The Year of Reading Proust discussion

Charlus...and his "dream."

"... at the bottom of all this there persisted in M. de Charlus his dream of virility, to be attested if need be by acts of brutality, and all that inner radiance, invisible to us but projecting in this manner a little reflected light, with which his mediaeval imagination adorned crosses of judgment and feudal tortures.
[...]
"In short his desire to be bound in chains and beaten, with bound in chains and beaten, with all its ugliness, betrayed a dream as poetical as, in other men, the longing to go to Venice or to keep ballet-dancers." MP

Marcelita wrote: "Charlus...and his "dream."

"... at the bottom of all this there persisted in M. de Charlus his dream of virility, to be attested if need be by acts of brutality, and all that inner radiance, invis..."

I also liked this passage, Marcelita. I posted the French version in #49 and FioFio had commented on the twist that follows as the nobler motivations are later presented by the Narrator.

It also links up with his earlier dealing of the virility theme.

Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Proust had been indirectly alluded to (when his translations of Ruskin are mentioned by Jupien)."

Il n'y aura pas d'alerte ce soir au moins, car..."

Thank you for posting the "graffiti" at Pompeii, Marcelita. More than apt. Perfect.

Marcelita wrote: "One of my favorite passages...

"'Hearing all these promises of money, he had taken the Baron for a spy. And he was greatly relieved when he realised that he was being asked to sell not his his cou..."

Brilliant quote.. I agree. I also liked it.

Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "..car les vrai paradis sont les paradis qu'on a perdu..."

So the Narrator is saying that 'forgetting' allows a 'memory' to be untainted by the air of the present moment, and prese..."

Yes, that is my understanding, but also the fact of the re-visit, the re-turn or (re-nouvellement), the coming back of something that has already been lived - and it seems that it is that quality of re-new that makes it paradise-like.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Marcelita hun, if you could move over to the side. I'm trying to set up this buffet table to entice more members to come in here and post in this week's thread.

Bon appetit!!!"

Thank you for the initiative, Reem. We certainly would like to see coming to the fore during these last weeks, those readers who have been spectators so far.

Reem has prepared a wonderful welcoming table for everyone.

Reading , I come upon a selection from one of Ruskin's letters (2nd November 1851)

... and over the greater part of St. Mark's place -- and nothing could be more exquisite than the appearance of the church from the other end, with the reflection of its innumerable pillars white and dark green and purple, thrown down far over the square in bright bars, fading away in confused arrows of colour --with here and there a touch of blue and gold from the mosaics. Had there been sunshine it would have been like a scene from the Arabian Nights.

We should remember that Ruskin also painted...

Ruskin's Saint Mark's

Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Proust had been indirectly alluded to (when his translations of Ruskin are mentioned by Jupien)."

"Thank you for posting the "graffiti" at Pompeii, Marcelita. More than apt. Perfect"

It was your idea. (your post last week: #207):

"...then the reference to the inscription of "Sodoma, Gomora" that was supposedly found in Pompei."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/mu...

Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Proust had been indirectly alluded to (when his translations of Ruskin are mentioned by Jupien)."
Thank you fo..."

Yes, but it did not cross my mind to go on the search for it Fascinating. It must have lingered in Proust's mind since he first encountered it.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "..this buffet table to entice more members to come in here and post in this week's thread.."

Yes, Reem, it would be great to hear more voices in these final weeks of The Year of Reading Proust, so that the many individuals (yes, you!) scattered throughout the world who make up this communal reading group could come together to make the discussion richer, especially since the seventh volume itself draws together all the multiple threads that Proust scattered throughout the earlier volumes, so making it an Aladdin's cave of details to debate....

Marcelita, that graffiti from Pompeii is mind boggling. That it was found, first, but that it was written there in the first place!!! Does it mean that some very early Christian, who knew his Old Testament thoroughly, saw the eruption of Vesuvius (AD 79) as a revisiting of the Lord's wrath as in Sodome and Gommora? I know that it may seem obvious but when you think about it, it is quite amazing...

Kalliope, is that watercolour/ink drawing by Ruskin?

Fionnuala wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "..this buffet table to entice more members to come in here and post in this week's thread.."

Yes, Reem, it would be great to hear more voices in these final weeks of ..."

Yes, it is by Ruskin.. Will add it in the post above.

His watercolours are very very beautiful..

Here are more..

Frederigo Cornaro's house in Venice, now Ca'Loredan

And Proust would appreciate the "azur" in this one...

Lovely watercolors Kalliope. I do like the azur. What was the word he used ultramarine.

Wasn't this considered blasphemous?..." but what appeared to me to be an elderly lady in a black skirt. I soon realised my mistake: it was a priest- that thing so rare, and in France altogether exceptional, a bad priest," (MKE 201) This must have been very offensive to readers during Proust's time. How would they react to reading this sentence?

"What do you expect? I am not" ( I expected him to say "a saint")" a good girl." ((MKE 201) The priest forgets to pay for his room, so Jupien shakes the "collecting box in which he placed the contribution of each client and said as he made it clink: 'For the expenses of the church, Monsieur l'Abbe!" (MKE 201)

Proust makes it sound like this is a collection bag going around collecting alms for the church. Sounds blasphemous to me!!!

How beautiful these Ruskin watercolours are, Kalliope, all of them - I had no idea.

You and Marcelita have provided us with a rare gallery of precious images throughout this year.
Proust illustrates his narrative with unequalled word pictures; you take the word pictures and translate them into images.
When I come to look back on the experience of reading Proust's seven volumes for the first time, my memory of the journey will be stamped with your unique Proust iconography.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "...Wasn't this considered blasphemous?..."What do you expect? I am not" ( I expected him to say "a saint")" a good girl." ((MKE 201) The priest forgets to pay for his room, so Jupien shakes the "collecting box in which he placed the contribution of each client and said as he made it clink: 'For the expenses of the church, Monsieur l'Abbe!" (MKE 201)"


The translation gives a slightly different slant to this than is seen in the original, Reem so I understand your confusion.
I don't have my copy here to double check this but I think the word 'girl' is 'ange' or angel in the original, and that makes it both clever and funny - 'girl' doesn't have the same spark to it at all - I don't even understand why the translator chose it.
And the word 'church' is not used but 'culte' which doesn't mean the building or even the faith but the practise of the faith, and as we all know, the, at times, questionable 'practices' of many faiths throughout the world, and down through the decades, leave them open to criticism. Proust is underlining the hypocrisy of some of the practitioners of the Catholic faith at the time.

Pompeii: there's a street graffiti of a man with a donkey's head on a cross, captioned; "The crucified ass." Evidently there were Xtians in 79 AD (or to be politically correct, 79 CE), and someone didn't like them!

Elizabeth wrote: "Pompeii: there's a street graffiti of a man with a donkey's head on a cross, captioned; "The crucified ass." Evidently there were Xtians in 79 AD (or to be politically correct, 79 CE), and someon..."

A graffiti war, Elizabeth - I love it!

And yesterday you mentioned your own particular 'trigger' for memory - and one involving smell. I think that sense must be the most powerful at awakening memory. I was convinced back in the first book that it was the smell of the tisane the madeleine was soaked in, and which must have been closely associated in his young mind with the particular smell of Tante Léonie's bedroom, and not the taste of the cake, that inspired the awakening of the Narrator's memories of Combray

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Lovely watercolors Kalliope. I do like the azur. What was the word he used ultramarine.

Wasn't this considered blasphemous?..." but what appeared to me to be an elderly lady in a black skirt. I so..."

He uses the word "azur" this week...

I agree with Fionnuala that the translation of the passage with the "bad priest" is somewhat peculiar... I had actually drawn attention in #25 review above on what I interpreted as a presumption from the part of the priest to compare himself, not with a saint, but with an angel...

I actually took that passage as a parody, but then I am influenced also by the way it is read in my Audio version, because the asking for money for the church (les frais du culte - again, as Fio says, the practice of the faith) is read with a nasal and exaggerated monotone voice, which made me laugh.. I pointed this above somewhere too.

And now an extract from the famous description of the arrival at Saint Mark by Ruskin -- and angels figure here too.

And well may they fall back, for beyond those troops of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far away --a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of coloured light; a treasure heap, it seems, partly of gold, and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches, veiled with fair mosaic,and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicates as ivory --sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined together into an endless network of buds and plumes, and in the midst of it, the solemn forms of angels, sceptred, and robed to the feet... p. 50 Ruskin's Venice: The Stones Revisited

Elizabeth wrote: "Pompeii: there's a street graffiti of a man with a donkey's head on a cross, captioned; "The crucified ass." Evidently there were Xtians in 79 AD (or to be politically correct, 79 CE), and someon..."

I have been to Pompeii (years ago) but I was unaware that they have found a fair amount of graffiti.. of all kinds.. fascinating.. we humans don't change much.

More relevant Ruskin..

The perception of colour is a gift just as definitely granted to one person, and denied to another, as an ear for music; and the very first requisite for true judgment of St. Mark's, is the perfection of that colour faculty which few people ever set themselves seriously to find out whether they possess it or not. ... If, therefore, the reader does not care for colour, I must protest against his endeavour to for any judgment whatever of this church of St. Mark's.> p. 53.

That makes Proust the perfect candidate to form a judgement of St. Mark's!

Went to see Tiepolo at The Morgan--alas no pink, as most works were ink wash drawings; Guardi was impressive: his longer views of Venice told you much about how people lived there in the 18th century.

Finally, not only because Bernard Berenson liked it but Leonardo's drawing of Head of a Young Woman is special.

http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/...

When I visited the Frick, to stare at the pearl earring, I stopped and thought about the muted shades of pink in this Tiepolo.

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696 - 1770)
Perseus and Andromeda, 1730

http://www.frick.org/visit/virtual_to...

http://collections.frick.org/view/obj...

And now on the most precious colors, those found in the tails of the peacocks. The iridescence of the feathers had been an enigma until modern times...

In this weeks sections in one of the moments of illumination, in front of the library at the Guermantes, the Narrator says:

.. maintenant, devant cette bibliothèque de l'hôtel de Germantes, elle déployait, réparti dans ses pans et dans ses cassures, le plumage d'un océan vert et bleu comme la queue d'un paon.p. 266.


And this for me recovered another horizontal thread from the days of the Combray church, when describing the stained glass he said (and this passage was commented in the group).


Il y en avait un qui était un haut compartiment divisé en une centaine de petits vitraux rectangulaires où dominait le bleu, comme un grand jeu de cartes pareil à ceux qui devaient distraire le roi Charles VI; mais soit qu'un rayon eût brillé, soit que mon regard en bougeant eût promené à travers la verrière tour à tour éteinte et rallumée, un mouvant et précieux incendie, l'instant d'après elle avait pris l'éclat changeant d'une traîne de paon, puis elle tremblait et ondulait en une pluie flamboyante et fantastique qui dégouttait du haut de la voûte sombre et rocheuse, le long des parois humides, comme si c'était dans la nef de quelque grotte irisée de sinueux stalactites que je suivais mes parents, qui portaient leur paroissien...


And these peacocks, associated with the east, are illustrated in the Ruskin book above.., and link with the two-bird imagery we have discussed earlier on..


Saint Mark's - South wall




Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello

Kalliope wrote: "And now on the most precious colors, those found in the tails of the peacocks. The iridescence of the feathers had been an enigma until modern times...

And these peacocks, associated with the east, are illustrated in the Ruskin book above.., and link with the two-bird imagery we have discussed earlier on....."

Not as exquisitly detailed, but I immediatly thought of Proust when I saw these birds a few days ago, on a visit to The Cloisters (otherwise known as my time-travel excursion to the Middle-Ages).

The three sets of facing-birds show an erosion from right to left.

http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/visit-...


Thinking about Fortuny's birds facing away and the printing process or in my imagination...separation.

As you my know, it was my attempt to find a replica of "Albertine's Fortuny dress" that revealed the "Open Sesame" door to my current life.

"But it is sometimes just at the moment when we think that everything is lost that the intimation arrives which may save us; one has knocked at all the doors which lead nowhere, and then one stumbles without knowing it on the only door through which one can enter—which one might have sought in in vain for a hundred years—and it opens of its own accord." MP

Re priest and blasphemy: 1) Proust emphasizes that a "bad priest" is a very rare thing and 2) the French have always taken their Catholicism rather more cavalierly (is that a word?) than other Catholic countries (e.g. Ireland).

Fionnuala wrote: "Yes, Reem, it would be great to hear more voices in these final weeks of The Year of Reading Proust, so that the many individuals (yes, you!) scattered throughout the world who make up this communal reading group could come together to make the discussion richer, especially since the seventh volume itself draws together all the multiple threads that Proust scattered throughout the earlier volumes, so making it an Aladdin's cave of details to debate...."

I'd just like to say that when the Narrator revisits the theme of memory in this section I was glad, thinking that he might soon speak of just why he decided to tell us about all these matters in his book.

Ok, this week's read has been soul moving for me. But actually only soul moving as mediated through the posts and communality of this group, about which I am feeling sentimental. I'd like to add my tuppence: a) it fascinates me that uneven flagstones 'trip' him out of time (my take). This is I think explainable by neuroscience - alive today, MP may well be working at the cutting edge of Neuroscience - in that the configuration or movement of his musco-skeletal system combined with the excitation to his nervous system - by which I mean his brain and spinal cord - caused by the near fall all together conspire to allow an out of time, timeless, transcendent experience to occur. On a sense it's a fluke but more that that because he's been a seeker after it, a seeker of lost time, which I hazard to say is in fact that place where time is no more; b) he introduces us to yet another narrator - the extra-temporal being, who only appears through the felicity of "the miracle of an analogy" - another fascination, this - the spoon is like the hammer but what is 'like' the uneven flagstones by maison Guermantes? Superficially is the Venetian stones but this is not a visual (the trees), nor an aural (spoon/hammer), nor a aroma (linden tea) analogy, it's I would say a neuroscientific analogy (tracked back, so are the others); c) are we not in Platonic territory here...the theory of forms ? Outside of time there is this form of Venice, of geometric and architectural harmonies....d) truth is paradoxical: "anew air, an air which is new precisely because we have breathed it in the past..."

Elizabeth wrote: "Re priest and blasphemy: 1) Proust emphasizes that a "bad priest" is a very rare thing and 2) the French have always taken their Catholicism rather more cavalierly (is that a word?) than other Cath..."

Yes, Elizabeth, any criticism implied by his words was really quite mild, and in France as you say, there is a healthy approach to dialogue about religious institutions unlike the situation in other countries like Ireland, which hadn't benefitted from the enlightenment and the revolution, which allowed a complete and definitive separation between church and state and therefore no ambiguity afterwards. Much healthier for everyone concerned. So says an Irish woman living in France!

Richard wrote: "...I'd just like to say that when the Narrator revisits the theme of memory in this section I was glad, thinking that he might soon speak of just why he decided to tell us about all these matters in his book. "

Such a carefully laid trail this has been, Richard, and I'm sure Proust reveled in the idea of our satisfaction as readers when we would find all of these horizontal threads, as Kalliope calls them, coming together in this final volume.

Marcus wrote: "...in that the configuration or movement of his musco-skeletal system combined with the excitation to his nervous system - by which I mean his brain and spinal cord - caused by the near fall all together conspire to allow an out of time, timeless, transcendent experience to occur. ."
'Lost time' = 'out of time' is such a great insight, Marcus.
I'm having my own uneven paving stone moment here!

Marcelita wrote: "..As you my know, it was my attempt to find a replica of "Albertine's Fortuny dress" that revealed the "Open Sesame" door to my current life.."

How grateful we all are, Marcelita.

Kalliope wrote: "And now on the most precious colors, those found in the tails of the peacocks. The iridescence of the feathers had been an enigma until modern times... ..."

That blue green, that 'azur' is the colour I most associate with the Recherche.

Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "And now on the most precious colors, those found in the tails of the peacocks. The iridescence of the feathers had been an enigma until modern times... ..."

That blue green, tha..."

Yes, me too.. I think in the first book we discussed colors, and the "rose" is prominent (and the readers in my Audio seem to emphasize the word with a roooose..), but I remember posting that I thought blue was more important, but as he used more terms for it it is not so obvious that it is the so it was not so obvious that it is the prominent colour...

And I now read in Ruskin:

The peacock, used in preference to every other bird, is the well-known symbol of the Resurrection; and when drinking from a fountain or from a font is, I doubt not, also a type of the new life received in faithful baptism. . The Stones of Venice, II, 5.

Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "And now on the most precious colors, those found in the tails of the peacocks. The iridescence of the feathers had been an enigma until modern times... ..."

Th..."

Kalliope, you're brilliant! To add to the peacock theme:

To illustrate this transcendental process in reading, let's have a look at the resurrection of Balbec in Le Temps retrouvé : The very moment stages Balbec in a new, curious, even dream-like anatomy which realizes the rapport unique in a bizarre allegorical transformation of life (thus performing some pages of the inner book of ' Marcel ') : The vision released by the stiff napkin brings back the salted air of Balbec, but in the form of a female bosom; furthermore, the servant of the prince arrives in this scenery and opens a window to the beach, where the friends of that time re-appear and invite ' Marcel ' to a walk. And the napkin unfolds the whole sea dazzling like the feathers of a peacock43. These allegorical transformations that invade actual and past time challenge the knowing reader to decode them: Balbec was the place where 'Marcel' meets Albertine, and so receives an erotic form, and the peacock indicates the fascination for the Guermantes often associated with birds. The transcendental character of reading presupposes the process of reading and also recognizing these different elements woven together in the resurrection. So Time is inserted in the time of reading, and gains a medium in the reading-process.

More on this is posted in the Dec 15 thread.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "And now on the most precious colors, those found in the tails of the peacocks. The iridescence of the feathers had been an enigma until modern ..."

You tie it all in so nicely, Reem. Wonderful.

What is it about Proust?! I sometimes feel as if two different people are collaborating on this novel. There are parts where the reading drags, and then the reader comes across a section of brilliance and pure genius, and I find myself underlining almost everything I read! It makes me wonder, because he did so much editing, what was happening to him when he wrote the good parts! I get it! I get why people read Proust! Now, I want to go back over this last portion to read the words slowly to savor them!

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "What is it about Proust?! I sometimes feel as if two different people are collaborating on this novel. There are parts where the reading drags, and then the reader comes across a section of brillia..."

I'm definitely in the same boat! I can see myself reading 10-20 pages every few days, and doing so for the foreseeable future.

We now see the direct reference to Time Lost and Lost Time (definitely two very disparate concepts). In reading Proust, do we in some way regain a tentative grasp on the time that has been "lost?"

What Is Art? A question many have pondered. When I was young, I did field farm work. 8 hours a day hoeing cabbages. I was raised on a farm, it wasn't hard...and it gave me time to think. I would begin the day, selecting a book to think about (I usually worked all by myself). Well, some days I would pick one..and by 8:15 I'd be done. Others, I could think about them until it was time to shoulder my hoe and walk home, over the dike, to my little house on pilings by the river. I think we all know what category Proust is in.

These last three posts are all circling the same point: 'thinking' time.
Some would claim that 'thinking' time is 'lost' time because it's not 'doing' time (not if they'd met Elizabeth though).
Action is rated so much higher than reflection in our world. Proust mentions in these pages how he liked to stop and contemplate an object, a flower, for instance (and there's a great photo someone posted way back showing him peering at a flower), and I'm sure people at the time thought it was just a little bit peculiar to stare so long at a flower. But he stared at his own life in the same way, contemplating it from every angle. I think that we begin to do the same when we've spent 'time' within the pages of his deeply contemplated and beautifully recreated life.

Socrates evidently used to do the same type of thing, as a young man. The other Athenians thought he was crazy.

In the next section, Elizabeth, the Narrator has a few things to say about 'realism' as a genre. I think he is saying that the idea of the 'working man's' novel à la Zola, I suppose, is following the wrong track because the novel of the working man and indeed of every man and woman should be about their 'thinking' life as much as about their practical realities and hardships.

Fionnuala wrote: "These last three posts are all circling the same point: 'thinking' time.
Some would claim that 'thinking' time is 'lost' time because it's not 'doing' time (not if they'd met Elizabeth though).
A..."

"Thinking time" or reflection-time....is critical. I believe it helps us find our "true self."

Kalliope wrote: "His criticism of the"instantanés" that his memory kept of Venice (the word made me think of Polaroid) because he finds them now unsatisfactory - leads him to criticize photography. And this is another echo of the Combray days and of his grandmother who back then also had expressed displeasure at photography. "

This reminded me of the heartbreaking episode when the narrator's grandmother had a photograph taken for him because she knew she was dying...he did not know he would soon lose her and he was so cruel.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "I was trying to find something that I had started reading a while back about the theme of sado-masochism in Proust's writing but found something else instead.

I'm only at the beginning of this section, but was rather disturbed reading about the chains, and receiving blows from whips and cries of pain."

Very difficult reading for me as well, Reem. I am fascinated to see our different responses in the thread. Kalliope and Fionnuala's sense of humor. And the analysis of this thread throughout ISOLT...something I did not get to because I was uncomfortable. This has been the beauty of this year of reading.

Eugene wrote: "One of his greatness is that Proust makes you fill in the 'blanks': what does it mean when he writes 'love is an aberration' or "...furiously pursuing a dream in a succession of individuals..."; what does it mean when he writes, "...my belief in Bergotte and in Swann which had made me love Gilberte..." and why does he bring up Françoise and Notre-Dame in Paris (that's easier after you've read it twice) and so forth. Perhaps you can answer for yourself but you can't answer for me, nor I for you, and I laud him for his in-completions, they teach that you don't have to be complete to say something. "

I think we learn that we know everything and we know nothing. This paragraph gave me pause as I thought over the year of reading ISOLT and all of our commentary. Our readings sometimes coincide with one another...and just as often range far and wide...as we bring our memories, our experience, our knowledge, our culture, our sense of relationship and vision...our dreams, our frailties...all of us. The gaps Proust leaves in his writing...the answered and unanswered questions makes us a character in his novel.

Kalliope wrote: "Reading , I come upon a selection from one of Ruskin's letters (2nd November 1851)

... and over the greater part of St. Mark's place -- and ..."

This image took my breath away...thank you for posting, Kalliope.