Rachel from the Lord

The past two evenings I've been reading about St. Loup and the mistress that he loves so much, the mistress that he wants to support in great expensive style by making an "advantageous" marriage.

Marcel, and thus the reader, finally meet the young lady (?) in question, who lives outside of Paris in a rather shabby little banlieu. Marcel is rather horrified to discover that the mistress is none other than Rachel, a former prostitute who would do anything with anyone for 20 Louis.

St. Loup suspects, rightly I think, that Rachel doesn't really love him so much as the money and jewels he provides her with.

Do we see a pattern here? Do we see Swann? Odette was a courtesan, too. Odette never loved Swann, who married here and could never be received into polite society again with his wife.

Proust notes that St. Loup would marry Rachel but once the marriage was a fait accompli, St. Loup suspects that Rachel would not be as devoted as when there are no legal bindings and he can dump her at any time without repercussions.

There are echoes of Marcel's love for Gilberte, and even the Duchesse of Guermantes, unrequited love. Is any love requited in Proust? Jealousy rears it's yellow head. And a shadowing of Marcel and Albertine. This is just too delicious.

Now what is also interesting, is that Rachel isn't really all that "common," as one would expect. She can hold her own in literary discussions, in fact can't wait to chat with Marcel about certain subjects. She has common friends, who call to her to join them for a day in Paris before they realize she has St. Loup in tow, friends whom she does not snub.

In other words, although she was a common whore, and still appears to be venal, Rachel is treated rather sympathetically. I find this intriguing. It would have been so easy for Proust in the person of Marcel to dismiss her completely, and he does not. After all, the over-infatuated St. Loup must see something in her.

It's all very intriguing, and I had forgotten all about St. Loup's mistress.

Odette

Grad Student Madness

I love a good rant.

http://gradstudentmadness.blogspot.com/2007/11/la-recherche-du-proust-perdu.html

Even better if the writer mentions Proust.

Passing the time reading Proust: Who Knew?

From the Concord New Hampshire Monitor
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071106/FRONTPAGE/71106033

What an compelling story. Time in the lab waiting for experiments to finish, passing time by reading In Search of Lost Time. Brilliant deductions. Time passed is perhaps time future.

Now I have yet another Proust book to read. Hard reading Proust when one has to keep up with the Proust books, too.

Right now I have two crime novels I have to finish before the weekend, and then it' s Marcel and me again, baby.

Odette

Proust Was A Neuroscientist

A new book making the rounds of the reviewers dealing with memory and our sense of smell and taste. For example, the smell of burning leaves transports me back to my high school years in Brush, Colorado. Fall was in the air, and folks burnt their leaves back then. Barbara Wood and I were walking along the street by the library. I was 16, and telling Barbara that I really, really wanted to attend a "wild party" sometime.

Within the year I had my wish, but that's another topic. The odor of burning leaves. The odor of Old Spice: first boyfriend. The smell/taste of gin: getting horribly drunk on an empty stomach. One of those wild parties. The odor of boiled beef: poverty. Can't help it.

Here are the links:
This non-fiction book has generated lots of buzz. The New York Times had a review yesterday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/books/review/Max-t.html?n=Top/Features/Books/Book%20Reviews

Here’s more commentary:

From the Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/273334

NRP: Scroll down
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15819485

The New York Post – Swann In Your Head
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15819485

Blog:

http://everythingandnothing.typepad.com/mississippi/2007/11/proust-was-a-ne.html

The Narrator, Neglected

Eeek! It's been a hideous Proustian dry spell, with no reading of Lost Time and not even any progress in Madame Proust.

Odette broke her foot and her ankle (major bummer) and has been taking a novel plotting course and an HTML class, and getting ready for a writer's conference and stuff like that. Reading Ridley Pearson instead of Proust, can you believe it?

Now if I wrote like Proust, I wouldn't need a plotting course, because I could use my life as a plot, except that taking HTML courses and reading Ridley Pearson don't sound as though they would provide any kind of plot at all. Not literary, certainly not genre, not even mainstream fiction, whatever that is. Does it exist anymore? Seems like there's thriller and paranormal and fantasy and romance and a few actual mainstream books like The Kite Runner, but not many of those. What is mainstream fiction anyhow? Anxious minds want to know.

I also began a new novel, not crime fiction, titled, Such Stuff As Dreams. Sort of a historical mainstream romance, but not a gloppy romance, a kind of tough romance. Well, we'll see what kind it is. I do have a plot, though, and turning points, and archetypes and all that jazz.

So Odette has not been dawdling, except her poor injured foot has turned all sorts of interesting colors and refuses to fit into anykind of shoe except a big klunky sneaker. No stillettos, no pumps, no cut little ballet shoes, no boots. Nada. Shapeless houseshoes, mostly. Madame Swann would be appalled. So am I.

Au revoir!

Odette

A Votre Santé or Proust!

Sometimes the funniest things on the net are the least deliberate. I couldn't understand the photo caption until I remembered that the German word for "cheers" is "Prost," short for Prosit. Maybe now there is a new toast. Proust!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixietart/1550963548/

Weirdest Proust Post of the Year

This has to be a put-on, but then, who knows? Anyone for a precocious four-year-old?

Mordecai reads Proust:
http://gawker.com/news/nevermind-the-pollacks/my-son-mordecai-and-i-read-proust-308649.php

Odette, of late, has read no Proust. The reasons? I got out of the habit on my trip to Nevada. Nevada and Proust don't meld nearly as well as Foxborough and Proust. And then I had been gadding about all summer and having house guests and then post-Nevada a big dinner party, and then eeek! it's almost October, and there were a number of icky things on the to-do list that just wouldn't disappear and then October comes in and I have to get ready for my HTML class with a finished design of the web site and now there is a plotting class, and I realize the characters is the book-to-be are all cardboard, so I try to get to know them a little better, and there's a speaking "gig" for Sisters In Crime which needs a soupcon of prep, and here it is today and did I mention that I broke my frigging ankle a week ago which should be a fool-proof reason to sit and read Proust all day, but I have felt like lighter fare, such as Harlan Coben and Ridley Pearson, and also I became absorbed in Madame Proust.

Do you get the picture? When I finish the Pearson book, I'll return to Proust. So this should be an exciting month with beginning my new novel (not crime fiction) and the class for the web site. And fall is pretty is New England and Foxborough and...and...and.

What do you think of Mordecai?

Odette

The Dehumanization of Love?

http://penamerica.blogspot.com/2007/09/wednesday-miscellany-proust-etc.html

Proust is popular? Well, o.k., in some circles, not in mine, but I live far from academia, alas.
Nonetheless, the blogger has given us food for thought.

There are many good links off the PEN blog. Follow them.




Odette

Proust Not A Beach Read

Today the Wall Street Journal had a column about summer ambitions, and Donna Shalala wanted to read Proust. She didn't. Proust's great epic is not a summer read, not an easy read. The novel requires persistence, even stubbornness. And the reader has to think and ponder and analyze, not just turn pages. It's. . .work.

But rewarding. Just working one's way through all that time. Regaining it even. Major accomplishment.

I'm travelling to darkest Nevada (not Vegas) this coming week, and won't be posting, nor will I be reading Proust, as the volume is too heavy to travel with. I'm not travelling light. A journey to Outer Mongolia with a camel caravan would require less stuff than I'm schlepping. So be it.

So au revoir until the 17th. Odette

Is Proust on Vacation, Too?

Not much Proust news this week. Is everyone at Balbec? The Univeristy of Alabama is to receive some important Proust papers. Nice to have them on this side of the pond.

I confess I've dropped the ball the past few nights and have been reading about the Beat Generation in prep for the big Kerouac celebration on Wednesday. Began reading The Poisonwood Bible. New edition of Poets and Writers also littering nightstand.

And I'm working hard on umpteenth revision of my high-tech mystery Festival Madness, gearing up to put the finishing touches on it before approaching editors and agents.

Summer pulls one in various directions, deliciously, but it is hard to stay focused. The garden calls for attention. We have the sweetest ruby throated hummingbirds, and they really like the butterfly weed or whatever the HUGE purple thing that is full of bees and blooms. I have a riot of color, right now, worthy of Monet, but on a greatly reduced scale. Smaller than Swann's garden, small, small, small.

Here's a belligerent view of Proust from a young man. Young, young, young. Ahhhh!
http://eurotastic.tumblr.com/post/9908815

Odette

At Long Last, Albertine

We finally meet Albertine, one of the little band who will become a very important person in the narrator's life. He teased and teased and teased until. . . finally it was her, the girl with a name.
Balbec in summertime appears to be an interesting place. Now I think of the south of France and divas emoting on the docks of St. Tropez or campers cheek by jowl along the coast in those really really crowded camping grounds. Nice is nice. The signs for the doggy potties are so cool.

I wonder what Biarritz is like. And then one thinks of Mr. Hulot's Holiday. There's plenty of room for everything and everyone in French summer vacations. Vive Les Vacances!

Odette

After the Ball is Over

A blogger has just finished Proust's masterpiece.

http://ofbooksandbikes.wordpress.com/

Last night, wired by some coffee, I read more pages than usual. Dinner, still at Rivebelle, and descriptions of the dining room, the funnel-shaped tea room, the guests, and the narrator in love with. . . what? Love. Hard to say. The late sunlight filtering in. We have that in our dining room at home, too, and it blinds you. Good sunsets, sometimes in the trees beyond the slough. In France, the sun would set over the ocean. Good clouds would produce a prime spectacle.
Yowza!

Duchesse of Guermantes Speaks

http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2007/07/proust-duchesse-of-guermantes-speaks.html

Orange Crate Art blogs Proust, too. Still seems like everyone is blogging Proust, even those who admit to never having read him, or pooping out halfway through Swann's Way. That would not, of course, be Orange Crate Art.

Do oranges still come in the kind of crates of yore? I had an orange crate in my room as a kid. Kind of a doll house/nightstand affair. I thought it was cool. Of course I also wore pajamas made out of chicken feed sacks. Chicken feed came in nice muslin prints and in those days items like orange crates and fabric were always recycled. There were no McMansions, and the town banker lived in a house just a little better than everyone else. A new car was the big thing.

The character Bloch has appeared at Balbec. In college, I had a friend very much like Bloch. Life imitating art? His name was Dennis. Bloch is very funny when he accuses he narrator of sucking up to the snobs and aristos. Isn't the Duchesse of piece of work? The thing is, I have heard people talk like that and not very long ago. In the particular is the universal.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Balbec, at long last

The narrator is finally in Balbec, embarassed by his grandmother's dickering over the room rate as any adolescent would be. We hear very little of the beach but a lot about the bad complexion of the manager. I must say I have never had a dread of strange hotel/motel rooms, but everyone in this family agrees that home is best, bed-wise, pillow-wise, bathroom-wise and midnight snack wise, but this must be universally true.

I am finding Proust minutae in England newspapers, esp the Telegraph. Here is the woman who wept when she finished Proust's masterpiece, and not with relief, as some might believe.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/07/12/todaybox.xml