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

Use this topic thread for all Sodom and Gomorrah discussions through page 245 / location 31990.

25% into Sodom and Gomorrah I had a major "ah, ha" moment. The Guermantes have brought the narrator home from the Princesses party and notes the time is a quarter to twelve. The end of a long day that began in Guermantes Way. The narrator goes inside and wants Francoise to call Albertine and have her come over. After some interaction with Francoise and some pleading with Albertine, she agrees to come. So now it is after midnight, the beginning of a new day, and the narrator is in bed waiting for a woman to come and kiss him goodnight (all that happens when Albertine shows up). We are back at the very beginning! A new day and a new beginning, now I must look for patterns that bring up memories of places and persons that came before but are somehow transformed! And page after pages they begin to arrive.

Wow! You're storming through S&G. I'll try not to read your comments beforehand. Keep up the good work though. I'll see you here in a month.

You are in for a real treat Jonathan, it just gets better and better! ENJOY!

I loved this week's section so much!

Dave, nice observation about the narrator waiting for a woman to kiss him goodnight, I didn't pick that up to be honest! I was just thinking he was being naughty with Albertine.

Another interesting point was to see how now Odette traded places with Swann in importance and prestige in the society. She's now seen as an extremely intelligent woman that almost everyone wants to meet and go to her house; but she's married to someone dishonorable, this dreyfusard jew! Who would've known!

Les intermittences du coeur: what a beautiful, heart-wrenching section.

I finally got what I wanted from Proust when his grandmother died in the last volume. I felt a bit disappointed that he didn’t give it more attention… that he rushed to another subject. It never occurred to me he was in denial and that in time it would finally hit him. Ok, Proust, you got me! :)

What about the dream sequence? And then he woke up and didn’t want to see the sea any longer for his grandmother couldn’t see it as well, so he turned his face to the wall - and then remembered how they used to communicate through it in the last time they were there. How all he needed to do was knock on the wall to feel her presence with him.

Another nice moment was when he found out that the picture he thought she was so ridiculous to pose for was meant for him as a memory, because she felt she was dying in Balbec some days later...

Renato wrote "Another interesting point was to see how now Odette traded places with Swann ..." Exactly Renato, that is the first"change" I was referring to. Make sure to note how Gilberte has changed.

That's really interesting about a new beginning and to look for what has changed! I'll be paying extra attention from now on!

Renato wrote: "Les intermittences du coeur: what a beautiful, heart-wrenching section.

I finally got what I wanted from Proust when his grandmother died in the last volume. I felt a bit disappointed that he didn..."

I absolutely concur Renato.

From here on I changed my comment style. I consolidated all my comments in the last week of each volume. I was concerned I could not keep unintended spoilers out of my comments. My comments at the end of each volume DO contain Spoilers (some more than others) so I recommend finishing the last reading in a volume before reading my comments.

I will continue to interact with others comments.

Thanks for being so considerate about spoilers, Dave. I really appreciate that!

I only read a thread after finishing the whole week's read because of that, so no worries about posting spoilers in the appropriate week's thread; but feel free to comment as you're doing now, only in the last thread for each book.

Renato, the book I was citing that placed The Magic Mountain so high is Roger Shattuck's "Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time." I have purchased that and Howard Moss' "The Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust to read after I finish Time Regained (3-4 days).

I checked out The Magic Mountain on Amazon. Sadly, it is offerred neither in Kindle format nor Audiobook. I put in a request for both but will have to wait. I read "Absalom, Absalom" in May and loved it - followed it immediately with "The Sound and the Fury" which I also loved. I plan to read "Ulysses" next year. My next big classic is going to be "Don Quixote."

I'll start reading The Sound and the Fury in the coming weeks. I really loved Absalom, Absalom! so I'm excited about it as well.

I adored Don Quixote! It's such an amazing, funny, sweet, light read! Have fun with it!

Dave wrote: "25% into Sodom and Gomorrah I had a major "ah, ha" moment. The Guermantes have brought the narrator home from the Princesses party and notes the time is a quarter to twelve. The end of a long day t..."

Good points Dave. And so the narrator now manipulates Albertine to come and kiss him good night instead of his mother. The weird thing is that he notices this himself, this 'terrible need of a person' and the similarity with this need of Albertine now and his mother in the past.

The telephone call is illuminating because it shows just how much the narrator tries to manipulate Albertine to do what he wants and is exasperated when it looks like she won't do his bidding. He just can't understand her having a will of her own. Then we get this menacing passage:

In the case of Albertine, I felt that I should never discover anything, that, out of that tangled mass of details of fact and falsehood, I should never unravel the truth: and that it would always be so, unless I were to shut her up in prison (but prisoners escape) until the end.

But what is Albertine doing that's so underhand? She's just with friends, but, importantly I suppose, she's not doing as he wishes.

BTW I like the little exchanges between the narrator and Françoise. I get the feeling that she sees through him to a certain extent and is less willing to go along with him.

I see we were spared Mme Saint-Euverte's party which was supposed to be the day after the Princess's party; though he hints at visits to 'other fairies and their dwellings'.

In this section the narrator states that his 'relatively frivolous existence' made people believe that he was fond of society, though he hints that it is not so. This is similar to his denial when Bergotte claimed that the narrator was an 'intellectual'. Is he really neither or is he just a contrary bugger?

Jonathan wrote: "I see we were spared Mme Saint-Euverte's party which was supposed to be the day after the Princess's party; though he hints at visits to 'other fairies and their dwellings'.

In this section the n..."

Your points in this post and the previous post are interesting Jonathan. I'd overlooked the manipulative aspects of the passage. The narrator's relationship with Francoise is an interesting one to see develop over the course of the novel.

As expected, I finish Time Regained last night. I have spent the whole day thinking and developing my comments, which I posted in the last week of that volume (as I have done with this volume and the next two). Today's comments run more than 2,000 words (lvolumes 5 and 6 less than half that.) My comments on the whole book and the experience of reading it added to today. I have the luxury of time and made my living as a writer for a long time, so writing is the best way for me to think. I look forward to the rest of the group completing the novel so we can share our thoughts. I look forward to reading Carter's biography with the group. For now I will turn to reading what experts have to say about the book. But won't change or delete what I have posted. If my opinions are muddled or wrong, they will still be muddled and wrong when you get to them. But perhaps I'll be able to explain where I was wrong ;)

Congratulations on finishing ISOLT Dave. I hope you celebrated with a whiskey, as planned.

Thanks for all your comments here as they're always fascinating. As we creep along to the finishing line we look forward to having you with us.

Wow, you made it, Dave! Congratulations!

It seems we still have so much to go, but I'm sure it'll end up going fast. I'm really curious to read everything you wrote on each topic, but of course I'll wait till I'm there.

Hey folks, update.
- I read the Moss and Shattuck books and discovered I had completely misunderstood the ending (and the implication of the ending).
- I went back and erased half my comments on Time Regained. I don't mind looking stupid, but even I have some modesty.
- Based on the references I read, I decided to take a second look at Swann's Way. I selected a .99 cent ebook version of Montcrieff translation and downloaded the electronic sample. Browsing around my eye caught something that, when I realized what I was looking at, stunned me!
- Based on that Proustian moment I have decided to reread the whole book.
- I have written a long review of ISOLT which covers why I decided to reread (but not what I saw in Swann's Way) and the various decisions I made to "have a plan" and get through the book.
- The review is posted on Amazon in the Modern Library Kindle Edition that the group is using (which I purchased but don't plan to use in rereading).
- There are no spoilers in the review, but both the Moss and Shattuck books, referenced in the review contain major spoilers.
Link to Amazon Review:
http://smile.amazon.com/Modern-Librar...

Dave, I'm sure you wouldn't look stupid with your previous comments. If it's your interpretation of the work, I believe it's a valid one, even if it's different than the most common one. But this only made me even more curious to finish reading ISOLT.

Lots of people commented about how you usually feel like re-reading the entire novel after you finished it. Seeing how you went back to Swann's Way is another demonstration of what. I did tell you to re-read everything and catch us when we're reading The Fugitive, didn't I? :P

Can you please post a link to your review on the last topic for Time Regained? I'll read it once I'm finished.

Renato wrote: "Dave, I'm sure you wouldn't look stupid with your previous comments. If it's your interpretation of the work, I believe it's a valid one, even if it's different than the most common one. But this o..."

Thanks Renato, but I let emotion get in the way. I was under the mistaken impression that since Proust was still working when he died, the work was incomplete. I was wrong, the ending is a polished masterpiece, so what I erased was not only wrong it was prejudicial to the group's collective understanding of the work.

I will post the link you requested.

I read he wasn't able to revise it as much as he would want. I'm glad to know you felt it was so polished! I was afraid it would start to decline a bit from now on...

There are issues in the last three volumes, but in retrospect not as serious apparently to the story as I believed. The genius of the ending is an opinion of outside sources. Perhaps the Carter bio will enlighten us on writing and publication. My guess now is that Proust wrote the ending and went back and was filling in details etc. when he died.

I read somewhere that he wrote Time Regained right after Swann's Way, or even at the same time. I forgot where though, so I don't have a source to back this up.

That very well could be. Oh, and to clarify, again based on outside reading, "the ending" is the last 200 pages of "Time Regained."

Dave wrote: "Hey folks, update.
-...Browsing around my eye caught something that, when I realized what I was looking at, stunned me!
- Based on that Proustian moment I have decided to reread the whole book."

Welcome, Dave, to the "Proustian Fraternity!"
Neither money nor friendship will buy this membership...you must read your way in. ;)
Now, you will be reading a rather different novel, as the layers will begin to reveal themselves.

Dave wrote: "There are issues in the last three volumes, but in retrospect not as serious apparently to the story as I believed. The genius of the ending is an opinion of outside sources. Perhaps the Carter biography...

"My guess now is that Proust wrote the ending and went back and was filling in details etc. when he died."

You are correct. Proust had developed the structure in 1909 (here the cathedral images echo...some never completed).

"On July 7 (1909), after one extraordinary work session, he wrote Robert Dreyfus ....
For more than sixty hours he had not slept or turned off his light. His valet, who did not 'worship' his employer, now thought him endowed with 'an old Brahman’s mysterious power of resistance. . . . Who would have believed it!' In spite of his exhaustion, Proust felt elated over the work he had accomplished."

[...]

"...for I’ve just begun—and finished—a whole long book." MP to Mme Straus. (SL 2: 445–46.)

From Carter's biography, Marcel Proust: A Life.

Marcelita wrote: "Dave wrote: "Hey folks, update.
-...Browsing around my eye caught something that, when I realized what I was looking at, stunned me!
- Based on that Proustian moment I have decided to reread the wh..."

I'm already 10% through Swann's Way Marcelita and I know EXACTLY what you mean! Although I was saying to myself that it was a completely different novel! But I won't quibble. I'm a newbie rereader! My only problem is I sometimes read sentences and paragraphs over and over saying "This is increadible!"

I would be interested in any comments you have on my Amazon review, specifically my plea for rereading. The link is in the last Week of Time Regained".

Marcelita wrote: "Dave wrote: "There are issues in the last three volumes, but in retrospect not as serious apparently to the story as I believed. The genius of the ending is an opinion of outside sources. Perhaps t..."

Thanks for answering our question Marcelita!

I'm sorry to be going off topic here, but I don't want to open the Time Regained topic before its time. :P

Dave, are you reading a different edition of Swann's Way than the one you've read before? You're still listening the audiobook accompanying it?

Renato, I'm reading The Montcrief edition again because it is what the Audiobook uses (yes I'm listening as well again). I posted the link to my Amazon review on this week above where I said I decided to reread. There are no spoilers in the review. There is nothing about plot or content. Just about the decision yo reread and why I now believe immediate reread is so important. Also talks about my decisions on translation, audio, etc. Just don't open the other books that I reference in the review.
I bought the "Paintings in Proust Book, it will be here on Friday.

Thanks, Dave, just finished reading your review: I liked it very much! I'm getting anxious to get there and re-read it! :) Paintings in Proust is very helpful! I bought mine when i began reading ISOLT.

Renato wrote: "I'm sorry to be going off topic here, but I don't want to open the Time Regained topic before its time. :P

I too must apologize for leading this discussion off topic. If the moderators wish (and can) move everything from message 16-32 to the "After Lost Time" folder/thread please do!

I'm not sure it's possible to do that, Dave. But it's ok since it's been just us for the past couple of weeks, haha!

Renato wrote: "I'm not sure it's possible to do that, Dave. But it's ok since it's been just us for the past couple of weeks, haha!"

I'm going to start posting these type things in the "After We Regain Time" folder. I've got some ideas about a Reread Group for next year I will post there later. My guess is that those still "suffering" (a good and necessary thing in the long term) through the first read may have difficulty seeing the point. But when they finish, and others that previously finished, may be interested.

That's a good idea and I'm down for a reread next year! :)

It might be worth setting up a new discussion, e.g. 'Re-reading Proust' or similar. Group members can start new discussion threads but if you want I'll have a look at it when I'm at my PC - I'm on my phone at the moment.

There is now a discussion thread titled Re-reading 'In Search of Lost Time'.

Jonathan wrote: "It might be worth setting up a new discussion, e.g. 'Re-reading Proust' or similar. Group members can start new discussion threads but if you want I'll have a look at it when I'm at my PC - I'm on ..."

A phone? You have a phone? Will you post a little essay on how how the phone changes the nature of communication and how you interacted with the mysterious "ladies of the telephone?" lol - Thanks Jonathan, the new thread will be helpful.

Dave wrote: "A phone? You have a phone? Will you post a little essay on how how the phone changes the nature of communication and how you interacted with the mysterious "ladies of the telephone?" lol - Thanks Jonathan, the new thread will be helpful. ..."

I think you'll find that there have been great advances in technology over the last hundred years and, as such, telephones no longer rely on the 'ladies of the telephone' - they use electromagnetic pixies now.

I'll make a note to check that out. Right now patiently waiting for mama to come upstairs and kiss me before my nap ;)

Patiently? Right.

Re: Intermittencies of the Heart

I'm just going through this part of the reading again. I think we mentioned the narrator's reaction to his grandmother on arrival to Balbec in earlier comments. What I found clever was the way that Proust went from the initial malapropisms of the hotel manager to the narrator contemplating Mme Putbus's chambermaid (I hope we meet her) to his recollections and re-evaluations of his grandmother, his memories of her and regrets of how he sometimes mistreated her. But I guess we always feel a bit like that with someone who's died as there's no longer any way of changing things.

I keep reading and re-reading this quote which comes just after the narrator has had the involuntary memory of his grandmother after touching his boots. When I read it the exact meaning just slips away and I get lost in a tangle of words and meanings. Here it is (the emphasis is mine for when it starts to slip away from me):

I was now solely the person who had sought a refuge in his grandmother's arms, had sought to obliterate the traces of his sorrow by smothering her with kisses, that person whom I should have had as much difficulty in imagining when I was one or other of those that for some time past I had successively been as now I should have had in making the sterile effort to experience the desires and joys of one of those that for a time at least I no longer was.

...er what? :-) It's one of those sentences that if you just read once and continue I think the essence of the meaning is extracted but if you stop and try to unravel it then it becomes less clear.

The narrator's comments on the death of his grandmother and the different effect that this had on him compared with his mother is very interesting. He admits that his mother has experienced a more 'real grief' than his 'transitory' grief. He suggests that this is partly because he can only assimilate it through an involuntary memory and that it's only later once his subconscious (I suppose) has processed the information and is then released that he can fully experience it. I don't see why this makes it a 'less real' grief, though.

He further comments on his mother becoming more like his grandmother, which is something I've noticed within my own family. Although I agree with Proust's observations, such as:

Once she is dead, we hesitate to be different, we begin to admire only what she was, what we ourselves already were, only blended with something else, and what in future we shall be exclusively.

I wonder if it's also partly that an observer notices the similarities between, in this case mother and grandmother, more when one is no longer alive?

Jonathan wrote: "Re: Intermittencies of the Heart

I'm just going through this part of the reading again. I think we mentioned the narrator's reaction to his grandmother on arrival to Balbec in earlier comments. Wh..."

Good point Jonathan! I was really impressed with this section. Based on my own experiences in grief and my work as a volunteer grief counselor, I found this section very authentic psychologically.

Jonathan wrote: "I keep reading and re-reading this quote which comes just after the narrator has had the involuntary memory of his grandmother after touching his boots. When I read it the exact meaning just slips ..."

The sentence you cite is certainly Proust at his obtuse best. The way I interpret it is that the power of his grief has "crowded out" all the "selfs" he has successively become as he has grown up and, just as a moment before he had forgotten his grandmother, now his self as grandson is all he can remember.

Hey everybody! I've fallen behind a bit. But I just finished The Heart's Intermissions and am really struck by it. Lots in there about all the themes I adore.

I notice also the full flowering started "In a Budding Grove" ...

I'm also wholly in love with the symphonic recurrence of the themes of the "rosy ... light of the inner walls of the eyes," the "truthful hour of sleep," the "incomprehensible contradiction of memory and nonexistence." The constant creation and death of perceptions of people in our minds...

Cheers, everybody!

Dwayne wrote: "Hey everybody! I've fallen behind a bit. But I just finished The Heart's Intermissions and am really struck by it. Lots in there about all the themes I adore..."

I'm glad to see you're still with us Dwayne. You're not far behind us, so don't worry about that.

Jonathan wrote: "I'm glad to see you..."
Yep, still here! Just quiet. : )

Another thing that occurred to me during The Heart's Intermissions was communication. A couple of things caught my attention. First, the hotel manager's malapropisms. I think the episode reminds us how fragile communication is. The speaker has an intention, but has to code it in language, deliver it, and the hearer has to receive it and decode it... so many chances to go wrong. Again, the whole idea that it's quite unlikely that anyone can ever fully understand another person, even when they take the time to communicate. Speaking of which ...

Proust gives the narrator an uncharacteristic, impossibly short sentence here. "Complete physical exhaustion." So powerful and jarring when we are so used to pages-long sentences. The effect is, as I said, *jarring* and works really well to give the sense that a break is occurring -- the floodgates of grief over grandma.

I think both of the above combine to give a clue about why the other sentences in this novel are so impossibly ... complete? explicit? exhaustive? ExhaustING? The narrator is desperately trying to communicate himself, and to be understood -- maybe even to understand himself.