The Year of Reading Proust discussion
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In Search of Lost Time
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Members' art and writing inspired by ISOLT
My modified photo inspired by JMW Turner:
That's really good!Well done!
Nice work, Aloha! Turner's Dido Building Carthage might just be my favourite painting ever. I like your enriched photo a lot.
Thanks, Nick! Once I'm done reading ISOLT and know the meaning of the symbols in the book, then I can do a less literal translation. Right now, all I can think of is JMW Turner, although I'm starting to learn more about the significance of speed, sexuality and landscape.
Aloha wrote: "My modified photo inspired by JMW Turner:"
This does remind me of a Turner that jumped-out from the others in one exhibition. Later, I learned that "The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons," the one the Cleveland Museum of Art owns, was one of the few paintings he sketched while it was happening. I think somehow the energy of actually experiencing the fire and seeing the destructive colors were embedded in that pulsing painting. Your intense colors, filling the horizon, brought back that Turner memory for me. Thank you!
You're welcome, Marcelita. Thank you for saying such nice things about my photo.
I am new here, having just found this group and am very glad to have found it. This will be my second reading of Proust and am already halfway through Swann's Way so hopefully I am not too far behind the rest of the group. I'd like to share my novel,
, which has Marcel Proust as the central character. I also have a blog about Proust and my novel here (http://marimann.wordpress.com/) and a website here (http://madeleinemoments.com/)Thanks to you all for the opportunity to share and be a part of this group.
Mari Mann
Hello, Mari! and welcome. Your book sounds intriguing to me (anything "Proust" does, really!) I will be checking out your site and blog now. :)
Nick wrote: "Hello, Mari! and welcome. Your book sounds intriguing to me (anything "Proust" does, really!) I will be checking out your site and blog now. :)"Thanks, Nick! I'm an anything Proustian too...guess this is the place for me :)
Welcome, Mari! I'm looking forward to your views and insights on ISOLT and all things Proust. :)
Kris wrote: "Welcome, Mari! I'm looking forward to your views and insights on ISOLT and all things Proust. :)"Thanks, Kris! So happy to be here....
Aloha wrote: "My modified photo inspired by JMW Turner:"
Wow. . .that is so beautiful!
Mari wrote: "I am new here, having just found this group and am very glad to have found it. This will be my second reading of Proust and am already halfway through Swann's Way so hopefully I am not too far behi..."Definitely putting that one on my 'To Read' shelf. Thanks so much for letting us know about your book!
Cheryl wrote: "Aloha wrote: "My modified photo inspired by JMW Turner:"
Wow. . .that is so beautiful!"
Thanks, Cheryl!
Mari, I checked our your sites and added your book. I enjoyed the dedication to the life of Marcel Proust. Thank you.
Aloha wrote: "Welcome, Mari!"Thank you, Aloha! I am so thrilled to be part of this very active group- what a joy!
Cheryl wrote: "Mari wrote: "I am new here, having just found this group and am very glad to have found it. This will be my second reading of Proust and am already halfway through Swann's Way so hopefully I am not..."Thank you, Cheryl!
Mari wrote: "Aloha wrote: "Welcome, Mari!"Thank you, Aloha! I am so thrilled to be part of this very active group- what a joy!"
You're a terrific addition to the group. We're glad to have you, Mari.
Mari wrote: "I am new here, having just found this group and am very glad to have found it. This will be my second reading of Proust and am already halfway through Swann's Way so hopefully I am not too far behi..."Welcome Mari,
I am also a Parisian by Heart. It is my top favorite city. I will have to read your book...!!
Kalliope wrote: "Mari wrote: "I am new here, having just found this group and am very glad to have found it. This will be my second reading of Proust and am already halfway through Swann's Way so hopefully I am not..."So glad to meet another Parisian by Heart! I have only been there once but am hoping to someday return.
Mari wrote: "I am new here, having just found this group and am very glad to have found it. This will be my second reading of Proust and am already halfway through Swann's Way so hopefully I am not too far behi..."Mari, Welcome and thank you for giving me goose bumps!
I read your biography, on the Amazon site, about your nightmares and your ability to control them. If only Proust had that ability....
Just two nights ago, I was discussing the narrator's nightmares...the "old terror of my great-uncle's pulling my curls...? And, wondered what event had caused such a response?
Then, re-read from Evelyne Bloch-Dano's biography, "Madame Proust:"
"He continued to be beset by mysterious terrors. The fear that someone would pull his hair continued even after his curls had disappeared. He was plagued by recurrent nightmares. Often he would wake up at night and bury his head under the covers to protect himself. "
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Ch...
So, I noted you lived in Virginia.
Do you know of Dr. Ian Stevenson, Chester Carlson Professor of Psychiatry and director of the Division of Personality Studies, at UVA?
http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/200...
Years ago, I read his book, "Old Souls," and thought about his theory of memories some children have of past lives...and why we have a sense of belonging to a place (like Paris) from the first moment we arrive.
I will now go to bed thinking of Dr. Stevenson's theory, Proust and the narrator's "childish terrors," and Proust's mediation on Bergotte's death.
"He was dead. Dead forever? Who can say?" (P. 186, Pleiade edition)
Tomorrow, I will download your book on my kindle...and maybe later we can share growing up in the military, the colorful stillness of the southwest (where my father spent time on the San Carlos Apache Reservation) and the Anasazi dig.
Ideally, I would spend half the year in New Mexico, within striking distance of my beloved Acoma Pubelo and the other near the Luxembourg Gardens.
To "your Paris"...and sweet dreams.
Marcelita wrote: "Mari wrote: "I am new here, having just found this group and am very glad to have found it. This will be my second reading of Proust and am already halfway through Swann's Way so hopefully I am not..."Marcelita~ You're welcome for the goosebumps! And thank you for being interested in my book and for checking out my bio (which reminds me I need to update it!) I think Jean-Ives Tadie in his bio of Proust says something about Proust's hair-pulling fears; I will have to go look for it. I wonder if Proust ever wondered if he could learn to control his dreams?
I am not familiar with Dr. Ian Stevenson; thank you for the link. It would be interesting to try to identify who Marcel might have been in past lives- someone who would have been like himself whereby his "Proust" life would be a continuation, or someone who would be a complete opposite of the Proust life? Maybe in a previous life he was someone who persecuted sickly, effeminate, dreamy boys and now has to pay off that karma?
Ideally, I would live half the year in the La Luz Valley in NM and the other half anywhere in Paris!
Mari
Welcome Mari! I look forward to checking out your blog, bio and book. Hello Cheryl...it looks as though there are 2 of us! ;-) Not so often I meet another with the same spelling.
I just perused all the postings...except for the through January 27th thread...I want to read that week's section first. Nothing really to add at this point to the online discussion. Love the discussion of construction and stitching together in relationship to the structure of Proust's novel...and I've made note of the french word "batir".
I've been working on a thumbprint for my drawing of my EXPERIENCE of reading the first 225 pages of Proust...my thumbprint is nearly complete. I'll probably start the large drawing in a week or so. It is a series of 5 images, in the same format as my profile, "stitched" together in a scroll or story line...and painted with pastels as well.
Otherwise I've 'gone off the rails' and am reading a cotton candy fluff book (something I almost never would pick up)...but I realize it is giving my own brain the space to incubate, process and create...to speak my own language...before I proceed with more of Proust's.
Aloha wrote: "My modified photo inspired by JMW Turner:"
Beautifully done, Aloha...so Turneresque!
Cheryl wrote: "It is a series of 5 images, in the same format as my profile, "stitched" together in a scroll or story line...and painted with pastels as well."Hey Cheryl, I'm really curious as to the scroll format that you use for your drawings. May I ask what was the inspiration for this style? It reminds me of a hieroglyphic scroll. Super cool!!!
ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "It is a series of 5 images, in the same format as my profile, "stitched" together in a scroll or story line...and painted with pastels as well."Hey Cheryl, I'm really curious as to..."
This will only be my 2nd drawing in this scroll format. The moment I completed it I knew I would have to make a second and probably a third. The scroll format is influenced by the frames of film..."stitching" together images to tell a story...I was looking for the sense of unfolding or evolving.
The format stems from work earlier in my life...I worked with experimental film strips and performance art (unbelievably, because I am shy). Frankly, I've come to believe that someone else has periodically channeled themselves through me over my lifetime since I've more than once challenged myself with roles that are wholly visible...alien and terrifying...but in the end satisfying to achieve (so I haven't attempted to banish my other self! ;-)
I saw that the first drawing had to be a scroll from the moment I conceived of the initial concept...there was no arguing with myself. :-D I referred to the film strip in the fifth portion of the first drawing...there is a strip represented but this one focuses on the light...rather than an image illuminated by light.
In some sense I'm just going along for the ride. I think you made a comment on one of the threads that as an artist you have a seed...and the evolution takes on a life of its own. Proust refers to the "truth" of art...that he is the book; he's not the book; he's reincarnated, the time travel...the magic lantern.
I was nearly finished with the first scroll when I dreamed that it reflected the same scale as my last assemblage piece before I took another path in life for 15+ years. That piece contained a film strip with a repeated image embedded and illuminated. I pulled out my portfolio and recognized the same shape & scale in my first installation and then another piece mid career and finally in the assemblage I referred to above. Those pieces looked back in my life...capturing memory and speaking truth as I knew it then.
While the first scroll and now the proposed second are in a sense self portraits inevitably informed by the totality of my life experience...or maybe the story I've created...but rooted in my present. They are multi-faceted, it's my story and it's not my story.
Cheryl wrote: "ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "It is a series of 5 images, in the same format as my profile, "stitched" together in a scroll or story line...and painted with pastels as well."Hey Ch..."
This all sounds totally fascinating. I do like the idea of your scroll being like a film strip, especially in an age where they have become practically obsolete. Perhaps Cheryl is creating the Proust badge and together with Nick could make them into t-shirts, mugs, hats, buttons that we could all purchase!!!
I have one other question- why pastels? (Nevermind the pastel question. I just looked them up. I thought that by pastel you were referring to light bland colors.)
I would be honoured to incorporate any of our members' designs into products :) For those of you who think I am merely wanting the dividends of sale, bear in mind that until I hit a mega-high sales threshold, I get zero money (and I am fine with that. Even if I make nothing at all, knowing people have individualised, personal products is worth everything.)
Cheryl wrote: "Welcome Mari! I look forward to checking out your blog, bio and book. Hello Cheryl...it looks as though there are 2 of us! ;-) Not so often I meet another with the same spelling.
I just perused ..."
Thanks, Cheryl, I look forward to seeing your artwork based on Proust. What an interesting group!
ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "I have one other question- why pastels? (Nevermind the pastel question. I just looked them up. I thought that by pastel you were referring to light bland colors.) "LOL...NO. No bland colors. But they are fragile in the sense of being soft & chalk-like with a tendency to migrate...rather appropriate for the telling of a story.
I was frustrated working with them at first...and now have embraced the challenge of working with something so malleable and moveable.
Cheryl wrote: "ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "I have one other question- why pastels? (Nevermind the pastel question. I just looked them up. I thought that by pastel you were referring to light bland colors.) "L..."
:) and here I was thinking nooooo Cheryl, go vibrant! lol
Cheryl writes: "I was frustrated working with them at first...and now have embraced the challenge of working with something so malleable and moveable. "
"That something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it." R.M. Rilke
@Nick I felt like the painter arranging a marriage.
ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "ReemK10 (Got Proust?) wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "It is a series of 5 images, in the same format as my profile, "stitched" together in a scroll or story line...and painted with pastels as..."LOL...glad you could make some sense of it all. I should have re-read and EDITED my response after a good night's sleep! I guess you may have gotten the idea that the first drawing (and proposed second) has taken on a life of its own. ;-)
Now that I am nearly finished with Swann's Way I've worked more on the thumbprint for my scroll expressing my experience of beginning to read Proust. Something was not quite right in my collage of images ...now I think I have it. In many ways I see it as a continuation of my own search for lost time. I am beginning to think that search is the essence of art...and our drive to create it.
I will be taping the large paper up on the wall in the next day or so and put pastel to paper. The big white page...always so enticing and terrifying!
Cheryl wrote: "Now that I am nearly finished with Swann's Way I've worked more on the thumbprint for my scroll expressing my experience of beginning to read Proust. Something was not quite right in my collage o..."
I am very anxious to see your work!
Mari wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "Now that I am nearly finished with Swann's Way I've worked more on the thumbprint for my scroll expressing my experience of beginning to read Proust. Something was not quite right ..."
Thank you Mari. Moi aussi. ;-)
Mari wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "Now that I am nearly finished with Swann's Way I've worked more on the thumbprint for my scroll expressing my experience of beginning to read Proust. Something was not quite right ..."
So curious...what will I see? Proust...Swann...Odette...Gilberte..the narrator...the Mother...my mother...my past?
Cheryl wrote: "Now that I am nearly finished with Swann's Way I've worked more on the thumbprint for my scroll expressing my experience of beginning to read Proust. Something was not quite right in my collage o..."
Good for you! I'm excited to see what resonated with you from your readings. You're so lucky to be creative!I too can't wait to see your art!
Marcelita wrote: So curious...what will I see? Proust...Swann...Odette...Gilberte..the narrator...the Mother...my mother...my past?"Reem, Marcelita, Mari...I am honored and humbled by your encouragement & enthusiasm.
It will be a scroll...same format as my profile picture...that reflects my experience of reading the first volume of ISOLT...definitely not an illustration of ISOLT.
I have my large roll of paper out - today I am measuring the piece - tearing it out of the roll (deckling the edge) and setting up the basic composition large scale.
The first scroll took about 6 weeks or so to complete. With the first I posted each section as I completed it on my facebook page...because I think it is interesting for others to see a piece unfold. I haven't decided if I'm going to do that this time. I'll decide once I get started.
Marcelita wrote: "Mari wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "Now that I am nearly finished with Swann's Way I've worked more on the thumbprint for my scroll expressing my experience of beginning to read Proust. Something was not..."
Cheryl wrote: "Marcelita wrote: So curious...what will I see? Proust...Swann...Odette...Gilberte..the narrator...the Mother...my mother...my past?"
Reem, Marcelita, Mari...I am honored and humbled by your encour..."
Oh, yes, Albertine. Could that be the female version of Proust's driver and love interest, Albert?
I don't remember. I'll have to reread it, and I will. I don't remember because of some post reading confusion. I had thought, in first reading, without doubt, that Albertine was Albert. Then, when years after my reading, in a post reading monolog by a know-it-all friend who went into spasms of ecstasy about Albertine, I was shocked and confused - about my friend, not about Albertine. But I didn't have the text at hand to reference and argue my memory. So I must have originally thought that Albertine was Albert. Someday I will sit in Place Vosges or the Tuileries or the Luxemburg gardens and reread it. So, you see, I appreciate your response. Thanks.
Susan, Aloha: A Proustiary:A is for Andree,
And the dark Albertine.
B is for Berma,
Interpreter of Racine,
C is for Camus,
The grocer of Combray,...
Well, it goes on and on. Try it.
LOL! Thanks, Elizabeth. I'll have to give it a try.
Aloha Elizabeth,D is for Darcy,
The gentleman in Pride...
E is for Elizabeth
Jane Austin's spinster.
Now I must rest from eye surgery.
Dear Proustiarians and Proustitutes,Is there a place on the net to post a short story of mine. I don't have a blog.
** Please note that links to members' reviews of ISOLT should be posted in this thread: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...