Reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time in 2014 discussion

From the "suffering" that Vinteuil's daughter causes him, to the ridiculous raucousness of the Verdurins' salon ... what a rollercoaster of emotion in this section, eh?

We're getting into an exploration of art and its roles, as well -- for example, what it means for the narrator to be able to translate an experience into a written passage. It's relieving for him, an exorcism of his "obsession," as if he "were a hen and had just laid an egg." Love that. But he's not sure he has what it takes to have a literary career be "a famous author." And then we contrast the narrator's intense involvement with art with that of the Verdurins, who are questionably authentic in their admiration of paintings and music. Or at least, the sophistication of their appreciation is questionable -- is it just in the interest of fashion? And we find Swann utterly affected by and obsessed with a phrase of music -- he's swept away by the expression of another artist's exorcism of his intimate experience.

Fascinating!

Another thing I notice is a connection between Proust's style and subject matter and the work of Jean Cocteau. It turns out they knew each other, which sent me over the moon.

I've been obsessed with Cocteau for a while. For me, he is all about personal mythology and the reworking of one's life story over and over again in one's mind, eventually giving disproportionate weight to some events over others, and indeed, like the game of "gossip," sometimes morphing those moments into true personal mythology that may be vastly different from the reality that occurred. But does it matter? Does reality matter? Or is it our perception of reality that matters? (I of course go with the latter.)

I see Proust working through something similar with his narrator. There are themes popping up that we've been told will arise again and again, like symphonic themes, even like the phrase of Vinteuil's music that Swann adores. What's another word for this... variations on a theme, right? Or even the same theme repeated at different times can have different meanings because of context.

(The introduction to my edition of the novel did mention that this work is like symphony.)

At any rate, I'm in love with this intensely psychological book.

Here is a link to a snippet on Cocteau and Proust: bit.ly/1d3JodQ

Happy reading!

It was a slightly strange section this week - the end of Part One and the beginning of Part Two especially as it switches time and place...Part Two is now a memory of someone else's recollections of Swann, I think...brilliantly convoluted. Sometimes this twisting and turning through time, space, memories and recollections is annoying but on the whole I'm enjoying it.

Whilst reading the first section I was starting to hope there was a companion book, 'Botany in Proust' but instead had to resort to googling the different flowers. I'm always a bit embarrassed not to know the names of trees & flowers...

My favourite quote in this week's read was:

Her [Odette's] eyes were beautiful, but so large they seemed to droop beneath their own weight, strained the rest of her face and always made her appear unwell or in a bad mood.

It's interesting to see Vinteuil make an appearance (via his music) in Part Two. In Part One he came across as a puritanical oddball who tinkered about with music but in Part Two we realise that he's a serious composer.

You certainly seem to be enjoying Proust, Dwayne. I haven't read/seen much Cocteau - only Les Enfants Terribles years ago.

The descriptions on music really touched me as well. Being a musician from a young age, I'm constantly aware of music, no matter where I am. And I love how in the middle of an event he stops to listen to a piece of music that totally overcomes him, and then forgets to ask what it is, only to hear the same artist at another party. That happens to me all the time...I hear music and want to know what it is...forget about it...then am enchanted when I hear it again somewhere else...

Dwayne wrote: "Another thing I notice is a connection between Proust's style and subject matter and the work of Jean Cocteau. It turns out they knew each other, which sent me over the moon.

I've been obsessed wi..."

Dwayne wrote: "Another thing I notice is a connection between Proust's style and subject matter and the work of Jean Cocteau. It turns out they knew each other, which sent me over the moon.

I've been obsessed wi..."
A connection between Cocteau and Proust would have never occurred to me. A fin-de- siecle kind of bloke next to someone who would become associated albeit not formally, with the surrealists? When you reflect upon it I suppose some similarities crop up, not least an interest in reverie and plumbing the unconscious (psychoanalysis was more pivotal to the surrealists and I’m not sure whether Proust read Freud). There’s also eroticism in Cocteau’s work (as well as his interest in the sur-naturel, an in between sex explored with Man Ray in Barbette for instance, transcending conventional ideas of beauty and gender – a first appreciation of the aesthetics of Queer?) that’s not present in Proust and that would perhaps have shocked him. I find in Proust sex is there in a kind of oblique way (where is desire?). Swann and Odette make cattleya thank you very much – they don’t make love, or indeed fuck. The work is rife with lesbians and their trysts (as something rather unhealthy and to be despised – the depiction of Mademoiselle Vinteuil and her lover) but it’s all rather shadowy (the metaphor of lanterns reverberating through). Swann can forgive Odette for her affairs with men, but when he learns that she may have had flings with women – well it’s something else entirely. I find Proust a prude and closeted or is it all meant as decoy? (I’ve read Vol 1 twice within the last couple of months and am rolling my eyes at ‘A love of Swann’s’ – I find Odette and the Vendurin circle odious and Swann more so for not being able to tear himself away).

It would have been interesting to sit next to the pair (Proust and Cocteau) at a dinner party and see what they talked about, if indeed they talked. Perhaps a friendship between the men would have made Proust more liberated about being queer. The famous meeting of Proust and Joyce is rather funny. And since I’m reading both authors and find them so totally different (Joyce could sum up a childhood in a few paragraphs) I have to wonder at the comparisons many people make.

http://flavorwire.com/318990/when-mar...

Joni wrote: "Dwayne wrote: "Another thing I notice is a connection between Proust's style and subject matter and the work of Jean Cocteau. It turns out they knew each other, which sent me over the moon.

I've b..."

If you want to understand the Proust-Cocteau relationship, William C. Carter's biography on Proust is mandatory reading:

"Proust suspected Cocteau of using material from their conversations in his magazine articles. The novelist found this only mildly annoying and even some..."
William C. Carter
Marcel Proust: A Life, with a New Preface by the Author
http://books.google.com/books?id=aYaT...

I've just been re-reading bits from last week's read and really liked this quote (p.197 of Vintage ed. but approx. 233 in ML ed.) concerning Mlle Vinteuil:

It was not evil that gave her the idea of pleasure, that seemed to her attractive; it was pleasure, rather, that seemed evil.

I find myself re-reading quite a bit of the previous week's section before embarking on the new material. I didn't think I'd like reading 60 pages or so each week but it's working out really well. How are others finding the schedule?

I tend to read each week's material at the weekend and in a single 'hit' or in two blocks.

Joni wrote: "Dwayne wrote: "Another thing I notice is a connection between Proust's style and subject matter and the work of Jean Cocteau. It turns out they knew each other, which sent me over the moon.

I've b..."

Oh, Joni, I love your comment and how much you know about Cocteau's art. I feel sometimes like there are so few who care about what he did.

And the descriptions of the Joyce-Proust meeting are hilarious!

Regarding the differences between Proust and Cocteau -- absolutely, there are many. But there are the similarities. I think it's also important to remember that Cocteau did veer off with the surrealists while poor Proust .... passed.

I often say that I would love to have just one meeting with Cocteau but I'm quite sure we would have found each other quite boring. While there is copious white space in Cocteau's drawings, there was NONE in his speech! And I can actually be rather quiet. Well, so maybe we would have been just fine.

Regarding sex in Proust, I laughed and laughed once I realized that paragraph 5 of the work could basically be translated as, "Sometimes I have sex dreams, y'all!" If you'll allow me to be so coarse and silly.

The "cattleya" thing was a bit precious, for sure. And all the more so because we know that Miss Odette was ... long deflowered. Perhaps that contrast is part of it?

Cheers, everyone!

In the second paragraph of 'Swann in Love' Proust says of the pianist's aunt that she 'looked as though she had, at one period, "answered the door" '. Does anyone know what this means? I though it meant that she looked as if she was, or had been, a servant or lower class, but I'm really not sure...

It is assumed that that woman (Morel's aunt) had been a "concierge". I only have the French version in which it says that "elle devait avoir tiré le cordon", meaning that as a concierge she must have pulled a cord meant to open the door and let the tenants in or out.
So you were right in your interpretation that she must have belonged to a modest class .

Jonathan wrote: "In the second paragraph of 'Swann in Love' Proust says of the pianist's aunt that she 'looked as though she had, at one period, "answered the door" '. Does anyone know what this means? I though it ..."

Again, Carter to the rescue!

His translation,
"...and to the pianist's aunt, who looked as though she had, at one period, 'answered the bell': 5..."

His annotation:
"5. 'Tirer le cordon' means 'to pull the door open,' by unlatching the entrance door, which indicates that she had once been a concierge."

Andree was correct... assuming that the pianist's aunt was a concierge; however, this particular pianist is named Dechambre (which you don't discover until S&G).

Thanks Andree & Marcelita. I wasn't sure if it was a metaphor that I was unaware of.

By the way Jonathan, there is a companion book to Proust's secret gardens, albeit not titled 'Botany in Proust' and written in French. It's called "LE JARDIN SECRET DE MARCEL PROUST" by Diane de Margerie.
I'm afraid it hasn't been translated.

http://www.abebooks.com/JARDIN-SECRET...

Merci Andree. The book looks interesting. I hadn't heard of cattleyas before reading this section of Proust.

Yay! I finally found out who Odette is! And the descriptions keep reminding me of that movie The Pick Up Artist. I may be dating myself, here, but there was that line... Did anyone ever tell you you have the face of a Botticelli and the body of a Degas? LOL!