The Year of Reading Proust discussion

This thread is for the discussion that will take place through Sunday, 20 Oct. of The Fugitive, to page 637 (to the paragraph beginning: “Set free once more, released from the cage...”)

This is a harder read, from the point of view of being aware of dealing with a draft, than the previous volume.

The G-F edition comes from markings and brackets on the margins. And my audio does not correspond exactly to the G-F.

I also have the Gallimard based on the 1954 edition. I will try and compare them.

In spite of the turmoil of his feelings in the early pages of this week's reading, the Narrator comes up with some very lucid analysis, full of imagery, of how we deal with the new and unexpected, and how our intelligence is of little use in this situation, relying as it does on the known for support. And all of this is threaded through with more and more references to the first volume, to Combray and Un Amour de Swann.
But then, to my surprise he throws in a very homespun sort of phrase, the kind you might hear from your grandmother: Mais il est infiniment rare qu'on se quitte bien, car si on était bien on ne se quitterait pas p82, except of course the grandmother in question might drop the word infiniment! I love how after pages of lofty meditation, he can bring us back to earth with a bang.
I'm wondering how that was translated and if it sounds equally colloquial in English.
Another aphorism that doesn't sound quite like his usual polished phrase: chacun a sa propre manière d'être trahi, comme il a sa propre manière de s'enrhumer p 83.Each has his unique way of being betrayed as each has his own way of catching a cold?
As you say, Kalliope, this is a draft. It's going to be interesting to read as we learn something about how he sets out to compose a passage. Also noticed references to several mistresses of the past? Are we supposed to know about them?

More Audubon similes:

As for Albertine herself, she scarcely existed
in me save under the form of her name, which, but for
certain rare moments of respite when I awoke, came and
engraved itself upon my brain and continued incessantly
to do so. If I had thought aloud, I should have kept on
repeating it, and my speech would have been as mono-
tonous, as limited, as if I had been transformed into a
bird, a bird like the one in the fable whose song repeated
incessantly the name of her whom it had loved when a
man. ML p. 581

We have 2 volumes left to read; this one, a draft and like the one that follows it were published posthumously but they differ in their time of writing; this one, Albertine disparue was written close to Proust's death; the other, Le Temps retrouvé was drafted 10 or so years earlier. It will be interesting to note how Proust's style changed over time, even considering that the one written earlier (the last volume) may be more finished.

@Marcelita

My dear Marcelita, or those of you who would shrink at my calling you "dear", can you help me? As À la recherche du temps perdu appears to be unfinished, or not finished the way Proust had wanted, are there sequels that continue certain parts of the story by different authors or authors who have used his characters to tell their own stories?

Now why I like the story of the Narrator picking up a young girl and being served with a summons from the head of the Sûreté is that the time of the story is collapsed as if it occurred the same day: the summons, his appearance, the inspector, etc. in a 'real' time which probably had a longer duration in the naturalism or the language that proust uses to tell his story.

What he does here is refreshing in that he uses a change of voice to abridge time in the story: he alternates between the active Narrator and the reflective Narrator. The active Narrator is served a summons, the reflective Narrator comments, much later but seemingly the same day, the active Narrator appears before the head of Sûreté and so on, time is condensed. Simple but marvelous.

In the initial pages of this volume Proust uses this technique frequently as the Narrator is stressed by Albertine's departure and it serves to carry the emotional climate of the story well. Perhaps to Proust these were notes, perhaps Proust would have changed them had he had time, perhaps...but they are worthwhile nevertheless.

The theme of the captive bird returns now in Massenet's Opera Manon.

Here is Netrebko and Villazón. In the first of the two videos, from minute 2:35.. In concert version, not staged.

The text in French is in the page as well.

http://caminodemusica.com/anna-netreb...

And here, staged with Renée Fleming and Alvarez.

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

Fionnuala wrote: "In spite of the turmoil of his feelings in the early pages of this week's reading, the Narrator comes up with some very lucid analysis, full of imagery, of how we deal with the new and unexpected, ..."

Although I was a bit "désappointée" after the end of last volume that we did not begin this one with the packed suitcases and the train schedule in the hand, I am finding it an extraordinary section on self-analysis.

All the thought processes in slow motion...

Out of the two aphorisms you quote, I like the second one.

chacun a sa propre manière d'être trahi, comme il a sa propre manière de s'enrhumer

My Kindle app says that 7 other people highlighted this same passage and I wondered how many of them thought of social media as I had.

The bonds between ourselves and another
person exist only in our minds. Memory as it grows
fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by
which we want to be duped and with which, out of love,
friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people,
we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape
from himself, who knows other people only in himself,
and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying. ML p. 607

Eugene wrote: "My Kindle app says that 7 other people highlighted this same passage and I wondered how many of them thought of social media as I had.

The bonds between ourselves and another
person exist only ..."

Eugene, I have to confess I am about 2 weeks behind the schedule in my reading so I do not know the context of this quote.

I find this sad...and I mean deeply sad. I am trying to understand your reference to social media. Death has been a thread in my life this year...not my own imminent demise...but those who have meant a great deal to me in sometimes complex and imperfect relationships. And in all honesty is that not the nature of all humans...complexity & imperfection?

I believe we live with one another, we pass from this world alone. Our bonds do loosen as memory grows fainter. But even in those times our dependence on others grows stronger. In death bonds, at least as we have known them as living breathing human beings, are severed. We could have endless conversation about what may happen to our energy/bonds/soul/spirit, if anything. But as long as we are on this earth we are a member of a community whether it be a physical connection or with a correspondent in letters written in our own hand or words written on a keyboard and sent into cyberspace.

I know I have been conscious of the humanity receiving my message as I posted this year on this site. That is a connection. A responsibility. A bond. It is not a lie...or an abstract concept.

I know you only through the words you have chosen to share. I may not know you or read your words past this year. Who knows? But I promise I will not forget you...or the many others who have participated and been committed or intrigued or moved or vulnerable enough to post. Those who have stayed as well as those who have left.

I know you not through myself...but through you, the person you have shared with us in your own words.

We may dupe other people in one sentence or two or three...or in a few conversations. In a year's worth of communication the person we are is present in our words...our voice.

How does social media factor into the fact that we are all complex & imperfect human beings sharing this one year in the reading of Proust knowing the words we have written will live perhaps long past any of us ...but will certainly be imprinted on each of us as long as we live?

Ce Ce wrote: "...we are all complex & imperfect human beings sharing this one year in the reading of Proust knowing the words we have written will live perhaps long past any of us ...but will certainly be imprinted on each of us as long as we live.. "

Even when we remove these words of yours from their context, Ce Ce, they remain a perfect summation of both our experience of reading Proust, each absorbing the words individually but each benefitting from the multitude of echoes those words produce in the minds of the other members of this group, and of Proust's own philosophy and motivation. It seems to me that yours is a very Proustian way of seeing.
Hurry up and catch up!

Kalliope wrote: ".Although I was a bit "désappointée" after the end of last volume that we did not begin this one with the packed suitcases and the train schedule in the hand, I am finding it an extraordinary section on self-analysis."
Like you I was eager for the train schedule to be consulted, for a return to his interesting preoccupation with place names that it might provide. So far nothing except Saint-Loup dashing off to Touraine.
But the synchronicity between all the couples in this book is being underlined, isn't it? I found echoes of the Narrator's shock at first meeting Rachel with Saint-Loup in this week's reading reading. And we are told that Albertine has gotten fatter and Swann made similar observations about Odette....

Ce Ce you're such a cheerleader.

My Twitter account forces me to say what I must in 140 characters and I like it for that. In fact @proustr is what got me reading Proust and to this year of reading Proust as it was Swann's way, ~140 characters, one tweet every 10 minutes, tweeted to the last word. When the volume was over I suggested to the owner that he continue with Budding Grove but he chose Finnegan's Wake and that really saddened me.

Yes, read on & catch up...

Ce Ce: I know what you mean about the loss of someone with whom you had an imperfect relationship. Or, as I call it, "unfinished business." You see, if I wanted to look up my first husband and tell him what a tool he had been (or apologize: it could go either way; we were both young and stupid), I could. I won't; because I don't feel like it! But I could. When a person has died, however, you no longer have this option and the experience is terribly, terribly painful. And remember the Grandmother's tragic words to her daughter; "Goodbye, my child; goodbye forever." One only learns exactly what "forever" means when one loses through death (and not through quarrels, ill temper, stupidity, et. al.

Eugene wrote: "My Twitter account forces me to say what I must in 140 characters and I like it for that. In fact @proustr is what got me reading Proust and to this year of reading Proust as it was Swann's way, ~140 characters, one tweet every 10 minutes, tweeted to the last word. When the volume was over I suggested to the owner that he continue with Budding Grove but he chose Finnegan's Wake and that really saddened me.

Yes, read on & catch up... "

At the risk of bordering on lounge talk I admit posting in 140 characters may be an insurmountable task for me! I don't tweet or tumbl ;-)...despite very eloquent introductions to the two from Reem.

One tweet every 10 minutes? 140 characters? That sounds like a nightmare to do...and to anticipate! What has this world come to...really? :-D

@ Fionnuala and Eugene...I promise I am peddling as fast as I can...I'm on the October 6th schedule. Trying to meet a final deadline today in a long list of work related stuff. And then I'll READ.

@Elizabeth I will meet you in the lounge

Elizabeth wrote: "But I could. When a person has died, however, you no longer have this option and the experience is terribly, terribly painful.."

It is like an early 20th century, French version of "In the Living Years" by Mike and the Mechanics. A song I never understood until I actually said out loud: "I didn't get to tell him/all the things I had to say."

This reading endeavor has truly changed my life, and opened my eyes to see, smell, taste, and touch time and memories, though I never get to hold it or recapture it.

Martin wrote: "This reading endeavor has truly changed my life, and opened my eyes to see, smell, taste, and touch time and memories, though I never get to hold it or recapture it."

So beautifully, and I might add succinctly, stated. Thank you Marcus.

J Frederick wrote: "What would picking up a "little girl" mean in this situation? ("Outside Albertine's door I found a little poor girl who looked at me wide eyed...") The "I rocked her for a while on my knees" bit is..."

It is difficult to know what the Narrator means here, J. But it is possible that this incident around a vulnerable minor simply reveals the Narrator at his most vulnerable.

Edit: having read on a bit, and seen a note in my edition to the effect that this episode was added to the text later, I think that perhaps the incident is intended to serve some plot purpose: that the Narrator will dread Albertine's return because she will discover that he is now under police surveillance? Or some other future twist? My imagination has conjured up several...

Elizabeth wrote: "OK. One: the Narrator asks Albertine's concierge where she has gone. This implies that she has a separate apartment? However, she has been living fulltime with the Narrator.
Two: the Narrator says, "Having one day opened by mistake a letter to one of my mistresses, a letter written in a pre-arrranged code..." Then he goes on to say the letter had been for another person in his building, and delivered to him by mistake.
My point: ONE of my mistresses? Does it perchance really say "one of my mistresses' letters"? I find this passage very confusing. N.b. it is on p. 573 of the Modern Library edition, trans by Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright. It's rather thrown my for a loop. That and the fact that Albertine has a concierge of her own. Any thoughts?"

I think he is talking about the concierge at Mme Bontemps' Paris apartment, Elizabeth. In the early pages of the previous book, there was a mention of Albertine returning to her aunt's apartment to collect belongings.
Your second point about the mistresses: yes, that threw me too - I mentioned it briefly in post #3.
Here is how that piece reads in the original, or at least the draft that Garnier Flammarion chose, and it is confusing:
Je construisais si bien la verité, mais dans le possible seulement, qu'ayant un jour ouvert par erreur une lettre pour une de mes maitresses, cette lettre écrite en style convenu et qui disait: "Attends toujours une signe pour aller chez le Marquis de Saint-Loup, prévenez demain par téléphone", je reconstituai une sorte de fuite projetée, le nom de Saint-Loup n'étant là que pour signifier autre chose, car ma maîtresse ne connaissait pas Saint-Loup, mais m'avait entendu parler de lui, et d'ailleurs la signature était une espèce de surnom, sans aucune forme de langage. Or la lettre n'était pas adressé à ma maitresse, mais a une personne de la maison qui portait un nom différent mais qu'on avait mal lu. La lettre n'était pas en signes convenu mais en mauvais français parce quelle était dune Américaine, effectivement amie de Sain-Loup comme celui-ci me l'apprit. P 83 GF
Ok, the only explanation I can see is that the Narrator is intended to be speaking here about the character Albertine, but Proust has become confused between the fiction he is creating and his own memories. As if he is remembering a real life incident of some coded letter which his 'mistress' arranged to be sent to another person in the building to keep it more secret. I find this explanation fits with the incident a few pages later when Saint-Loup has a strange reaction to Albertine's photo indicating that he might know her - just as the narrator realised he knew Rachel when S-L first introduced them. The Narrator is made to appear naive here, imagining that he knows everyone that Albertine knows as if that were even possible, but I think it is clearly part of Proust's intention for the plot that the Narrator remains naive about who Albertine might or might not know. Perhaps, naive is not the right word, in retrospect, but willfully blind.
I hope that helps.

Yes, it helps a lot. Because that original clearly says "mes maitresses" and then reverts to "ma maitresse." I think as we near the end of the book we will find more and more glitches like this.
And I also understand the part about the concierge now.

I am a bit behind in my double reading... But I was relieved to find that Proust finally quotes Mallarmé.. I had been so surprised that he had not been mentioned yet.

And the analysis of Phèdre made me think I want to reread the play and watch my DVD...

Kalliope wrote: "I am a bit behind in my double reading....."

Thanks for the Massenet link you posted yesterday, Kall. It was nice to hear what the Narrator was listening to, and just such words as he would love to have heard Albertine utter...

The Narrator begins to mature; he finds respite or truth in a simultaneity of emotion from his childish and polar vacillations of what Albertine causes him to feel: boredom when he has her or pain when he doesn't. This is exemplified by his second-chance opportunity to not post the letter and his odd, up until now, decision to let her (as does Phèdre to Hippolyte) make the decision whether to come back to him or not, for him to embrace life or art, his vacillations. The Narrator (who has always decided for Albertine) will let her make the decision or so he says. More tomorrow on this interesting passage...

But I foresaw none of all this. The probable outcome
of my letter seemed to me on the contrary to be to make
Albertine return to me at once. And so, with this outcome
in mind, I had felt a sweet pleasure in writing the letter.
But at the same time I had not ceased to shed tears while
writing it; partly, first of all, in the same way as on the
day when I had acted a pretense of separation, because, as
the words represented for me the idea which they ex-
pressed to me although they were addressed to a different
end (uttered mendaciously because my pride forbade me
to admit that I loved), they carried their own load of sorrow,
but also because I felt that the idea contained a grain
of truth. ML p. 616-617

Elizabeth wrote: "Yes, it helps a lot. Because that original clearly says "mes maitresses" and then reverts to "ma maitresse." I think as we near the end of the book we will find more and more glitches like this."

It remains a puzzle all the same. That 'ma maîtresse' could refer to one of the group of mistresses he'd mentioned in that piece I quoted in post #19 and not to Albertine at all. The problem is we'd never heard of the Narrator having any other mistresses which was why I thought this might be a little bit of real life intruding but the mention of Saint-Loup, a fictional character in the Recherche, in the episode of the coded letter, rules that out. I'd be interested to see if anyone else has an explanation for this.

Proust throws in these weird allusions; this is not the only one. After mentioning the Narrator as a semi-invalid, he casually has him fighting duels and riding horseback...strange. Are they glitches? Or was there a purpose?

L'Habitude becomes so strong that it is a "divinité redoutable" (this reference to Gluck's opera has come up before)...

Jusqu'ici je l'avais considérée comme un pouvoir annihilateur que supprime l'originalité et jusqu'à la conscience des perceptions; maintenant je la voyais comme une divinité redoutable, si rivée à nous, son visage insignifiant si incrusté dans notre coeur que si elle se détache, si elle se détourne de nous, cette déité que nous ne distinguons presque pas, nous inflige des souffrances plus terribles qu'aucune et qu'alors elle est aussi cruelle que la mort.> p. 76.

I think this is so far the strongest statement on the power of his dreaded "habitude".

This whole section seems like a cathartic effort from Proust's part to try and deal with the death of Agostinelli.. the fiction seems so very close to reality.. It looks as if he is trying to conjure up the demons in his mind and the circular thinking in which he is trapped, through this fictional recreation. Uncanny.

The introduction to the G-F quotes letters from which the following is an echo:

.. Il est triste de penser que les Bontemps sont des gens véreux qui se servent de leur nièce pour m'extorquer de l'argent. Mais qu'importe. p. 77

(Will look for the corresponding extract and post later on).

I shall also come back to this.. more examples further along.

In spite of this obsessive passage (instead of the escape to Venice that I was looking forward to), we get such lucid passages... A trip with a different destination: Self-knowledge.

Now on the "moi".. and consciousness.

Elle me fit penser à moi. Or comme le moi vit incessamment en pensant une quantité de choses, quand par hasard au lieu d'avoir devant lui ces choses, il pense tout d'un coup à soi-même, il ne trouve qu'un appareil vide, quelque chose qu'il ne connaît pas, auquel pour lui donner quelque réalité il ajoute le souvenir d'une figure aperçue dans la glace..... Et mon moi me parut encore plus nul de le voir déjà comme quelque chose qui n'existe plus. Comment pourrait-il être difficile de sacrifier .... cet autre être auquel nous ne pensons jamais: nous-même? p. 78.

Fionnuala wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "Yes, it helps a lot. Because that original clearly says "mes maitresses" and then reverts to "ma maitresse." I think as we near the end of the book we will find more and more gl..."

I agree that this passage is not clear.. But I took it as an example of the way "l'intelligence" works.. he seems interested in understanding the way a mental framework functions (l'armature intellectuelle) that later on he would use in his dealings with Albertine..

But we will see whether we learn more on this.

Elizabeth wrote: "Proust throws in these weird allusions; this is not the only one. After mentioning the Narrator as a semi-invalid, he casually has him fighting duels and riding horseback...strange. Are they glit..."

Yes, very disconcerting... I also found a jump in the way the S&G volume ended and the way the next one started.. supposedly seamless in the narrative but presenting a considerable change in the Narrator.. the young man who is considering marriage had turned suddenly into an invalid... and this impression is further validated in this volume...

Seulement le temps avait joué son rôle, le temps qui m'avait vieilli.....p. 86.

He was supposed to be a young man whose marriage had to be approved by the mother...

And the imagery of the captive bird continues...

... aussi monotone, aussi limité que si j'eusse été changé en oiseau, en un oiseau pareil à la fable dont le cri redisait sans fin le nom de celle qu'homme il avait aimée... p. 89.

Googling it expecting to find a La Fontaine fable, I found this link to a book that sees an indirect reference to Orpheus and the descent to hell (and I think of Gluck again).

La mythologie de Marcel Proust. By Marie Miguet-Ollagnier.

http://books.google.es/books?id=Jyclw...


May be someone found something more directly relevant.. Aesop?

I do not say that the process of forgetting was not beginning to operate. But one of the effects of forgetting was
precisely—since it meant that many of Albertine's less
pleasing aspects, of the boring hours that I had spent with
her, no longer figured in my memory, ceased therefore to
be reasons for my wanting her not to be there as I used to
when she was—that it gave me a more concise impression
of her enhanced by all the love that I had ever felt for
other women. In this particular form, forgetfulness, although it was working towards inuring me to separation
from her, nevertheless, by showing me a sweeter and
more beautiful Albertine, made me long all the more for
her return. ML p. 622

Kalliope wrote: "And the imagery of the captive bird continues...
... aussi monotone, aussi limité que si j'eusse été changé en oiseau, en un oiseau pareil à la fable dont le cri redisait sans fin le nom de celle qu'homme il avait aimeé..."

I read that page of Miguet-Ollagnier's book, Kall, and yes there is no mention of a bird but could it be a birdlike cry that the Narrator is referring to, that he sees himself as Orpheus calling out his beloved's name, Eurydice, even after he has been killed:
"the voice alone, the ice-cold tongue, with ebbing breath,
cried out: ‘Eurydice, ah poor Eurydice!’
‘Eurydice’ the riverbanks echoed, all along the stream." Virgil's Georgics.
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PI...

I went in an instant from being exasperated by the Narrator's endless it seemed fascination with his own mental twists and self evident duplicity to respecting the author's courage to MAKE THIS BORING precisely because it is very dull often listening to someone a friend anyone bang on about their heart aches so bloody painful to them so tiresome to us. I know I've been in both camps. But then he interrupts the shipping news with breaking news that his Narrator's been summonsed for child molestation. This is so confusing. Partly I think it's shock tactics...it may be more villified today but 100 years ago it was still a crime. It challenges me, as much the heart break stuff does to stay with him. I sense him - MP and the Narrator who everyone loves - saying to me the reader 'this may be art but it doesn"t have to be pretty so quit expecting that of me and take me down off your pedestal".

Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "And the imagery of the captive bird continues...
... aussi monotone, aussi limité que si j'eusse été changé en oiseau, en un oiseau pareil à la fable dont le cri redisait sans fin ..."

That was also my understanding of Marie Miguel-Ollagnier. Sorry, I did not explain it more clearly... the "cry" of the bird makes her think of the cry of Orpheus... but from Proust's text, which seems to imply a story of a man becoming a bird, I was hoping to find something more literally similar... But have not found anything...

Today I found in my desk a page from an article by the same scholar that I must have found somewhere... I will investigate again what else she has written.

Marcus wrote: "I went in an instant from being exasperated by the Narrator's endless it seemed fascination with his own mental twists and self evident duplicity to respecting the author's courage to MAKE THIS BOR..."

Marcus, I know what you mean.. But I think this text, apart from seeming on the surface the whining of a teenager, also has an analysis on how the mind and one's psychology works... And now we get to understand why Racine's Phèdre had fascinated him so much.

Kalliope wrote: "Marcus wrote: "I went in an instant from being exasperated by the Narrator's endless it seemed fascination with his own mental twists and self evident duplicity to respecting the author's courage t..."

I agree to the extent that his artistry elevates the 'teenager whining' but I also think he is rubbing our faces in it too, testing our tolerance and maybe even challenging us to react rather than to defer.

Marcus wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Marcus wrote: "I went in an instant from being exasperated by the Narrator's endless it seemed fascination with his own mental twists and self evident duplicity to respecting the a..."

Yes, may be.. wanting to make us feel as trapped as he does..

I see in this weeks read also a need for catharsis (I posted on this above). The footnotes give letters from which the novel seems almost to be quoting.. He must have suffered so much and felt to guilty when Agostinelli had the accident, and he probably just kept going through everything in his mind repeatedly.

@Marcus

Concerning the Narrator, I read two stories, the first of the younger person loving Albertine and the second story is a reflection by the same self, but older, of the activities of his younger self in love. We readers reflect as he does all the time when we think of yesterday, last year, etc. What is unusual in ISOLT is that Proust cuts between the two stories frequently, sometimes in the same passage--back and forth--and sometimes in the same sentence, sometimes giving us a direction as to who is talking: "I was to learn later..." or more difficultly by stylistic changes that become hard to discern in later volumes because the Narrators become closer in age and writing styles and secondarily, this is a hand-made story that has all the humanness that a machine-made object doesn't: gaps, mistakes, errors, exhilarations, flatnesses and just plain good writing.

The reflective story, the second one, is the saving grace of the first story for me as a reader and for Proust as a writer (I suspect). Proust can make the younger self, the lover of Albertine, as he does: selfish, controlling, compulsive, jealous, lying, picking up underage girls and on and on, and even worse, as long as the older self sees these actions and thoughts as having a "redeeming social value" and speaks of them accordingly such that a reader can read them as such. That has been the case up until now.

Kalliope wrote: "Marcus wrote: "The footnotes give letters from which the novel seems almost to be quoting.."

It is in the introduction in my edition that Jean Milly includes the last letter that Marcel Proust wrote to Agostinelli on the very day in which the latter died.

In it Proust is giving him (Agostinelli had fled from P's house) the details of his negotiations on the purchase of the airplane. He mentions also how he will engrave the Mallarmé poem on the Swan that is mentioned in the novel. He includes the full poem in the letter. And he also thanks Agostinelli for the use of the word "crépusculaire" in A's last letter.

Agostinelli never read this letter...

I just keep thinking how this undelivered message must have got trapped in Proust's mind, and he is airing it in the novel as a sort of substitute.

Other volumes offer a certain distance between the author and his creation that I just do not feel here.

Kalliope wrote: "It is in the introduction in my edition that Jean Milly includes the last letter that Marcel Proust wrote to Agostinelli on the very day in which the latter died.."

Ah, I wondered about that letter you mentioned as I hadn't seen the reference in the notes. I've avoided the introductions so far, not so much because of spoilers as because of not yet wanting the overview perspective which such analysis must inevitably deliver. I enjoy so much the week by week unfolding of the themes, and yes, with our eyes focused very close to the page in this first reading so that we risk a certain distortion sometimes, we may even make mistakes in interpretation but this page by page reading is nevertheless a fully authentic experience and can only be gained once ever.

Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "It is in the introduction in my edition that Jean Milly includes the last letter that Marcel Proust wrote to Agostinelli on the very day in which the latter died.."

Ah, I wondered..."

Fionnuala, sorry if you think my comment spoiled the section. In general I am also leaving the introduction until the end for the reasons you give. And in fact I have not read it yet, except for a couple of passages.

One is this letter because a couple of footnotes refer the reader to it (#39 and #44) and later on I would not have been able to find the relevant parts in text when I finally read the intro.

I have also scanned through a part of the introduction (stopping where I could detect there may be spoilers) because my audio version gives a different arrangement in the sequence of the text. Some large paragraphs are found elsewhere in the text from the audio, and I wanted to determine which of the two should I consider as my primary version. I was hoping to find some overall clarification from Milly’s part.

Hence my very first comment in the weekly section... more difficult to read, a lot more sketchy and too close to reality...Had he been able to edit it more fully he may have distanced the fiction a bit more from his own, very painful, experiences.

But I will try and be more careful with my comments.

I have been fascinated by the analysis of a section of Phèdre and have gone back and watched the relevant part in

http://www.amazon.fr/Phèdre-Édition-C...

(which I see now that it has jumped up in price dramatically)..

Anyway... in the parallels the Narrator sees in the way he has reacted with Albertine (and Swann with Odette) with those dramatized by Racine, we have come a long way from the young Narrator when he first mentioned Phèdre....

...up until now. The Narrator has never expressed remorse for his self-serving actions & thoughts--mostly ignoring the feelings of other people--not only regarding Albertine, but in regard to most of the characters around him & it gets late in the chronicle...

Unlike Marcus, I have not found the fact that we are privy to the twists and turns of the Narrator's mind and his 'whining' boring. NOt yet, anyway. And I took the incident of the accusation of child molestation (especially the private recommendation of the Chef de la Sûreté), as well as Bloch's sudden apparition and Françoise's dance as bits of comic relief. As the narrator says, " Il y a des moments de la vie où une sorte de beauté naît de la multiplicité des ennuis qui nous assaillent, enchevêtrés comme des leitmotive wagnériens....."

I love Mallarmé's poem Le vierge,...

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnar...

As I mentioned earlier, I heard that F.Sagan was a great fan of ISOLT and would recommend sections of the novel to the heartbroken. This was most certainly one, I would imagine.

Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala, sorry if you think my comment spoiled the section. In general I am also leaving the introduction until the end for the reasons you give. And in fact I have not read it yet, except for a couple of passages. ."

Not at all, Kalliope. I was simply commenting on why I had not spotted the Agostinelli letter in Milly's introduction - especially since we are reading the same edition.
As to the Phèdre theme, I'm curious to hear more of your thoughts on the parallels between the two situations, i.e., Phèdre and Hippolyte, and the Narrator and Albertine.

Jocelyne, it was interesting that the Narrator underlined the double standards of the Chef de la Sûreté. He wanted to make that point. Perhaps the entire episode existed so that he could make that point?

Re the inspiration for the coded letter written by an American to someone in the Narrator's building, I came across something interesting today, and not online but in my local bookshop! A book called Lettres à sa voisine by Marcel Proust. It contains 23 letters written by Proust to the wife of an American dentist who lived on the third floor of number 102, boulevard Haussmann - Proust lived on the first floor and the American dentist had his surgery on the second floor, directly above Proust's apartment. So the letters contain complaints about noise in the beginning, it seems, but later, they are about music and loneliness and eventually illness, his own and hers. The letters end in 1919 when they both had to leave the building as it was to be sold. They have not been published before. I didn't buy the book yet but I will.
Here's a link to Gallimard's blurb about it:
http://www.gallimard.fr/Catalogue/GAL...

Fionnuala wrote: "Re the inspiration for the coded letter written by an American to someone in the Narrator's building, I came across something interesting today, and not online but in my local bookshop! A book call..."

This is fantastic, Fionnuala. It just came out.. 17th October 2013 publication date... I am certainly ordering it..

Thank you.

Fionnuala wrote: "As to the Phèdre theme, I'm curious to hear more of your thoughts on the parallels between the two situations, i.e., Phèdre and Hippolyte, and the Narrator and Albertine..."

Phèdre is ready for anything, in her love for Hippolyte. She is ready to put up with humiliation, to lose political power... She even asks Hippolyte to kill her, and puts the sword on his hands... All, until she learns that he is in love with someone else... Then jealousy takes over .....

Kalliope wrote: "Phèdre is ready for anything, in her love for Hippolyte. She is ready to put up with humiliation, to lose political power... She even asks Hippoliye to kill her, and puts the sword on his hands... All, until she learns that he is in love with someone else... Then jealousy takes over ..... ."

Ok, so the irrational jealousy is the common factor. Yes, I can see that..

Phillida wrote: ".How lucky you were to find it just two days after publication. And you resisted buying it! They sound such a contrast to the lying and manipulative letters the narrator sends to Albertine. Another reminder not to confuse the narrator with Proust. ."
I was just waiting for my husband to pay for something at the cash desk when I spotted this book. I looked over to see if he hadn't already paid but he had so rather than delay us both by queueing again I reluctantly left the book back on the pile. But I'll go back. It had photos of all the letters too...