Back to Balbec

Reading Proust again!  We are in The Cities of the Plain, and the narrator and Albertine are hanging out at the seashore, at first before the high season, and now during  high season.  The Verdurins have rented a house along the coast with a fab view of the ocean.  A train is taking "The Little Clan" to the Verdurin's Wednesday dinner party.  


I have to confess in all my Proust readings I do not recall the Verdurins renting a summer house in the Balbec neighborhood.  I'm really enjoying this part of the book, now that YET ANOTHER endless reception has come and gone. The Guermantes have become bores.  I'm sure the Verdurin's party will be much more interesting.  Mme. Verdurin is a real piece of work, a wonderful character, which is to say a character that is not very nice.  The milk of human kindness does not run in her veins.  I am hoping for some conflict and some fireworks and maybe someone will be expelled from The Little Clan.  


It was a long slow slog through The Guermante's Way to this point.  Albertine flirted like crazy with St. Loup.  I couldn't have liked it more.


The Other Odette, licking her chops at the thought of scandal, disgrace and some more hanky-panky.

Reading Proust Again

Ah, some stresses in my life have sent me back into the pages of Proust, because I can always fall asleep while reading him.  Making way thru the endless party of the Princess de Guermantes.  This party is actually more interesting than most of the ones in The Guermantes Way.  Charlus always livens up the page, and St. Loup has just made an appearance and he is an appealing character.  His relationship with Rachel in some ways echoed Swann and Odette, although St. Loup hasn't married her.  Swann is apparently dying, and the reader finds more drama and conflict than in the previous pages.


Onward. 


The other Odette

A Respite from Proust

Having finished (enfin) The Guermantes Way, I'm taking a break and finishing some other books languishing on my nightstand. One is Three Trapped Tigers, a cool book about Havana in the 50's right before Castro came to power. I'm almost through A Bright and Guilty Place, a non-fictional account of Los Angeles in the late 20's and early 30's. Corruption to the max.
Very interesting. I'm in the middle of Elmore Leonard's book of short stories, When the Women Come Out to Dance. Isn't that a great title.? Great stories, too. Anyone for baked possum?
I just finished Red Leaves, by Thomas Cook, a novel that will break your heart. I recall a few years ago when the novel was up for an Edgar Award.

Summer is the time for reading, although none of these books could be considered "beach reads." My novel is process now has 65,000 words and starts to look like a real book. I've been at it for a year. Had I been dedicated, I would have finished, but I'm also trying to find agents/publishers for three other novels, so that takes a toll of "free time," as well as all my writing groups and organizations.

It's a full life, Charlie. Who said that? No idea.

Let us imagine Marcel on the beach at Balbec, or in the dining room with his grandmother, or in town with the young girls in flower, or maybe even in Elstir's studio. Long ago, I recall resort hotels like the one in Balbec. One's bottle of wine and bottle of water on the table from previous meals, even one's napkin. Personally, I like a fresh napkin rather often. The same waiter, and pretty soon he knows one's likes and dislikes. Has that way of life vanished? I rather think so.

Everything very proper and even stylized. Last Year at Marienbad and all that jazz. We saw Mr Hulot's Holiday, which ages so well and had that same seaside flavor. I liked it ever so much, even the umpteenth time.

Onward,

Odette

At Long Last, Fini

I did it! Last night during the rain delay of the Red Sox game against Detroit, I finished The Guermantes Way, finally arriving at the scene where a dying Swann appears and the Guermantes pooh-pooh his problems and fixate on their evening plans. The Duchess, Oriane, runs back inside for the red shoes that will match her dress. The Duc, Basin, is such an upper class twit, and the entire scene is priceless, even worth the endless slog of hundreds of pages through the boring parties and receptions and upper class snobbery.

Proust really knows how to end a scene. I loved it. Now onward to the second volume. I have an ancient (ancien) copy in two volumes. It took me forever to get through the Guermantes. I wavered. I procrastinated. I read two pages per week. I became a Proust slacker. No more.

Of course, posting to the blog has been difficult with so little progress through the great novel.

August 11 is the great turnaround. Enfin!

Delirious with accomplishment,

Odette

More Birthday Greetings

I just took a gander at a number of blogs purporting to be Proust blogs. Some are abandonned, others have rien to do with Proust, some are in Russian/German. It's a difficult business sorting through "stuff" on the Net. I picked up a hideous virus once, when I unwitting went to a Russian site to look up some song lyrics. Ya can't ever be too careful.

That being said, here's another birthday blog from yesterday.
http://marcelproust.blogspot.com/search/label/proust

The cherry caflouti made 8 servings, and 2 are still left. Do I hear it calling my name? Seems like they might have had a caflouti or two at Aunt Leonie's house, don't you think?

I have just GOT to finish The Guermantes Way. Just do it.

Here is a link (you'll have to scroll down) about Proust confronting (or not) his Jewish blood.
http://thisdayinjewishhistory.blogspot.com/2009/07/this-day-july-10-in-jewish-history.html

The other Odette

Summarizing Proust

July is looking good for finding literate Proust blogs. The world has not yet fled to the South of France, the Mediterrean isles, the Hamptons or onto a yacht on Long Island Sound.

What? Quel dommage! You're not going to any of those places? Helas!

When our cat took ill, we had one of those maligned "staycations" with local museums and restaurants benefitting from Chez Odette. Kitty is fine now.

The grad student blogger with a link below has actually Summarized Proust, but not of course, in 15 seconds, that can't be done. Or can it?

http://gradstudentmadness.blogspot.com/2009/07/book-notes-guermantes-way-marcel-proust.html

Could it happen on Twitter in 142 characters? Want to try?
Odette is feeling very geeky having managed to have her "tweets" show up on Facebook.

Reading Proust In Paris

Sigh. Reading P. in Paris so much more inspiring than here in Foxborough. Actually, I am back at the great work again, trying to finish The Guermantes. Mon Dieu, the drivel about the Guermantes that I've had to plough through, and it has been exceedingly wet to plough, which you understand if, unlike the narrator, you've been involved in farm life.

Nonethless, the end is in sight. I haven't been inspired by any blogs until this one. Ah, Paris and Proust. How sweet it is!

http://readingin.blogspot.com/2009/06/reading-proust-in-paris.html

The other Odette

Reading Proust North of the Border

I don't have the heart to tell this blogger that The Guermantes Way is heavy sledding, so to speak. Right now, I'm reading David Lodge who makes me laugh, and that is a good thing.

Find out what Canadian Lost In Canada has to say about reading Proust

http://canadianslostincanada.blogspot.com/

They're Still Summarizing Proust

Confession time. I haven't picked up The Guermantes Way for weeks. We went to a discussion of nature writing at Harvard, an inspiring program which led me to pick up a book about the Grand Canyon, called Down Canyon. The writing is excellent. Great verbs. Lots of interesting detail. Proust would approve.

You will love this book! http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/bid930.htm The author is Ann H. Zwinger. What a great read.

And of course I read my writing and cooking mags and three daily papers. The other time suck has been submitting to a novel contest (Amazon) and getting a book out to an agent, along with submissions of short stories and essays to various 'zines. God, this takes a lot of time. And I had to finish my robot fish story. Loved writing it. Francis, you're the greatest.

The craziest thing is, I can't remember whether I actually wrote my cat story or if I just plotted it for ages. Writing in your head or with your fingers, too. How weird.

We were in Washington, DC and I only read the New Yorker. Good stuff. All about John Updike. In many ways, Proust was the Updike of his day. Think about it.

Now I am writing a speech I must give next Wednesday and reading entries in a writing contest. House guest, birthdays, Valentine's Day, lots of cooking, esp. a chocolate panna cotta with Port Wine Ice cream. Yowza!

Did I mention a report to write by Sunday? A full, busy life is a good thing. One has little time to contemplate the economy.

Onward,

Odette, the other one. And here is the Monte Python link:

http://ovablastic.blogspot.com/

Cool Proust Quote About Sarah Palin

"Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination."

The instant I saw this quote from Proust I thought of Sarah Palin who has looks and moxie (as we say here in the Boston area) and little else.

The quote came from, of all unlikely places, the website of the "Global Filipino Business and Investment Community Website." How do you like them apples? Eeek! That sounds like a Palinism. I'm gonna havta watch my big barracuda mouth.

Sorry, I don't normally inject politics into what should be a "literary" (ha ha) blog, but lately I find myself obsessed with the upcoming U.S. election.

Of course, Massachusetts is solidly in the Obama camp, and I actually only know of one person who will be voting for McCain. The literary community here is left of center. In fact it gets rather inbred to the extent that one begins to believe everyone thinks the same, and of course, everyone does not. Always a dangerous assumption.

I know Proust would find something to say on the topic. I am so happy that he is finally leaving the tea party, although he has been waylaid at least twice and there is the business about the wrong hat. Men used to wear hats besides baseball caps. Hard to believe, no?

Odette, wearing her political hat today.

Better Than Any Ambien

Yesterday was an early to rise day, and we watched "Mad Men," and finally at 11:30 I climbed into bed. Tried to read a little more of the endless reception in The Guermantes Way. Before I was through a page, yea, even a paragraph (we know M.P. can write ultra-long paragraphs) I had the sensation of eyes closing, page unread, and into dreamland it was.

Not the first time this has happened. Will I ever finish The Guermantes Way?

One blogger has issues with The Prisoner, which I know as The Captive. If confessions are in order, I admit that I always found this one of the more tedious volumes of the novel. Tedious the max.

On starting Proust’s Prisoner:

http://gaiawriter.blogspot.com/2008/09/starting-marcel-prousts-prisoner.html

Here is another blogger's response:
Thoughts from Proust, AKA a “Frenchman.”
http://www.mindblink.org/2008/09/thoughts-from-frenchman-oui.html

I am going to survive Mme. Villeparisis party eventually. I think.

Odette, who showed up at the reception and spoke to Marcel who was rather tongue-tied.

A Proust Reader "Thinks It Through"

I discovered someone who is just about at the same spot in Proust that I am, maybe a few pages ahead, but not much.

http://blog.jcblegen.com/?p=16

Good luck and perseverance to him (?) while we journey on toward that unbelievable ending. Proust's ending was stupendous and it did not disappoint.

Most of my reading now is background for the novel I am beginning which is set in 1928 Southern California. I am reading Upton Sinclair's Oil which the award-winning film, There Will Be Blood was based on. It's very good. First Sinclair book I've read, obviously an important omission.

But Proust remains on my nightstand and is given his due. Just not a race to the finish, no, no.

Odette

Snobbery Then and Now

Reading in Proust (The Guermantes Way) last night about the trials of Mme. Villeparisis and how she fell in society due to a neglect of the niceties, shall we say, and when she wanted to make her way back up the ladder to the top, the rungs were no longer accessible.

Snobbery tried and failed to rule on Jane Austen last night, as Pride and Prujudice and love triumphed.

I suppose we will always have snobbery. Right now, people look down on the new McMansions. Some suburbs are better. The right car, the right summer home, the right this, the right that, and above all the right school. The right shoes, handbag. It goes on and on. We are just as bad as Proust's or Austen's snobs. New money, old money.

Or as my very snobby (Mother was DAR, he likes to sail with the "right" people, i.e. the New York Yacht Club) friend said, when I talked about Burning Man. "I wouldn't have anything to saw to those people." Burners? You can say anything to Burners.

Ohmigod, the right yacht club, the destination wedding, the right table in the right restaurant even, if you write, the right genre.

I am a snob, too. I look down on people with no books in their houses, people who eat takeout 24/7 and people who drive enormous black SUV's. So there.

I'm leaving for a writing conference. Not taking Proust. Instead, I am taking a novel called Pasadena. I'll be back in a week, with a week's worth of Proust blogs, should there be any of interest, and there usually are.

I will be able to give a blow by blow of writer's snobberies. Chacun a son gout. Sorry for the lack of the proper French accents. I have never figured them out for Blogger except to cut and paste from word and that is just too tedious.

Odette

And Yet Another Proust Blogger

John has joined the "little clan" of Proust bloggers. Actually it's a movement.

http://john44carr.multiply.com/journal/item/46/a_blockbuster_of_proust

His comparison of violent movies to Proust's work is interesting. Something I would have not thought of.

Last night I made good progress through The Guermantes Way, with St. Loup still at Doncierres and his troubles with his mistress and the Dutchess having a painting by Elstir. In Proust there's hardly any degrees of separation. Interesting that the mistress is not some air head but rather intellectual. Who knew? But that, of course, if St. Loup.

Doesn't Proust have great characters? The mark of a great writer is not the plots but the characters.

Odette

The Guermantes Way

A Christmas gift from me to myelf. I finally finished Young Girls in Flower, the Proust book set in Balbec by the sea where Proust first meets Albertine and her friends.

I was touched an amazed at how the last few pages summarized the whole book, with beautiful lyricism about the sea and the girls and how everything came together. One had earned these fantastic passages by reading the preceding pages, and contemplating Albertine's cheecks hundreds of times. It reminded me of the lyrical Kerouac after many tedious pages about the exploits of Dean Moriarty. I wonder if anyone has ever written a thesis about Proust and Kerouac. It won't be moi.

The odd thing is, I have the idee fixe that Albertine looks like a high school friend of mine, and I can't dislodge it, no matter how I try.

Now, on to The Guermantes Way, and long descriptions of the Guermantes humor which I don't think is anything like Saturday Night Live, or Susan Silverman, or Mort Sahl, Shelly Berman, Bill Murray or Blue Man Group.

I ordered the Proust cookbook or whatever it is, not, I assure you, to make truffled pineapple salad but for the whole experience of food in the Belle Epoque. The January edition of Gourmet Magazine is devoted to Southern Food, and noted that Southern Food is the only food genre, so to speak, that the United States has produced. I daresay this excludes Tex Mex which is derivative, and Yankee Cooking which is not, per se, a whole cuisine but a collection of "dishes."

Last night I made crepes stuffed with chicken and mushrooms napped in a Mornay sauce with some white wine added, and let me tell you this is good and it even looked Christmasy with parseley and bits of pimento for the red and green.

Onward,

Odette