The Marquise de Saint-Euverte’s Musical Soirée

It was a brilliant decision for A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Literature by Suzette Field  to pick this party, with the fun poked at invitees and servants alike, and with the social jockeying and snobbery as evident as the men's monocles and the ladies outrageous hair ornamentation.

This is one of Proust’s shorter (and therefore better) parties.  The writing also contains quantities  Proust's snarky humor.  The narrator outdoes himself with his witty, exacerbating descriptions of the guests and the music, so many of which are imminently quotable.

 Of one of the many footmen and grooms who attend the guests, Proust singles out the hair of one of them. “. . . that a head of hair, by the glossy undulation and beaklike points of its curls, or in the overlaying of the florid triple diadem of its brushed tresses, can suggest at once a bunch of seaweed, a brood of fledgling doves, a bed of hyacinths and a serpent’s writhing back. “

Of a guest, Proust writes, “M. de Palancy, who with his huge carp’s head and goggling eyes moved slowly up and down the stream of festive gatherings, unlocking his great mandibles at every moment as though in search of his orientation, had the air of carrying about upon his person only an accidental and perhaps purely symbolical fragment of the glass wall of his aquarium…”
 Quoted from Swann’s Way, “Swan in Love” translated by Scott Moncrieff.

One bows to the master.

Good Reads Review of Suzette Field's Party Book

A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Literature by Suzette Field
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful fun-to-read book. The forty parties discussed are a sweep of literature from the Bible to Stephen King. You can be glad you weren't invited to some of these parties--they're a real horror show, such as The Masque of the Red Death, Belshazzer's Feast, The Anubis Orgy, but they'll all such fun to read about, like a snarky society column.

Some thing "curious" about "A Curious Invitation" is that there's very little mention of what food was served at many of these parties. The importance of drink outweighs details about the food. I've noticed that many, not all, writers are drinkers, not eaters, so this isn't surprising.

You don't have to be an English or World Lit. major to delight in this book. You're in some very interesting company all the way from Trimalchio to Joyce and sometimes being a mouse spying from the woodwork is the very best vantage point.

View all my reviews

A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties In Literature

An intriguing book has flown into my radar.  Suzette Field's A Curious Invitation . . .  arrived right before we left for Los Angeles on a research trip for my own work in process novel.  Significant Other grabbed it and read it the entire  time we were away, and I am just now getting to it. 

Of course the first chapter in A Curious Invitation that  I read was about Proust's account of the Marquise de Saint-Euverte's Musical  Soiree in Swann's Way.  If you have read this blog at all, you know I frequently get bogged down in Proust's parties, but his writing about the Marquises's party is absolutely sprightly, with spot on characterizations and comments about the guests.   Oh the snobbery!  The jockeying for social position!  The servants!  The music! 

And guess what "little phrase" Swann hears just as he is itching to get out of there and head back home to find out news of Odette?  Vinteiul's little phrase, of course. 

The Curious Invitation's description of the party is also spot on. And this soiree is not as long as many of the parties in Proust, perhaps because Swann is so impatient to leave.  I love these books (both Proust and  A Curious Invitation) and you will hear more about them when I get my own dinner party out of the way this evening (no live music and very little snobbery).  There is also a book signing tomorrow at the Boston Book Festival.  I will be in the Sister's In Crime booth signing World of Mirrors.



Then it's back to Proust's party where we will dig the dirt, as it were, and on to some more "marvelous parties" in A Curious Invitation.  Reading about the various parties brought back a few I remember.  Seventh Floor Adolphus in Dallas before the Cotton bowl, and some high school blasts in McCarthy's basement.  When did I grow so mature and even . . staid?  Great party, by the way, at Santa Anita race track in the Turf Club Saturday afternoon.  The "dress code" brings out the best. A very lively crowd, friendly, too.

Even if the blasted hurricane comes up the East Coast, we'll have the 40 Greatest Parties, Proust and an assemblage of hurricane lanterns and lamps to read by. 

More anon,


Grapeshot