Proust as Couturier

So. . . last night I was keying along, almost finished with the newest Proust post, and I bopped out to check something and when I tried to bop back in, the whole post was gone. O.K. I should write the posts in Word and copy them to the blog. That way the prose can be polished within a gnat’s bristle, so to speak. But I don’t. So it’s gone.

What I wanted to discuss was Marcel’s extreme interest in Odette’s clothing, honing in on details only a couturier would notice. Now, I remember where I lost the post. I wanted to look up and see what a “wrapper” actually was. Just to find out if memory was serving me right. This is what I finally found on the web, compliments of Google images.

Odette liked to express herself through her garments: a little modern, a little old fashioned, a little coy, a little louche, a little this, a little that. And the narrator noticed. Someone in a Proust blog remarked that Marcel appeared to be much more interested in Mme. Swann than in Gilberte, and that is true. The lure of the older more experienced woman, and in the case of Odette, much more experienced.

Here are some Proust-related blogs and articles I’ve perused lately, and you should, too.

http://webcowgirl.livejournal.com/1234341.html

http://www.fireandknowledge.org/archives/2007/06/04/interview-michael-leddy-on-reading/

http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2007/06/proust-memorys-pictures.html

Odette, the one in jeans and a sweatshirt