EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club discussion

No. As much as I’ve wanted to- I’m more curious than ever to see what the finale will bring. Lol

He’ll have to start wrapping it up soon. Unless he finally does dump Albertine and meets someone else so the same story can continue on. Or no... they have a child, so as with Swann then Gilberte, there can be Marcel and then his offspring continuing the scenario. 😉

I was just thinking about the titles...

If this volume is The Captive/Prisoner... is that Marcel who thinks he is the prisoner?

If so, if the next volume is The Fugitive, perhaps he does finally leave Albertine. and then he gets his poor life back that she is stealing from him and we get to...

Volume Seven and the final… Time Regained?

Just a thought.

Thing is I know the answer to these questions, so I guess I cannot speak to them.

In case no one else listened to that truly fun blog, there is a famous joke
What is À la Recherche du Temps Perdu about?

A young man decides to become a writer.
After objections that that is too simple:
A young man Eventually decides to become a writter.

Does the book Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp give it away? I don't want to read it before the end if so. I should have asked before.

It includes spoilers, this one in partic? I cannot say. It does give away some unexpected plot points and it speaks to each book.

Spoilers or not I needed some help to keep in the slog, and that is what it did.

Thank you. I still have to pick it up. I’ll give it a look over but I’d rather not have anything given away.

I am hoping to eventually get away from harping on how much Marcel is a snot.
However on that point.
He is tromping all over his mother's sense of propriety and at some point the reputation of his parent's household.. Moving his mistress under her roof, lying to mistress and mother about a possible marriage. Lavishing his parents money on a woman he tells us he does not love but has to control....

New thought.
Beginning in Book 4 it seems Marcel has gotten a major hang up on popular expressions. He seems to have opinions on who is too grand to use popular terms and such. To this day the French have a thing about the purity of the language, and something I learned in an earlier book, annotated translation, his text includes a frequent use of English terms and words.
I am not sure what to make of it, but he sure tracks who uses which expressions, if they use them correctly and if the expressions are beneath the user.
Am I on too something> Anyone else notice?

I was thinking the same thing about Albertine living there and I don’t really understand it. Perhaps France was more free, but all I’ve read would tarnish her reputation. Even if they were engaged. Which is it even secured? He makes it sound so nonchalant. They are prominent members of society as well from what he says. It just doesn’t make sense or add up.

I probably noticed the expressions, but maybe only in the sense of him being a snob/jerk and not in the breakdown of each instance. He seems to be highly critical of most people. Lol

I hope the narrative allows one to move away from thoughts of Marcel as the grand pm, but I’m not putting even any small stakes on it.

Speaking of his parents home and money.
What happen to his dad?
When was he last present. Did he die or get posted to outer Lompox?
Last I remember Father was just barely dealing with the fact that his son was too sick to have a job, and otherwise not entirely happy with his son.

Good question... I remember someone asking who Marcel was at a dinner or something in the last volume maybe and they were asking after the father. Didn’t he get moved to a different post? I wasn’t entirely sure why his parents had moved. All of a sudden Albertine was living there and I didn’t want to rewind and go through it all again. I tried to search but didn’t come up with anything. I’m sure he’s still around, I don’t remember him saying he’d died. He only mentions the females. Or Charlus & Swann.
Go figure.

It’s just all an odd arrangement.

I think one could make a legitimate argument that this tome is the precursor of the more modern day soap-opera or Real Housewives of "fill in the blank".

Brenda wrote: "I think one could make a legitimate argument that this tome is the precursor of the more modern day soap-opera or Real Housewives of "fill in the blank"."

lol

Phrodrick wrote: I am hoping to eventually get away from harping on how much Marcel is a snot.

I wish you much luck with that. If you can keep to it through at least the end of this volume, you're a better man than I. I feel like I'm doing a lot of gritting my teeth, in this last chapter or so especially.

I've finished. I'll wait until you've have finished this volume Phrodrick to say any more, although I do think it's my least favorite. It did end on a different note than I'd excepted, and for that I was grateful.

Please don't feel rushed. I have finally received Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp so I'm going to have a look at that. And while I do plan on reading to the end of this slog, I've no complaints on waiting to start the next leg. ; )

My best guess is that I am around the 25% mark. This is an all seven titles in one Kindle book, the Montcrief translation, so hard to tell.
The one I had originally ordered in Nov, is now due in early Feb.

Just now I am wondering if I'd rather 150-200 pages of snark about high society gatherings, or 125-150 pages on jealousy.

He has just casually dropprd his version of "you only hurt the ones you love" It seems this man of 1000 differentiation can only imagine the binary emotions of love and indifference.

In another author I would skim past the way he associates his childhood love of his mother and his carnal love of Albertine. Here it hedges on creepy.
I think we had a by the way mention of Freud in another book. Could this be Proust being a Freudian?

And maybe then you’ve not gotten to him saying, I was jealous so I knew I loved her. Or some such drivel.

Just now I am wondering if I'd rather 150-200 pages of snark about high society gatherings, or 125-150 pages on jealousy.

You’ll have plenty of pages to decide. 😳

Perhaps you might want to read slowly until you get your better edition? It might make it go down better.

I think he’s just a clueless creeper. Lol

Callo Callay

I have my ordered copy in hand .
As estimated I am just past 120 pages in.
I am going to divert and read the intro material. If nothing else it helps me to carry forward.

As much as his real mistress is jealousy...
It seems obvious that with a soupçon of sangfroid he could have been enjoying ménage à trois with Albertine and Andree with the occasion addition of his chauffeur.

It might be fun to write up a list of invitees who could be invited for an orgy.
Vive La Belle Époque!

Does anyone have the Carol Clark translation?

Lifting just some of what the translator says in the intro;
1. There is no way Albertine would have been allowed to live with Marcel
2. There is no way Marcel has all this money
3. It is not clear if they are "going all the way" or limiting themselves to fottage or some other version of almost but not quite ( "I did Not have sex with that woman!")
4. Mom is conveniently out of town with a sick aunt and Dad is unaccountably absent.
5. It is not a stretch that Marcel and his driver are "doing it". Tho I think Albertine is using favors to get the chauffeur to tell Marcel the right stories.

BTW As of this book there exists no final, ready for print edition. True for all of the last 3 books. Proust did so much editing and latter additions that he took to taping additions to existing text. Paperoles

Further collections of various editions/partial are still turning up.
There are many contradictions in the various published versions, including the dead returning to life and cars turning into carriages and name changes.


Ultimately it a thought experiment based on Marcel and his mistress living as they do and money is not a problem. He is only interested in the internal aspects of this relationship. And that exclusively from Marcel's POV.

And o Joy I can look forward to reading another 130 odd pages of party Snark

last thought, as a quote:
"Reading the book is not a penance, however; indeed it is often exceeding funny."

I wonder what made the word "penance" come to the translator's mind?

Phrodrick wrote: As much as his real mistress is jealousy...
It seems obvious that with a soupçon of sangfroid he could have been enjoying ménage à trois with Albertine and Andree with the occasion addition of his chauffeur

So funny how jealous he was of Albertine and Andree. Is that because he was also stepping out with Andree? Or because he wanted Albertine to act as Miss Virtuous? Or would he not have been jealous if it were an Andre, and a male? All curious considering he has her shacked up as his Mistress, which one who was so virtuous to begin with would not even consider. The lm can make my head spin.

Phrodrick wrote: Does anyone have the Carol Clark translation?

Lifting just some of what the translator says in the intro;
1. There is no way Albertine would have been allowed to live with Marcel
2. There is no way Marcel has all this money
3. It is not clear if they are "going all the way" or limiting themselves to fottage or some other version of almost but not quite ( "I did Not have sex with that woman!")
4. Mom is conveniently out of town with a sick aunt and Dad is unaccountably absent.
5. It is not a stretch that Marcel and his driver are "doing it". Tho I think Albertine is using favors to get the chauffeur to tell Marcel the right stories

I am still reading the original translation.

So her points seem to be as suspected... much of Marcel’s relationship seems to be hogwash. So is it a fantasy? It seems it’s supposed to be the progression of Swann and Odette. Although that relationship was more believable as Swann was a man of means and a ladies man and Odette was already used to her “freedom” and not caring for social customs.

As it progresses to the pm and Gilberte, then Albertine it becomes increasingly more fantastical. The older he gets, the more out of touch he seems. I think that’s what makes it harder to swallow for me, at least in earlier volumes the story actually seems credible. Now I find a battle of rolling my eyes and gritting my teeth.

And thankfully he keeps interspersing Charlus and the rest of the upper crust to bring a nice break from the endless jealousy.

Such joyous reading!!

I can understand the penance. Is it exceedingly funny because it’s so absurd?

Every now and then m. Proust gives us his best.
I am way behind in my reading, but I had to research "petit pan de mur jaune:
Following on the heals of what had to have been his option/experience with sickness and medicine, he speaks of the last hours of Bergotte. Altogether a beautifully touching passage.
My Research:

Through Vermeer Proust meditated his own end. In May 1921 the exhibition of Dutch painting at the Jeu de Paume was attracting crowds, drawn to see among other things, Vermeer's View of Delft and Girl with a Pearl Earring. According to George Painter's biography of him, Proust had read in the Paris press articles on the Vermeers by Lèon Daudet and Jean-Louis Vaudoyer. At last he decided he had to go and see them. At nine one morning, a time when he is usually just going to sleep, Proust sent a message to Vaudoyer asking him to accompany him to the Jeu de Paume. Leaving the apartment he had a terrible attack if giddiness, and recovered from it and went on down stairs. At the exhibition, Vaudoyer steadied the writer's shaky progress towards the View of Delft. Proust was apparently revived by Vermeer for he managed to go on to the Ingres exhibition and then to lunch at the Ritz before returning home, though according to Painter he was still 'shaken and alarmed' by the attack. He never went out again. Proust soon transmuted this experience into the Captive, the sixth part of À la Recherche, to which he was still making changes. His character Bergotte, a writer, had been ill. Bergotte slept badly, had nightmares and couldn't write anymore. But he had read in a newspaper that the View of Delft was to be seen in Paris, a painting he adored and imagined he knew by heart, though the article had referred to 'a little patch of yellow wall' in the picture as being like a' priceless specimen of Chinese art, or a beauty that was sufficient in itself' and worryingly he couldn't recall that particular patch."
http://www.essentialvermeer.com/prous...

image:

Which patch seems to be in dispute,

Thanks for sharing that, I would not have known.

He’s such a contradiction. I can see him in the Bergotte story, but I still don’t understand Albertine. It gets frustrating wading through a forest searching for the truffles.

I did get Czapski’s book, but still in the introduction.

I just happened to see what was I think the original schedule. It seems to say that we would be finishing book 5 in may. So maybe I am not that far behind.

Under the heading of, I wish this was original with me
1. We NEVER hear, or see anything from inside Albertine or her POV. We only ever know her as Marcel yammers on.
2. Pages after the touching death of Bergotte, I would swear Charlus is speaking of him as if he is still alive. No way I am swimming back stream to confirm it.

Over all I think I am beginning to sense when we are reading something Proust had just about finished writing and when we are dealing with thing to be polished.
For example the sudden use of comments like - as we will learn later
and
The injection of basically off the wall stuff
There is a comment about a serial murder (real), Landru and the truly disturbing comment that -If he was killing women for money that could be forgiven (WHAAA?)

Moving on I can begin to see the joke he is making of both Charlus and Mde. Verdeuin . Then he goes into the music of the fictional Ventiuel (with another strange digression into Albertine).

It occurs to me that in his typically overwrought description of the exact effect of music by Ventiuel, he may be saying more about how he thinks we, the reader should absorb what Proust is writing.

I almost wonder if Proust was doing that for more than Ventiuel? He likes to use “we” a lot in describing things. Plus, I rather feel like he’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes with Albertine.

No need to worry of the schedule, I’ve plenty myself to keep occupied so no rush. I’m enjoying the ease of no pm at the moment.

I’ve finally gotten through the introduction to Czapski’s lectures and on to actual Czapski.

In the 2nd page Czapski tells why he struggled with Proust initially...

“...description of a high society party...the description dragged on for several hundreds of pages”

“Too little acquainted with the French language to savor the essence...appreciate its rare form”

“I didn’t have sufficient literary culture to deal with these volumes “

So apparently it’s not just me. 😂😂

Having finally made my way past the 300 page mark
I can see how Marcel whipsawing poor Albertine back and forth as he tries to keep ahead of what he thinks of as her search for lesbian sex followed by Marcels inability to see that Charlus has the same jealous BS over Morel and together there is enough irony for a joke.
M Ventieul's ever more ridiculous parties I guess might also achieve some degree of humor.
Then comes his late night confrontation with Albertine. He spent the evening anticipating returning to her only to return to his cat and mouse BS
this brings me to the entire "Casser le pot" business. My translation has Marcel calling Albertine a "Tram" twice, well ok that
but in trying to figure out what was so vulgar I looked up the expression and found:

So Proust's novel-within-a-novel is not so much the story of a homosexual man as of an impotent one. This comes out very clearly in the casser le pot episode, when Albertine (p.311) lets slip that she'd like to go out and "get broken" (me faire casser) what? "my jar" (le pot), as Marcel finally completes the sentence. Casser le pot was French slang for anal sex, and makes much more sense if Albertine were actually Albert. If Marcel's sweetie were a man, and Marcel were impotent, then the beloved might well regret hanging around the apartment night after night, when he could go out and get himself properly buggered. (Scott Moncrief, in his 1929 translation, mystified generations of Anglophone readers by avoiding the French altogether, and not translating it beyond "get someone to break." See location 42,323 in the modestly priced Kindle edition of In Search of Lost Time from Centaur Editions. But in the Modern Library updating by Kilmartin and Enright, page 457, me faire casser ... le pot does appear, with an explanatory endnote.)

https://www.readingproust.com/prisone...

So it is not just me who can only make sense of Marcel except that he is also homosexual.

BTW I hav ejust placed book 6 on order
about 70 odd pages to go in thi sedition.

Other than that , poor Miss Albertine has to go on the prowl for a buggering.

Thanks for that! I’m going to mull on your comments a bit more, but initial thought is - it makes absolute sense. Besides his “engagement” it explains Albertine’s place in his house and how it’s acceptable in that time.

I think the book would have been Soo much easier to understand if he’d been honest with the reader to begin with. Part of me wishes I could go back and read it again, but I think I’ll pass on that right now.

Quick follow up.
In my edition , translation by Carol Clark it is speculated that me faire casser, may have had a meaning among lesbians referring to any kind of "penetrative" sex.

Does your follow up mean you are still leaving it open as to whether it’s Albert or Albertine??? 😂

I’m really torn... I believed in Albertine, because that’s what Proust wanted of me, and I was led. Sheep to slaughter! 🤣 I may revisit this volume again tomorrow firmly believing in Albert just to see what I missed in that vein... if it does make sense then (since Albertine always felt like a farce anyway- the pieces never seemed to match together), if things do fall in place, if I can get more out of it with a scenario that seems more likely... because this was the least liked volume for me. And having already put so much into this, I’d rather try to understand it better if I can, and find a better appreciation if it’s there.

I'm revisiting The Captive...
The trio of Marcel, Albert(ine) and Andre(e) are quite funny. I can't figure out (and perhaps they can't either) who's really with who and who loves who.

And Marcel is a funny one...! Albert(ine) is going out with Andre(e) and of course Marcel is jealous, but he is going to use Andre(e) to get information on Albert(ine). So Marcel tells Andre(e)..."if only I'd met your first..."

I feel like Marcel goes back and forth on whether Andre(e) believes him and then then indeed if Marcel even loves Albert(ine) anyway. Marcel's next comment really sums him up...

"The truth is so variable for each of us." Hahahhahahhaahh

In rereading and thinking of it being Albert, I'm forming a different impression of the character, and its reminding me of Odette. Previously, Albertine reminded me of perhaps Gilberte, but with hardly an income. Now for some reason, Odette has been coming to mind (in her life of a courtesan prior to marrying Swann) as Marcel is reflecting on Balbec and Albert(ine) and Andre(e), etc.

I'm curious if your translation has Marcel refer to Albertine as his "Mistress"? My older translation does, and I never thought about it, until I started seeing Albert(ine) in a different light. I just thought of it as in "my sweetheart" "my girl", but Mistress doesn't really translate to that.

Marcel uses the word Mistress a lot. Almost every girlfriend anyone has is a mistress.
Then again most of the men are married or engaged, so...

I have book 6 on order due in early March. Of the Penguin Classics, book 7 may not be in print for a while, SO I think I will go back to monctief for the big finish

I did a comparison from the French to the Montcreif and in two instances the original of “mistress” is mon amie, generally meaning “my friend”.

I’m definitely in no rush now since I’ve started this one again.

On delicate subjects I would not lean too heavily on Montcreif. He was a translator of his time, with a willingness to shade away from scandal.

Mom Aime is IMHO fairly definitive. My Friend it is. Unless a french speaker arrives to teach us about context.

Sliding between I find this book a lot more direct about things sexual. Albertine is a sex partner, maybe not for going 'all the way", but they absolutely play naked games. At least one incident is described in detail,

As for his mentions of so many others having mistresses, these are almost always married people and allowing for slanted translation, I doubt that these Mom Aimes are just occasional lunch time companions.

Brenda wrote: "I did a comparison from the French to the Montcreif and in two instances the original of “mistress” is mon amie, generally meaning “my friend”.

I’m definitely in no rush now since I’ve started th..."

I was not expecting to have book 6 already, but it arrived Friday.
I Salute your willingness to reread book 5. I am done with it and prefer things that way.
Not sure if I should wait or plunge on. The Fugitive is often published with Prisoner as a single volume. Besides it is less than 400 pages.
Got a four day weekend and some homework so maybe Ill start in the next day or three.

I’m glad you got the book! Please do go ahead and start. I don’t want any momentum lost by my part. 😉

I’m getting near the 3/4 mark anyway I think. I am glad I went through it again. I certainly found a new appreciation from the previous comments and I’m really thinking of a wider variety of elements through the reread than the last in which I was just gritting my teeth and hoping for the end.

The good news is that book 6 is short.
It arrived in time for a some slack period forced by the storm
We were w/o power such that The Wife and I moved into my office for almost 3 days. I got back here last night and the wife this afternoon.
Now the problem is water. It is low city wide w a boil water order in effect and likely the complex will not be to full service till some leaks and leak testing can be done.

Meantime I am about 20 % in .
Like other books in the sequence, the next book helps you to understand the last. I have a better idea of what All That was about, thou I am not that sure why all to date equates to high art.

I'm sorry about the weather mess. Are you in TX? I hope you can get back to some normal soon. I am in MI and while we've had a lot of winter weather lately, we are equipped and we've not had as much as the east coast. And yet I still complain about it.

I'm glad the next is short. He is a wordy fellow. I'll finish my reread of Vol. 5 today and probably won't get to Vol. 6 until closer to the end of next week as I've fallen behind with a few other things. I think Volume 7 is rather short too.

I am glad I went through it again. I have a wholly new appreciate for it all and for the pm and his relationship with Albert(ine). Realizing him as so sickly and being mostly housebound and trying to have a somewhat normal relationship, and being young and his lover being young, it's really a hard spot to be in. You don't want to limit your lover because of your own shortcomings, but human nature is a beast and it's hard to overcome that. That's rather where I've been with it this go around.

I hope you're getting your services restored Phrodrick, and getting back to normalish.

I'm staring on The Fugitive now. I'm not having luck with anything else I'm reading so I'm hoping my old buddy, the pm will work out better. At least I already know what I'm in for, for the most part. And you said it will help to understand the last.

Did you say you have the last volume? I'll probably roll right into that after I think. But I can wait if you don't have it yet.

Hoping all is well with you and your family!

While we did live in my office for 3 days we have been home with heat adn water since last Wednesday. So we are well thank you.

Technically I have always had the entire text, as I have a Kindle copy that includes all the volumes. These are the Montcrief translations and while i have read a maybe 200 pages of it, I was hoping to stay with the newer Penguin editions. That set is as of now, incomplete.

I feel , and not for the first time bogged down. I am 140 pages in and well Marcel, how you do go on, and on and on....

I may have this book finished in about another 100 years of solitude, (Get it?)
and I hope with enough energy to go straight into the last book. Because that is Kindle copy it will only be read during Lunch, so no fast ending for me.

At the risk of a spoiler, I think I get why The author takes the plot where he did, I wish he had done otherwise.

Glad to hear all is well.

I'm not sure at what page it would be, as I've found audio's of the Montcrief so I'm listening to it, but .... I've been ok with the pm of late, however .... if his creepiness with his mother wasn't enough, now he's given to enjoying underage girls sitting on his lap? This is what calms him and brings him joy? ugh! I do hope he swerves out of that.

The last two volumes of the Montcrief are on YouTube as audios if you do get bogged. For me it's been easier to listen, since he can get a bit wordy. But it's not for everyone.

And so western cultures favorite twerp is finally in Venice. AA Mamm!a
The most literary mamma's boy becomes the returning prodigal looking up at his momma while he rides in a gondola.
It takes his an entire page of one sentence (I should be used to this by now) to go from his pleasure at meeting his momma to go from:
A glimpsed ogive...
\Previous sentence, but ogive is the word of the day (a pointed or Gothic arch)
"and Because" behind its balustrade momma wats for me white haired in morning for gradma no, , less sad, Then back to Momma and son winging love back and forth from the gondola to balcony to a window "replete with admirable forms as mullions may be" (a vertical bar between the panes of glass in a window.) which will bring our boy to tears because it, or a reflected museum, no it has to be the window, or maybe its mullions can say : I remember your mother very well."

GAAAAA horrible bad melodramatic drivel.
No wonder people flocked to Hemingway.
71pages and one book to go

If some one paid, and it would not be a huge minimum salary, Id go hunting for Proust quotes and passages that pretend to be highly sophisticated make no sense.

"Our love of life is only an old liaison of which we do not know how to rid ourselves. Its strength lies in its permanence. But death which severs it will cure us of the desire for immortality"

Oh? Really?
Anyone told the Pope, Or Kant or about 4000 years of western or eastern Philosophy?
Death cures us of , at this point almost anything will do.
Death cures us of allergies.
Life is only remembering to exhale as often as you in hale
for a quarter more, I could typo this out by the bushel basket.

The Patriarch of Grado heals a Possessed Man


Also a 1890 Murano Italian Salviati Gold Flecked Glass Dolphin Compote : Pia's Antique Gallery | Ruby Lane

As long as I m at it
Fortuny | Evening coat | Italian | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
perhaps 1912?

I’ve missy your pictures! I saw Venice, and since I’m there yet in my reading I’ll come back to this.
Honestly I’m still reeling over Albertine with the pm. I wasn’t expecting that.

Missy! Hahahaha. Autocorrect fail!

I’m reading slow this week, still not to Venice, but I’ll get there. Maybe not till next week, but I’ll get there! And then I’ll go through the latest comments.

Just posted my review of book 5. Like to see your take on it.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I think I will be starting book 7 in a week to ten days. I have a horse choker to finish and some other interrupt in the real world.