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

Use this topic thread for all Time Regained discussions through location 53222.

Stop at paragraph beginning "I was surrounded by symbols (Guermantes, Albertine, Gilberte, Saint-Loup, Balbec, etc.) and to the least of these I had to restore the meaning which habit had caused them to lose for me."

I started today reading this week's section as I won't have any time from Friday until Monday.

The last chapter, "An Afternoon Party At the Princesse de Guermantes", is in this section and I just read a small part of it. I am already speechless!!!

After I'm finished, probably tomorrow, I'll come back to post my comments.

Enjoy Renato!

So we finally found out the condition the narrator found Charlus in the afternoon party at the Princess de Guermantes. I felt really sad reading their encounter... it was, for me, one of the saddest passages in the entire work, along with the grandmother's attack and subsequent passing (and, of course, when he finally realized it once he came back to Balbec) and also Bergotte's death (I guess mainly because I associated it with Proust's own death).

I don't know if it was the way it was written or simply because I have some trouble in dealing with my loved ones getting old and how I know there'll be a day they'll leave me - yes, it's silly and everyone will go through this, but I have trouble with this -, seeing Charlus so debilitated was rather difficult. The good part is we know he'll get better and live another decade or so, right? So the narrator will get that letter in about 10 years from now (the day of the afternoon party)...

This week's section has more amazing moments of involuntary memories and our narrator is finally understanding how he can find time again. I wish I had time today to re-read everything, but I can't... I'll do it next week.

I wonder if the time that is lost refers to "lost within ourselves". Those memories - those moments, that we don't know are in us - that by internal triggers suddenly reappear before us. He talks about how those are the true impressions that are stuck with us, and go on by talking about literature and art. Absolutely wonderful.

Trying to make sense of everything in my own head, I re-read just a couple of pages from the Overture, the beginning of Swann's Way. The feeling I had that it was very similar to the beginning of vol. 7 is bigger now. He's in bed, he's thinking of sleeping, he has a book on his hands, he mentions a candle etc... I wonder: was the Overture the same evening as the beginning of Vol. 7?

I find it so very interesting that he's, in a way, saying that the only way to truly attain a memory is by forgetting it - or perhaps 'burying' it would be a better word.

If the memory stays vividly with you, you risk changing it from its original form. So by 'forgetting' it he can later access it from some trigger and truly appreciate as it's supposed to be.

I loved how he mentioned The Country Waif (François le champi) and how he doesn't want to look at its cover as an adult because it'd be a risk to add new impressions to that old memory. Which links me to this old regret I have/had - because I wished I could look at them again and reminisce - that I never saved any object from my childhood, not one toy, not one book, nada! According to Proust's theory, this is good, or I'd risk tainting my childhood memories!

"And on the way to it, I noted that there would be great difficulties in creating the work of art I now felt ready to undertake without its being consciously in my mind, for I should have to construct each of its successive parts out of a different sort of material."

I wonder if, like our narrator, Proust also came to his decision of writing his masterpiece after an epiphany, after a string of involuntary memories.

It's really hard to drop the book and follow the schedule. I feel we're so close to seeing everything clearly, the veil is being lifted before our eyes. I need to see where this is all going! He's decided, finally, that he can write his book, now that he has found an inspiration, now that he's figured out how... but what will happen? We know he still has about - at least - 10 years ahead of him...

"How many times in the course of my life reality had disappointed me because at the moment when I perceived it, my imagination, which was my only means of enjoying beauty, could not be applied to it by virtue of the inevitable law which only allows us to imagine that which is absent."

I enjoy when he addresses a point that we've discussed before. It makes me feel we're paying attention :-)

The image described of the battle between the memory and the actual moment is very interesting.

"In that case as in all the preceding ones, the common sensation had sought to recreate the former place around itself whilst the material place in which the sensation occurred, opposed all the resistance of its mass to this immigration into a Paris mansion of a Norman seashore and a railway-embankment. The marine dining-room of Balbec with its damask linen prepared like altar cloths to receive the setting sun had sought to disturb the solidity of the Guermantes' mansion, to force its doors, and had made the sofas round me quiver an instant as on another occasion the tables of the restaurant in Paris had done."

What other occasion? This seems to have slipped my mind... now where's that trigger?

"In all those resurrections, the distant place engendered by the sensation common to them all, came to grips for a second with the material place, like a wrestler. The material place was always the conqueror and always the conquered seemed to me the more beautiful, so much so that I remained in a state of ecstasy upon the uneven pavement as I did with my cup of tea, trying to retain with the moment of their appearance, to make reappear as they escaped, that Combray, that Venice, that Balbec, invading, yet repelled, which came before my eyes only immediately to abandon me in the midst of a newer scene which yet was penetrable by the past."

Needless to say, we know you by now! ;-)

Renato wrote: "So we finally found out the condition the narrator found Charlus in the afternoon party at the Princess de Guermantes. I felt really sad reading their encounter... it was, for me, one of the saddes..."

Having had grandparents who faded into senility, I too was saddened to see Charlus reduced to such a state. At the same time I was amused that Charlus still was chasing after young boys and Jupien was still trying to keep him corraled!

But the person that I was focused on in this scene was Jupien. I reflected that he had been loyal to Charlus since early in the book when we heard him calling Charlus by terms of endearment. Too me this demonstrated Jupien's love of Charlus (perhaps unrequited).

There is so much in this book. I feel like quoting everything!

"But I should extract that beauty with better will from the history of my own life, that is to say, not as a book-fancier; and it would often happen that I attached that beauty, not to the material volume itself but to a work such as this François le Champi contemplated for the first time in my little room at Combray during that night, perhaps the sweetest and the saddest of my life, when, alas, (at a time when the mysterious Guermantes seemed very inaccessible to me) I had wrung from my parents that first abdication from which I was able to date the decline of my health and of my will, my renunciation of a difficult task which every ensuing day made more painful—a task reassumed today in the library of those very Guermantes, on the most wonderful day when not only the former gropings of my thought but even the aim of my life and perhaps that of art were illuminated."

Just beautiful how he ties everything together in such a short paragraph! I want to go out and run on the streets screaming PEOPLE, READ PROUST!

Ugh, before you run through the streets Renato, please give us the address of the Sanitarium you are most likely to be taken to. lol

In my experience, you really don't have to run through the streets. Just mention you read Proust and folks will nervously start looking for a straight jacket.

Dave wrote: "But the person that I was focused on in this scene was Jupien. I reflected that he had been loyal to Charlus since early in the book when we heard him calling Charlus by terms of endearment. Too me this demonstrated Jupien's love of Charlus (perhaps unrequited)."

Yes, I also thought of that and thankfully smiled at Jupien, as if he was taking care of one of my loved ones.

I also wondered if such a thing would happen to me in years to come, who would be the person by my side, whether it'd be someone already in my life or perhaps yet to come.

Who can say? Do you already have someone in your life named Francoise/Celeste?

Dave wrote: "Ugh, before you run through the streets Renato, please give us the address of the Sanitarium you are most likely to be taken to. lol

In my experience, you really don't have to run through the stre..."

LOL!!! I'll sure give you the name, Dave!

Yes, most of my close friends think I'm crazy when I mention Proust and try to describe what's the work about... the closest to support that I got so far was "well maybe I'll try to read it next year..."

Dave wrote: "Who can say? Do you already have someone in your life named Francoise/Celeste?"

Not yet. I'll friend people with those names on Facebook to see if it turns into real friendship :-)

I'm thinking of revising the lyrics to the American Hymn "What a Friend we have in Jesus" to "What a friend we have in Marcel" and setting up a Revival tent in Downtown San Antonio.

Renato wrote: "There is so much in this book. I feel like quoting everything!

I want to go out and run on the streets screaming PEOPLE, READ PROUST!"

Alas, you will have a colleague, in France, who has been doing just that!
Laurence Grenier...she reads Proust under a tree.

She wrote to ask if I would do the same in Central Park. Yikes! I am such a hermit...the very idea is terrifying.

Laurence has a blog and youtube interviews; she would gladly be your mentor, Renato! ;)

Laurence Grenier..."Proust for All!"

https://translate.google.com/translat...
http://sceaux.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/04...

On Tuesday, she spoke at the Swann Hotel, in Paris, on the anniversary of Proust's death:
http://proustpourtous.over-blog.com/2...

This is very interesting Marcelita. Does she read at the same location or does she move around. Is there a schedule of where, when and what she is reading? We are planning a trip next Fall to Southwest France, but I would make a detour to see her read.

Laurence wrote me awhile ago... she was foregoing the "talks" for now, because she was working on another project (probably the one she spoke about last Tuesday).

However, she is very responsive to communication.
Email me (marcelitaswann@gmail.com) when you have your dates finalized, and we will write her together.

I stay in Mènerbes, when visiting Provence. Will you be going to Illiers-Combray?

We are going to Haut-Pyrenees. If we are going to stay in Paris we will go to Combray to or from. There is a little spa town down near the Pyrenees on the Atlantic Coast where Marcel and Mama go. I have not looked it up to see which town it corresponds to. Thank you for the offer of coordination. I suspect our trip will be in the first half of October.

Dave wrote: "We are going to Haut-Pyrenees. If we are going to stay in Paris we will go to Combray to or from. There is a little spa town down near the Pyrenees on the Atlantic Coast where Marcel and Mama go. I..."

This may be the spa: Salies-de-Béarn

Carter's biography; page 45
http://books.google.com/books?id=NxTa...

"With the popularity of hydrotherapy in Salies-de-Béarn, hotels, some palaces, begin to bloom to welcome all travelers flowing to his station with five daily trains: foreign aristocrats, wealthy bourgeois, artists visit this small town in Béarn whose waters become famous. The Grand Hotel de la Paix was built in 1883. It houses 1886 Marcel Proust, his brother Robert and mother. Marcel Proust are a season pass, his brother and his mother return until 1889. If Marcel Proust judgment rather mixed feelings about the city the population of which it seems strange, it enjoys abundant and fine food of the hotel and was impressed by the number of cattle he meets. It is difficult to go in search of Marcel Proust Salies-de-Béarn as the Grand Hotel de la Paix in smoke in 1926." Google translated
http://citybreaksaaa.com/2014/08/17/s...

"July 1897, he was 26 years old: Significant aggravation of evil (sore?) Begin to organize. his daytime sleep, probably also necessary to compensate its outputs n octurnes in salons do support some more noise and odors Ira cure with his mother (both for her and for him).. Salies-de-Béarn, ..." Translated
http://proustien.over-blog.com/pages/...

Thanks Marcelita! I'll translate that page later, but the name looks familiar.

Renato wrote: "This week's section has more amazing moments of involuntary memories and our narrator is finally understanding how he can find time again. I wish I had time today to re-read everything, but I can't..."

I started this week's reading from the start of the party section and before long he's riffing on involuntary memories, Lost Time etc. Which is brilliant. Likewise I feel that I should be re-reading everything but I'll soldier on and re-read later.

I agree that there's a lot of quoteable material here. Here's my favourite so far:

Yet a single sound, a single scent, already heard or breathed long ago, may once again, both in the present and the past, be real without being present, ideal without being abstract, as soon as the permanent and habitually hidden essence of things is liberated, and our true self, which may sometimes have seemed to be long dead, but never was entirely, is re-awoken and re-animated when it receives the heavenly food that is brought to it.

This section reminded me a bit of my attempts to read Heidegger's 'Being and Time' many years ago. I felt that Heidegger was saying something simple but profound in a complicated way that was difficult to grasp (so I gave up). Proust also seems concerned with the 'essence' of things and places, 'outside time'.

That is a beautiful passage you quoted Jonathan. In some of my background reading I have seen Proust's ideas linked to Heidegger so your sense of philosophical connection may be well founded.

Seems to me very evocative of the eastern philosphies, esp. Advaita.

Good point MMR. I think Heidegger was influenced partly by Eastern philosophy.

Jonathan wrote: "I started this week's reading from the start of the party section and before long he's riffing on involuntary memories, Lost Time etc. Which is brilliant. Likewise I feel that I should be re-reading everything but I'll soldier on and re-read later."

That was a great section indeed. I believe I read some sections three times. Glad you're back to reading it!

Never heard of Heidegger's 'Being and Time', but I'll take a look now that I'm very interested on this theme.

I wouldn't recommend reading B&T unless you've got a lot of time to spend on it. I did find a book by Stephen Mulhall (9780415100939) very useful though.

Thanks, Jonathan. I'm planning to regain time again starting in January... so maybe after that!

I agree with Jonathan on B & T, it has a reputation as one of the great Philosophy books of the Twentieth Century but also one of the most impenetrable. I endorse Jonathan's suggestion to read a summary of B & T. An interesting biographic note, Heidegger fell out of academic grace for many years be because he joined the Nazi Party in the Thirties. As I remember he was not an enthusiastic Nazi but felt being a Party member was necessary to keep his job at a University. Anyway, he has been restored to philosophical rectitude.

Well, I finished this week's reading. Proust has glided from talking about involuntary memories to art and literature whilst he's waiting in the library.

I like this quote:

Real life, life finally uncovered and clarified, the only life in consequence lived to the full, is literature. Life in this sense dwells within all ordinary people as much as the artist. But they do not see it because they are not trying to shed light on it.

And he follows it with another one that is just as brilliant (emphasis mine):

It is only through art that we can escape from ourselves and know how another person sees a universe which is not the same as our own and whose landscapes would otherwise have remained as unknown as any there may be on the moon.

I added the emphasis because this confused me a little at first because I thought there are surely many ways other than art 'where we can escape from ourselves', e.g. religion, science, physical exercise, or any other demanding task. But both 'escaping from ourselves' and seeing from another's perspective? I don't really know whether art is the only way as I would have thought talking and empathising with others may achieve the same effect, but I'd agree that art (literature) does at least achieve that result, after all, that's one of the things that I like about it.

Yes, I agree with you, Jonathan. In this we can see how passionate Proust was about art and especially literature. But for sure it's not the only way.

I do like how he states that this art is inside everyone, only some are not particularly trying to see it, not seeking for it. I like it because I've been wondering if I could ever write something unique of my own... it's nice to know Proust thinks it is here, I just haven't uncovered it yet.

I disagree with Proust's wholesale rejection of realism however. There was so much that I disagreed with but the main thing that annoyed me was the fact that he's doing what other literary figures, critics and/or philosophers do, and have done repeatedly, and that is to try to make what they prefer into a rule that everyone else must or should follow.

For example after denouncing realism as a 'miserable list of lines and surfaces' he says that it 'cuts all communication between our present self and the past' and that it 'is this that any art worthy of the name must express' - but why? I can see that it is what Proust wants to express, and that this is one of the positive things about his work, but why must it be necessary for every piece of art?

Renato wrote: "Yes, I agree with you, Jonathan. In this we can see how passionate Proust was about art and especially literature. But for sure it's not the only way.

I do like how he states that this art is insi..."

I'll really need to re-read this as I'm trying to find bits that I read or 'thought' I read but can't find them - and I only read it a few hours ago. But what I found annoying was that he seemed to be saying that it is 'only' artists and 'only through art' that people can truly be alive - I disagree. I'll try to find the relevant parts :-)

Jonathan wrote: "I disagree with Proust's wholesale rejection of realism however. There was so much that I disagreed with but the main thing that annoyed me was the fact that he's doing what other literary figures,..."

I also agree with you on that! His takes on realism/modernism are close-minded in my opinion. Especially reading that while I'm also reading Joyce. I didn't stress much about it though, I just took it as literary criticism - and one I didn't agree with.

Renato wrote: "I didn't stress much about it though, I just took it as literary criticism - and one I didn't agree with. "

Good point, Renato. I suppose because Proust's idea that a memory of something or an intellectualisation of a feeling or action is somehow better than the original thing is particularly odd to me. I find the memory of something just a pale imitation of the direct experience.

BTW Did you take this quote as a dig at Joyce?:

Some even wanted the novel to be a sort of cinematographic stream of things. This was an absurd idea.

Jonathan wrote: "Well, I finished this week's reading. Proust has glided from talking about involuntary memories to art and literature whilst he's waiting in the library.

I like this quote:Real life, life finally ..."

An interesting set of quotes and commentary Jonathan. I do like the first quote and you seem to as well.

Regarding the second quote I agree that there are other means that can fulfill that two specifications of knowledge that the only art can provide. Many might say this a good index of what Proust "is about". I held that view also but have changed my opinion. Now my opinion is "Poppycock!" This is the inspired musings of a fictional character." The most insightful of my outside readings have repeatedly reminded me not to assume the thoughts of the Narrator are the opinions of Proust. The quote is the logical progression of Marcel's observations throughout the book and since the ending was apparently written at the beginning these must have been written to lead to this conclusion.

Jonathan wrote: "I disagree with Proust's wholesale rejection of realism however. There was so much that I disagreed with but the main thing that annoyed me was the fact that he's doing what other literary figures,..."

Again I would suggest this is not Proust's "wholesale rejection" but the thoughts of his character. To the degree that such thoughts and quotes have been taken up by disciples or self-styled Apostles they lend an air of misguided false authority and certainty that the reality of A la Recherche in my opinion does not support. Proust was a genius, he poured his genius into the creation of a monumental work of literature. He wrote in a style he invented and changed the course of modern literature. But as Alain de Botton so insightfully states at the end of his own book "in the end it is only a book.

Jonathan wrote: "BTW Did you take this quote as a dig at Joyce?:

Some even wanted the novel to be a sort of cinematographic stream of things. This was an absurd idea."

I didn't think he was directly referring Joyce, but I did think of him immediately when I read it!

Good point Dave. In this section I'd started confusing the narrator of the text with Proust himself.

I'm unfamiliar with when Joyce's work was published but this portion of A la Recherché was probably written around 1909. According to Night at the Majestic Proust and Joyce were unfamiliar with each others work in 1922. The idea of thoughts being a cinematographic stream were obviously floating around for Proust to pick up on in his prose. He seems to have been very up on scientific and other modern ideas.

Although I agree that we're only reading the narrator's views, I'm very inclined to believe that these were also Proust's thoughts concerning literature and art as I don't think he would've written such an amazing masterpiece based on arguments that went against his personal views.

This is where I get frustrated at having to post my comments. This subject (and a jillion others about Proust's book) are best discussed in all night bull sessions that resolve nothing but are a lot of fun. Like all our comments I condense mine so they often don't express my whole thought and possible reactions. Certainly Renato the book contains Proust's opinions on art and literature -and many other things. But at one and a half times the size of the Bible I've come to realize that Proust is one and a half times more likely to be quoted out of context than the Bible. Proust's opinions,I believe, are reflected in the totality of the text which each reader must read in-full and then reflect on and decide who Proust is to them and what his work has to say to them. This is the same as other artists/art and is my opinion of what the first quote Jonathan cited is getting at.

So you don't think those are Proust's views? Are we quoting him out of context and thus misinterpreting his points?

I will be difficult here and say views about what? What the context is depends on the answer to first question. Any reader's interpretation depends on that reader's experience in reading the text.

I can find a quote to be funny, or interesting, or insightful of plot development. But I am skeptical that a sentence, even a Proustian sentence, can state Proust's opinion on art or literature. Jonathan's comments about the second quote he cited reflected a skepticism about the uniqueness of art in conveying knowledge. I agree with Jonathan - The sentence is beautifully written prose, but I'm pretty sure it would not stand up to a logical or philosophical examination.

So rather than answer the questions you posed, my inclination is to ask readers who had read the whole book to reread the library scene, then close their books and write a one page summary of the major points made in the reading. Everyone gets an A, as long they explained their thoughts without quoting the text.

LOL Dave, I'm sorry, but my inclination is to say you're taking it too seriously, like some do with the Bible.

We're simply staying open to the possibility (I'm almost convinced though) that the narrator's views on literature and art - which were not quoted out of context, since that was precisely what we were talking about as well - were Proust's.

I get that this fiction we've read is about a character, a narrator and his own views. But just like we know that Proust included some of his life on his story, and it gets even clearer now that I'm reading the Carter bio, we could also suppose or question whether Proust used his own thoughts and ideas on writing and art to compose those of his hero in this part as well.

I don't think writing an essay about it would be necessary, simply because, in the end, we won't get to a definitive answer. We're just discussing ideas here.

WOW Renato, in my scribbling and fumbling around I actually made contact with South America. Eureka! If you knew me in person you would know I don't take myself or anything too seriously. The writing exercise was "a modest proposal" just a point that, for me, expressing a personal opinion about a book in a discussion is more interesting than quoting the book.

Interesting that you mention the Bible. I live in the "Bible Belt" of the US. People drive around with bumper stickers on their trucks like "John 3:16". After a lifetime of ignoring organized religion I joined a large Protestant Church. Being bookish I decided I should read the Bible. I found it challenging but after two years had a pretty good handle on it. I also learned that folks quote the Bible with zeal but I never encountered anyone who could use the Bible text (without quoting it) to make a point about faith. So I left the church.

But I realize I'm not going to find anyone to talk about Proust where I live. So I'll make do with buying a pickup and putting a bumper sticker on the back that reads "TR p. 742"

LOL! I love the sticker idea with "TR p. 742"! After my complete re-read, I want to come up with one and only one quote, my favorite. I wonder if that's possible.

I agree that expressing a personal opinion about a book is more helpful than quoting it. But in this case we were wondering about words that were written etc.. Just like I misinterpreted your message and thought you were being too serious about it, we can misinterpret Proust's. And while I know we'll never truly know, I do enjoy wondering about possibilites and ideas. Remember I had crazy theories about the ending since the early volumes!

About the Bible, I never know when someone is sensitive about it (I know a lot of people who are), but since you mentioned it, I just kept it going! I've never read it to be honest, but I definitely want to someday - as literature though. I've been told that its stories are really good. I remember trying to read it as a child, but couldn't understand much...