Madame Guermantes

It's a movement!  Really weird how all of a sudden bloggers, by which I mean Proust bloggers will jump on the same scene, character, or subject matter of the Great Work.  This week, a blond lady of distinction has that honor.  Have to confess I never liked her, but then if  you really think about it, who except the Grandmother and the narrator (and he sometimes whines)  are really likable in Proust?  I used to be fond of St. Loup, but he became so tedious with Rachel.  Swann was sympathetic, but he seemed remarkably  blind to Odette's faults.  Maybe the volume should have been titled as "Blind In Love," instead of "Swann In Love."  I don't know.  


Think about it.   Do you gossip about your friends?  Do you have just an ever-so-slight love of Schadenfreude?  We are all unsympathetic in many ways.  Long live Proust for portraying us, warts and all.  


Here is another reference to that Guermantes woman.  Madame Guermantes  

Who Wrote Vinteuil' s Sonata?

Interesting blog on the oft-researched Sonata with the "petite phrase,"  the love song for Swann and Odette. 


Who Wrote Vinteuil's Sonata

Proust and Euphemisms

The blogger in the link below takes exception to one of Proust's "euphemisms," but I really liked it because Proust  didn't use whatever the  current euphemism was (and there were probably many).  Instead Proust used something very specific to Swann and Odette, something with meaning to them, and I thought that was an example of his greatness as a writer. 
Has anyone noticed, by the way, that "hiking the Appalachian Trail" has become a NEW euphemism, and that in our times, these new expressions come facing at us before the ink is dry. 


Here is the blog link: 


http://readingwithmytwin.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/euphemisms-101/


A cattleya is an orchid, (shown above, and look at Google images if you want to see hundreds), and Odette always wore one on her decolletage. 


The other Odette, who doesn't wear flowers but likes to grow them. 

Swann in Love: The Comic

You read it here first:--several paragraphs down into the article:

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071202/STYLE/312020011/-1/style

Andrew Smith writes in the Nashua Telegram (New Hampshire)

"It's unlikely that Marcel Proust could even imagine a comic book when he published "Remembrance of Things Past" from 1913-27, much less that his masterpiece would be adapted to one. Come to think of it, it's still pretty hard to imagine today.

But writer/artist Stephane Heuet is doing just that. His latest book in the multivolume adaptation, "Part Three: Swann In Love, Vol. I (of II)," has been released by NBM Publishing ($16.99), and it's just as delightful as its predecessors.

The writing is faithful, taking its time with the dialogue and story progression. And the art, which owes a lot to early 20th-century comic strips (think "Little Nemo" or "Gasoline Alley") is perfectly suited – being both modern (in being comics at all) and nostalgic (in evoking a bygone era).I have to admit part of what impresses me is that Heuet is trying this at all. I can think of few novels that suggest themselves for comics adaptation less. Yet he pulls it off, adding texture to Proust's immortal prose. Comics: They aren't just for Spandex anymore!

Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol. com or http://www.captaincomics.us/. "

What will something think of next? Proust continues to inspire the widest swath of creativity from the Squid to the comics.

Reading Proust in Foxborough in Not A Lit Blog

Don't you just love it when tempests rise within the teacup? I have to confess that I do. Below are links to some interviews and anti-anti-blog remarks (you may need a scorecard). Makes me wonder if I have a "right" to discuss Proust, since I've been in Information Technology instead of Literature for lo, these many years.

http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2007/05/conversation-with-sheila-kohler-on-book.html

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/web_tech/author_slams_blogs_publicist_sighs_quietly_59505.asp

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/lit_crit/old_man_look_at_my_blog_schickel_mouths_off_about_blogs_to_larger_audience_59411.asp


At Book Expo, the Luddites are trembling in their Gucci Loafers again at the idea of free books to download, e-publishing, and all those dastardly things. Many readers, writers and especially publishers are anti-computer. Publishing is a hide-bound business, even if they do count beans a lot nowadays. Meanwhile Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are interviewed together. How cool is that?

Sometimes the Luddites makes me want to slink and skulk and hide in the shrubbery of the Bois de Boulogne. Maybe Mme. Swann will have an assignation or two that I can report on.

Still reading about Marcel and Gilberte and he is sounding an awful lot like Swann in love. Bring on Albertine and the jeunes filles. Were they really jeune filles? Do I have a right to ask?

Onward,

Odette