Proust's Cork-Lined Room

A blogger with lovely photos of Paris' 9th arrondissement has also posted a photo of Proust's cork-lined room now reassembled in the Museum Carnavalet.


Do take a look.  The Paris photos are great and make you want to jump on the next flight to Charles DeGaulle. 


Proust's Bedroom, Photos of Paris on Ann Webster's Blog  


Scroll to the bottom for the photo of Proust's room. 

Proust Vacationed in Normandy

Proust spent summers in Normandy in a town he called "Balbec" but he really stayed in Trouville or Cabourg.  Like many writers, Proust kept the names of big cities like Paris or Venice in his novel, but he changed the names of smaller towns like Cabourg to imagined names.  The same with Combray.  The imagined places become as real to us as Proust's Paris.  Here is a lovely picture of Cabourg, and you can almost see Proust strolling on the boardwalk before luncheon is served in the dining room. I don't see the young ladies on their bicycles, do you?  Proust loved them all.  Such a lovely image.


The Beach at Cabourg

Proust Plays Air Guitar on a Tennis Racquet

I honestly don't know if this is a real or a doctored photo, but it's a riot. Marcel Proust playing air guitar on a tennis raquet

We know Proust had a good sense of humor, so why wouldn't he act a little goofy in the presence of friends?  Sometimes he seems to be this great god-like master of fiction, but he was all too human.  This is a great example.

David and Goliath

The small, quiet suburban town of Foxborough has successfully fought Robert Kraft and Steve Wynn (two Goliashs) and scuttled the planned megacasino across from the stadium.  This behemoth would have ruined our peaceful town in so many ugly ways, and the voters turned out en masse to voice their opposition.

I felt proud that I had blogged, posted on the website, held a placard and made telephone calls.  Not much, but every person contributed in some way to the defeat of the casino.

I was so happy when I heard the news.  Citizens can still be an effective voice in a democracy.   As the late great Mayor Daley  (the original one) used to say, "The people have spoken." 

Vinteuil: Beethoven or Saint-Saens?

On April 15th,  Jeremy Eichler had a wonderful article in the classical music section of The Boston Globe, wondering who Proust really had in mind when he talked about Vinteuil's Septet. Pretty heady stuff for the Sunday Globe.  I had always assumed Proust had Saint-Saens Violin Concerto No. 1, Opus 75 in his head.  I thought I had even identified the "petite phrase." 
Maybe not.  Eichler makes a good case for three late Beethoven quartets, 130, 131, and 132.  He heard them performed in the new concert hall at our Isabella Stewart Museum and thought of Vinteuil's Sonata.  As I write I'm listening to Saint-Saens  and I think I hear it now. 

Nonetheless, I'm going to play those Beethoven Quartets and try to determine if they contain the little phrase.  Eichler has written a wonderful synopsis of the Proust/ Vinteiul conundrum and plays musical detective to give us greater insight into music in Proust.

Here is the link: Is Vinteiui's Music Beethoven's Late Quartets?  

Questions Marcel Proust Would Like to Ask You

So sad that the museum has no Proust letters and that the exhibit has been dismantled and "sent elsewhere."  

 This is a great post, and I salivate to have been on that tour!  Love this blogger's graphics.
 Questions Proust Would Like to Ask You

 I have the Painter biography by the way.  There's an entire shelf on the bookcase devoted to Proust and to James Joyce and T.S. Eliot. 


I read this week that Barak Obama was a big fan of Eliot's The Wasteland.  Me, too!  Also in college.   Well I daresay that he would be dubbed eliter than elitist should he start quoting Eliot.  Yikes!  Does anyone but English majors read that stuff anymore?  Hope so. 


Think I'll read some Proust tonight.  It's a long slog just to get through the magazines and newspapers that come to the house. 


Odette, the autre

On the Road with Proust

Kristen Stewart on the Road  Proust and  Kerouac are an unlikely pair, maybe even an unholy won, and I don't think      the Beats read Proust.  Well, maybe they did; who am I to say? 

For some  (old) but dishy gossip, with only one small mention of Proust, here is a book you probably don't need to read after you read the review.   Three American Girls in Paris                                                

It must be the silly season with all these frivolous mentions of Proust.   I am sorry to report that my reading of the masterpiece has been halted due to other reading, houseguests, travel, getting a book ready for publication, cooking and entertaining and well, you know . . . stuff.  But  I'm just stalled not bailing.

By the way, the town of Foxborough is beseiged by big, bad wolf Steve Wynn, who wants to build a behemoth casino here.   We would rather read Proust than deal with drunks, hookers,  and pawn shops.  I mean, really.

Odette, somewhat on her high horse. 

Fabulous Proust Quotes

Marcel Proust is eminently quotable, and here is a blog that assembled a big bouquet of quotes for your enjoyment and even edification.

My Proust reading hours have fallen due to being super busy on those New Year's Resolutions, a new book club, a new novel I've started, and polishing up a newly finished novel. Two dinner parties! Life is a whirlwind chez Odette, and we wish it would slow down a bit. Several writing events, and one coming up in April. Another public reading (eek!) in March.

I'll wander back to Proust soon. He always inspires. Here are the quotes. Quintessence

Odette

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?