberte and his 'sympathy' for her, what the Duke would say about the marriages, what Charlus would feel about them, etc. Even though he becomes a 'detective' again, when he relies on the hearsay of Aime, of Jupien; "But when did the change date from?" is familiar, but less innocuous and more indirect than the continual querying of Albertine was.

It almost feels like a new day, a breath of fresh air.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Normally I try to read the week's reading before I look at the thread because I don't like to know beforehand what to anticipate. This week, luckily I checked in here first, and saw all the photos ..."

Thank you Reem,

Yes, the posts on Venice and on Padua are not spoilers but illustrate the reading of the week, and I think help in conjuring the magical power that the city held for Proust.

It is hard to find things specific on Proust's Venice (apart from the art that he admired and the Fortuny clan) given how popular Venice has been amongst generations and generations of painters, musicians and writers....

I should have wrote this last night when it was all so clear; I'm afraid now it's going to sound jumbled and confused:

Someone mentioned the titles that Proust had carefully chosen, and as I finished up last night, I began to see the "Fugitive" in several threads. Odette: Having tried so hard to flee her own personality, her own sins of the past, she must look in the mirror named Gilberte. There are others, such as Charlus and St. Loup, whom I see trying to escape themselves, only to run smack into those things that they had tried so hard to flee.

Again, sorry for the ramble.

Martin wrote: "

Someone mentioned the titles that Proust had carefully chosen, and as I finis..."

Yes, Martin, I agree with you on the themes of escape whether from others or oneself are certainly there... I am not sure about the title, however. The French title is different (Albertine disparue - Disappeared Albertine) and even that was probably given by Marcel's brother.

This sixth volume has been put together in a very different fashion from the way Proust had planned it a few years earlier (1919)... and although he then changed many things after 1919, particularly adding large sections, we cannot be entirely sure that he would have finalized it the way we have it, including the title.