Brain Pain discussion

This thread is for posting general questions, links to resources, and general chit-chat, ruminations, and love-letters for Marcel Proust and his work.

My reading of Proust was like a culmination of a love affair with Paris. I read it in my 20s-when I still had endless time. Now, when I look at work like that, I worry that it might be my last read. A good opening work before starting Remembrance might be an earlier work of Proust, Proust : Jean Santeuil.

What did you think of Jean Santeuil in comparison to ISOLT? Similar style? Completely different?

Do you know if it's in print in English translation?

I've heard someone (El?) discussing how this book (or something similar) enhanced their reading of Swann's Way: Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time

Liz M wrote: "I've heard someone (El?) discussing how this book (or something similar) enhanced their reading of Swann's Way: Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time"

Lily has been reading this book and loving it. It's a little pricey, but I'm going to ask Santa to bring me a copy...

I tend to like the Cambridge Companion series -- and there's a Cambridge Companion to Proust.

Jim wrote: "Liz M wrote: "I've heard someone (El?) discussing how this book (or something similar) enhanced their reading of Swann's Way: Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Tim..."

Try to look through it in a library or bookshop before you buy it to see if you like it. I occasionally take it out of the library and flip through it to catch up on the paintings/images from the section I've just read. Although the images are very good quality and it's meticulously researched, it's quite heavy (which I realize might not be a problem for people who don't move all the time like me, but still, it's something to consider) and it doesn't have an awful lot of text so it's not really something I'd spend £20 on.

I've read the Cambridge intro to Proust (which is quite good), bits of the Cambridge companion (which were also quite good) and Proust by Roger Shattuck (which was good but a bit dated). There are so many interesting books on Proust out there, though. It's just impossible to read even a small fraction of them. I keep finding delightful books on seemingly random or irrelevant features of his books (for example, flowers and botany or fashion and women's clothing) which I know are awesome, but, reading in French takes me so much time and is so tiring, I will have to resign to reading just Proust himself for now.

Jim wrote: "What did you think of Jean Santeuil in comparison to ISOLT? Similar style? Completely different?

Do you know if it's in print in English translation?"

I have a copy in English (a real find at a garage sale, believe it or not!). Similar but very unpolished. Fascinating. I may have to read it again. It's like baby Proust.

Maybe we should read this in conjunction with Kandel's, In Search of Memory (he's a neuroscientist) and Hawking's A Brief History of Time. :-)

Jim wrote: 'Liz M wrote: "I've heard someone (El?) discussing how this book (or something similar) enhanced their reading of Swann's Way: Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time...'

Lily has been reading this book and loving it..."

LOL -- I am enjoying it, if for no other reason than that Karpeles saves a lot of Internet searching time if one wants to try to match the art works and artists with the text. He also has made a number of decisions on what to select as representative.

This web site does something similar for only Swan's Way ; in cases where no particular work is designated by the text, comparing the selections from the two sources can be fun.

http://www.bookdrum.com/books/in-sear...

World Cat will show libraries where Karpeles's book is available. I actually did not obtain mine via one of those sites but did have to go out of my countywide lending system to the state system to borrow a copy. I am still back and forth about ordering my own copy; I own too many books. But if I really stay with ISOLT, I'll probably do so with the thought that it might one day be a good contribution back into our countywide system, which also does not have either of the two Cambridge volumes on Proust, although it does have a number of other resources on ISOLT. I have listened to Tantor's unabridged recording of Swan's Way from it. But that is the only volume Tantor apparently offers. The system does have an abridged version [39 disks, 2 may be biography, entry didn't give playing time] of the entire thing, but I do generally dislike abridged versions. (Does anyone know of unabridged recordings of the other volumes?)

Liz M wrote: "I've heard someone (El?) discussing how this book (or something similar) enhanced their reading of Swann's Way: Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time"

Very true, I think it's absolutely fantastic. I was checking it out from the library time and again while reading Swann's Way until finally I had to return it without being able to check it out again. I stopped reading somewhere in the middle of Within a Budding Grove partly for that reason - I had gotten used to looking up the references and not having that at my side was sort of annoying. I hated having to strong-arm my boyfriend away from the computer just to look up a work of art.

He solved that problem by buying this book for me. Now we're both happy.

Like Andreea says, it is sort of hefty and difficult to carry around, but then I'm not carrying Proust around with me anyhow. I leave him at home, along with Paintings in Proust and I chip away at them both when I feel up to it.

This is my second time reading Swann's Way and Within a Budding Grove; the first time I didn't bother to pause long enough to look anything up. This time around I'm spending more time thinking about what Proust is saying, including the references he makes to art, music, literature, his environment, etc. It's slow-going, but I'm beginning to see that for me that's the best way to read Proust. I like letting it all sink in. Paintings gives me another reason to slow down and smell the roses nasturtium.

Bill wrote: "Maybe we should read this in conjunction with Kandel's, In Search of Memory (he's a neuroscientist) and Hawking's A Brief History of Time. :-)"

Don't forget Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer. I have read only the chapter on Proust. The other chapters deal with other writers. A previous contributor said the quality is not uniform from chapter to chapter, but did suggest the one with Proust is pretty accurate. It did seem fairly reasonable to this lay reader who long ago did a bit of graduate work on the psychology of human learning, a field where so much has been learned in the intervening years.

Is there a biography of Proust that one or more of you here would recommend?

With particular caveats about it?

Edmund White, Marcel Proust, Penguin Lives

This is in the series of short lives -- which is its advantage and its disadvantage. It's a great intro, but if you're already familiar with Proust's lives, you might want something thicker.

I've seen some criticism that it focuses too much on Proust's homosexuality (White is a novelist and chronicler of gay culture. You can read about him here. http://www.edmundwhite.com/index.htm

This is the link to the White bio

http://www.amazon.com/Marcel-Proust-A...--

The standard bios are

William Carter, Marcel Proust, A Life

http://www.amazon.com/Marcel-Proust-W...

On Amazon it receives 6 5 star reviews and 2 4 star reviews -- and none lower. This seems to be the standard work for English speakers.

I have seen one comment that it was "dry."

The other is by the Frenchman Jean Yves Tadie

http://www.amazon.com/Marcel-Proust-J...

You can read a comparison of them by Dinitia Smith in the NYT Times here

http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/...

The standard biography before these two was

George Painter, highly regarded

http://www.amazon.com/Marcel-Proust-B...

I'd try one of those four -- or read the White which short and then if you're still interested try either the Carter or Painter.

There is also a rather fun memoir written by Proust's housekeeper, Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret.

For the formal bios, I like the White but I still think the Painter is the best. For me. Very thorough & formal & satisfying. I haven't read the Carter but I think I'll probably reread the Painter unless someone has a strong case for Carter. It's been years since I've read it.

I think the case is access to more info. the Painter is probably the most fun to read.

Thanks for all the leads and comments on Proust biographies!

Just posted this on the Classics board. May be of interest here as well:

Freud, Proust and Lacan: Theory as Fiction by Malcolm Bowie

I know only the title and Goodreads's brief summary. (But to date, I have found Lacan to be a brain drain.) I found it on a Bard College course description for ISOLT:

http://www.bard.edu/projects/radiopro...

Okay, the criticism thread is talking about Deleuze. Here he is on Proust. (Another book I don't personally know at all -- anyone around who does?)


Proust and Signs: The Complete Text by Gilles Deleuze

"In a remarkable instance of literary and philosophical interpretation, the incomparable Gilles Deleuze reads Proust’s work as a narrative of an apprenticeship of a man of letters. Deleuze traces the network of signs laid by Proust (those of love, art, or worldliness) and moves toward an aesthetics that culminates in a meditation on the literary work as a sign-producing 'machine'—an operation that reveals the superiority of 'signs of art' in a world of signs."

"Deleuze conducts readers on a corollary search that leads to a new and deeper understanding of the network of signs laid down by Proust."
— Translation Review

http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-divisi...

Reader reviews here may be of interest: http://www.amazon.com/Proust-Signs-Co...

Lily wrote: "Okay, the criticism thread is talking about Deleuze. Here he is on Proust. (Another book I don't personally know at all -- anyone around who does?)


[book:Proust and Signs: The Complete Text|777..."

The Deleuze book looks quite tempting. If the Proust readers continue on to Vol. 3 this year, I think we can incorporate the Deleuze as a convergent side read. (Maybe a summer beach read - LOL!)

Jim wrote: "...Deleuze as a convergent side read. (Maybe a summer beach read - LOL!) ..."

RFLOL! I haven't even ever read Deleuze, only a bit of his reputation, and you started my morn with a deep, hearty laugh, Jim!

But the book surely does look tempting. Unfortunately, it may be too rarefied to be available as an ebook any time soon, but it is not outrageously priced. Still, when one adds it to all the other books one wants to go along with an ISOLT reading, the investment does appear to be mounting, both in time and in dollars!

I came across this author of Proust graphic novels today: Stéphane Heuet

Interesting blog post about re-reading Proust

http://www.mcelhearn.com/2011/10/23/t...

Found this in another group. About Proust and his neighborhood in Paris

http://francetoday.com/articles/2011/...

When people write about literature as

"on the literary work as a sign-producing 'machine'—an operation that reveals the superiority of 'signs of art' in a world of signs."

I am reminded of some lines in a Sondheim duet

"You must meet my wife..."
"Let me get my gun and my knife..."