Jacqueline Rose's Proust Writings

Guardian Article About Jacqueline Rose's Proust Writings   

Since I've been reading about the sleeping Albertine, I found Rose's remarks interesting, although I have not come to this passage yet.   This is the first time I've come across mention of her novel, Albertine, which is an interesting take on a Proust character (there are so many).  Could keep a story-teller engaged for years.  

Who is your favorite Proust character? 

Technical Stuff

I am in the ugly process of changing a 12 year old (maybe older) email address to something more contemporary. My whole life is linked to that email, and even my blogs. Detaching and reattaching is unbelievably complex. Merging, purging, changing, setting hair on fire. So far I have only locked myself out of two sites.

This is just a test to make sure I can blog with a "new" identity. Proust never had these 21st century problems.
Ye gods.!

Proust Bloggers Active Again

Here are a couple of Proust Blogs of interest this week.  I am using a new version of Blogger and feeling my way in.  Think I might like to return to the old.  Why does everyone fix things that aren't broken?

I am still working my way through Albertine living with the narrator in Paris.  Nothing new has happened.

The blogs, forthwith:  The Strangeness of Words

A Year of Reading Proust

I have been re-reading Proust for far longer than a year.  Over time, sort of like the novel.  Happy New Year to all.

Odette

Re-reading Proust in Paris

An Apple guru reads and re-reads and then reads some more?  Technical manuals?  Nope, Proust.  How cool is that?  And in the original French.  My college French never reached that level.   Camus?  Oui.  Proust?  Non.

This is an interesting essay for us Proust afficionados.   Take a look.  Thoughts on Reading Proust Again

The author is right.  Proust is not difficult.   Lots of characters, but after a few reads they're like old friends.  Long sentences and no dialog tags?  Check, but one gets used it this.  I am still reading about Albertine living in Marcel's family apartment in Paris and going out every afternoon to do what?  The narrator thinks the lady is up to no good.  He's probably right.

In Search of "Good Reads"

Good Reads,  a web site for book lovers has a discussion devoted to Marcel Proust.  Who knew?   I never realized they were into anything except current fiction and non-fiction.  The site can be hard for a newbie to navigate, but here is the link to the Proust discussion.  Marcel Proust and Good Reads                


ISOLT is, of course, In Search Of Lost Time.  Explore Good Reads

Onward with Proust.         

Found a new (to me) Proust book.  It looks interesting, although I am always a bit suspicious of academic writing with its long (sometimes tedious) sentences and big words, but let's not make an apriori (ha! ha!) judgement, because the book does seem readable.  Reading Proust at Oxford

The book is actually about reading in Proust.  Reading Reading Proust at Oxford? How circuitous!
 


I am still reading about Marcel and the sleeping Albertine.  Marcel isn't reading; he is watching.  Is Albertine  like a princess who will awaken from a kiss?  Albertine is a very human girl with faults and tics.  I can perfectly understand why she lies all the time.  She probably never envisioned the (somewhat) creepy household and practically being a captive in it.  Granted, a captive in good clothes.  She has very little life.  Or does she?  The narrator is obsessed with her, suspecting her of lesbianism, but then he suspects everyone.  One gets the idea that everyone in Paris is at least bi-sexual.  Maybe they were.  What do I know? 


Suspicions and imagination run rampant in the narrator's mind.  That's what happens to a writer.  He can't stop imagining.  What if?  

Albertine Sleeping

I just read the section of  Proust where he goes on for pages about watching Albertine sleep.  Very lyrical and touching, really.   Albertine is still mysterious to me, and also to the narrator.  But one can see her in Balbec with her jaunty cap and nose in the air on her bike.   Those girls who he found so fetching, and now one is asleep in his bed.  This is a wonderful passage. 

Reading a bit of Proust off and on before bedtime.  Albertine comes and goes.  He refuses to accompany her but he is suspicious of her errands.   He consults the Duchess for clothing ideas for his mistress.  What a crazy life.                        

Happy Thanksgiving to my readers who celebrate Thanksgiving, and if you don't, well, pause a minute and consider your blessings:  relatives, friends, hearth, work, hobbies, nature, sports, whatever gives you succor and pleasure.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Proust and Dreyfus

Last night in my reading, the Duke and Duchesse of Guermantes were at loggerheads because she was a Dreyfusard and he was not, and be blamed her politics for his not being named president of The Jockey Club.  Here is a link to a letter from Proust on the topic of Dreyfus, a very divisive period in French political/military history.

Proust and Dreyfus 

The Duchesse de Guermantes has a wardrobe full of Fortuny dresses which she says would be suitable for Albertine.  Lucky girl.  

Albertine Ensconced in Marcel's Family Apartment In Paris

So one is reading along and eveything is pretty much as usual . . . Mme. Verdurin and her parties and who's in and who's out and Marcel mentions Vintieul and Albertine mentions that she know his sister and her friend! 

If you read Proust you know that this is powerful and unwelcome news.  Marcel hightails it away from Balbec and back to not-so-gay-Paree faster than you can utter "Le petite phrase."   He's got to get Albertine away from those bad women. 

At last a little action, and I segue from The Cities of the Plain into The Captive.   Now the Duchesse de Guermantes is recommending clothes  for the young lady, and mama  and Francoise are tut-tutting, and Marcel doesn't go out.  What are things coming to?

Movement in fiction is a good thing.   Albertine is first described on her bicycle.  That Proust guy knew a thing or two, didn't he?    

Follow ProustTweet on Twitter

Proust's entire novel is in the process of being tweeted on twitter.  Of course some of Proust's sentences are much longer than the tweet space.  Can the tweeter cope?  Follow and see.  Sometimes I wish I were so clever.  No, I always wish I were just a little bit cleverer. 

Marcel Proust

@ProustTweet Combray, France

Proust's entire 7-volume novel rewritten as a series of spontaneous daily tweets. (Previous Tweets available at http://tinyurl.com/yzqp3hc)

http://www.proustguide.com

Jennifer Egan read Proust

I was in the audience today at the Boston Book Festival, when Jennifer Egan talked about reading Proust.  Apparently she, like many, had tried and failed once Swann and Odette had married and gone on to more domestic scenarios.  She actually read Proust with a book group and IT TOOK THEM FIVE YEARS!  She said five babies were born in  the years the group read Proust.  But they finished.  It is taking me about that long on my 3rd reading, because life intervenes and I had to stop and read about Spain to prep for a trip to that fabulous country. 

Egan also mentioned that Proust's thoughts about time influenced her Pulitzer Prize novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad.  

The Festival enjoyed glorious if windy fall weather, but not yesterday's pounding rain.  Copley Square teemed with readers, writers, publishers and all those who are part of the business of writing and books.  Unfortunately,  there was only one food vendor, and man does not lived by grilled cheese alone.  Last time I went by, there must have been two hundred people in line.  The sparrows in the park were out in force to scrounge for treats, as were the pigeons.  The way the pigeons wheeled around and took flight reminded me of the pigeons swooping around the Parador in Carmona.  Spain had many doves, too, and swallows and some handsome magpies which I haven't seen for years.  Pigeons seem to have a collective flock instinct that I find interesting.

The suburban trains in both directions were crowded, unusual for a Saturday.  Nothing like the little train that took the dinner guests to the Verdurins.    Pigeons may exhibit the same behavior, but trains schlepping folks into Boston have nothing in common with the Verdurin's little band.

I will be reading Proust again hoping to get through Sodom and Gommorah before winter cometh.                                                                                    

Have you ever had "a visit from the goon squad?"

The Other Odette                                               

Packing Up Proust's Apartment

Another Youtube video, with good commentary.  Oh, to have a cultivated British voice.

Proust's Apartment

A Proust Week

 Here in Foxborough, not far from the Massachusetts coastline, we are preparing for Hurricane Irene.  However neither storm nor earthquake  can keep us from Proust, who received his own share of PR this week. 


First, there was a description with photos of the famous Cork Lined Room.  A Visit To The Cork Lined Room .  Fortunately, the blogger took time to sample some restaurants.  Proust would approve. 


Next, there's a  Proust meetup in L.A.  How cool is that?  Marcel would be intrigued.  I Love Proust in LA.   Unfortunately, Foxborough is too far away from Tinseltown to make it practical or economical to join the group, alas. 


Next, some sad news.  The director of "Time Regained,"  Raul Ruiz has died.  He just had a new movie out too.   Raul Ruiz dies . 



Your faithful correspondent has been reading Proust again, still in Balbec and La Raspelier, and the humor is lovely and subtle and I am enjoying it ever so much.  Proust is so sly and so witty.  


The Other Odette

Proust Summarized on YouTube

I had to idea.  Thought the Monty Python folks were the only ones with temerity to summarize Proust (they failed), but here is another go at it.  Proust Summarized on YouTube   Take a look.