Friday Is Cat Blog Day

I see that I have posted this to the wrong BLOG. Proust readers are likely cat lovers, anyhow, and it would be way too complicated to move the whole post. Annie is the Calico, Thisbe is the Tortoise. They don't much like each other.

Last night, I wondered if the cats would do something memorable today. Well, they both threw up this morning--does that count? My little puke blossoms. Annie has always been bulemic, scarfing down her food without chewing and back up it comes. Thisbe hardly ever yorks, so this was something of a surprise.

Now that cool nights are here, Thisbe has returned to the bedroom and the foot of the bed, and the RULES are in place. The rules are that she doesn't like to be touched or nudged or interferred with in any way during her bed sleep. Woe to the person who touches her with an unsuspecting BARE FOOT. The claws come out, lots of them, and sink into the foot. One must remain absolutely still, until she realizes the threat has passed and takes her claws out. This requires middle-of-the-night nerves of steel.

Annie sleeps outside the bedroom door on a chaise lounge kind of affair. All the furniture in our house is covered with worn-out towels due to Annie's barf habit. We would never make Architectural Digest anyhow.

Proust and Verneer

What a lovely little essay. I hadn't remembered that Bergotte died in front of the Vermeer. Well, what a way to go.

Do read:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/great-works/view-of-delft-1660-by-johannes-vermeer-956444.html

The other Odette

Rainy Sundays: What would Albertine Do?

One of the French poets raptured about rainy Sundays, but I don't remember which one. Googling "rainy Sundays" brings forth a torrent (ha ha!) of web sites and many mentions of Baudelaire, but I couldn't find a quote.

Perhaps some of the readers know. We took a walk in the almost-rain and it was most refreshing. Next Sunday, forcast to be rainy, will find us on a sailboat race on Long Island Sound, an event I am facing with a certain trepidation.

Got my trusty boatshoes and a waterproof windbreaker. Proust, always bundled up in greatcoats and scarves, even in summer, would not be a happy camper. Odette's hair would get all mussed as would the Duchesse of Guermante's blond coif.

St. Loup would rather enjoy the afternoon, and maybe the athletic Albertine would also. Or would she sulk in the ship's cabin? What would Albertine do?

My nightstand becomes ever more disarranged with books, and some discipline needs to come into my life, but--what the hell?

Odette

Swann (and Proust) have a new fan

A new reader of Swann's Way, who also revels in the sly humor and the study of human nature in Proust. Hard to know why some critics think Proust a snob when he is forever sticking it to the aristocracy, and writing with such sympathy (and also humor) about the middle and servant classes.

Read on:

http://timsusman.blogspot.com/2008/10/review-swann-way.html

Odette, the other one

The Sweet Cheat Gone

Ah, Albertine! How she attracts and repels us, and how the narrator (Marcel's) possessiveness and jealousy does likewise.

Is not Proust one gigantic study of jealousy?

See this blogger's take on Albertine:

http://statestreet.wordpress.com/

Odette, the other one

The Proust Bloggers Go Forth

Time present and Time past:
http://cid-5df8dd15b45677f5.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!5DF8DD15B45677F5!462.entry

Reading Proust on the Terrace:

http://statestreet.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/on-the-terrace/

The old German saying is, “Wie Gott im Frankreich.” Like God in France

More on the elusive Albertine

Here's another blogger commenting on Albertine. It must be her week.

I'm wondering if she's the Proustian equivalent of "what do women want?" What does Albertine want? She seems always to be "the other," mysterious and elusive.

On the other hand, maybe she wanted to remain a girl in a beach town, riding bicycles with her friends and flirting with the tourist boys. Maybe she did not want the responsibility of finding a suitable husband and taking on married life. Who was Albertine?

Read this blog for more thoughts: http://delta-november.livejournal.com/93031.html
and may we congratulator the writer for completing four volumes?

I am limping through volume III.

Odette, the other one

Onscreen Scientist Summarizes Proust

Finally a most worthy post apropos Proust from "Onscreen Scientist," who has completed a second reading of Proust in French, and has also completed the work in English.

My hat is off to him, for several reasons. He is a physicist and a software writer. In another lifetime, I wrote software for a living, and with a few exceptions, this was not a literary crowd. I cannot think of any of my software colleagues who would have read Proust and my conjecture is that few of them would have even known who he was. Perhaps the scientist writes AI software or something besides grinding out business transactions ad nauseum ad infinitum.

I have known a few literary physics majors, most of the professors. I think physics teaches a certain curiosity about the world--well all science should do that except maybe creationism, which is of course not science but pseudo-science like astrology and phrenology and Madame Sostirus, cardreader and fortuneteller. I know people who actually believe this stuff.

But back to Proust. Onscreen Scientist offers a great summation of the book--a bit longer than those in the All England Summarize Proust Contest, and I think he is dead on about Albertine. One just cannot ever quite get a handle on her. She remains, for me, too, a tabula rasa.

Currently, I am wallowing in Mme. Villeparisis' endless party, and in two days I leave for Northern Nevada, a wonderful place for reading Proust but I only travel there with softcovers I can leave behind, and of course, that would not be Proust.

So click ye forth and read Onscreen Scientist's Proust post, and then hie ye to Proust himself, the great one. I was an the New England Independent Booksellers Association Trade Show yesterday and scooped up a wonderful bunch of books.

When people say they don't read, I feel an awful sympathy. How could you not read?


After all, Onscreen Scientists reads the master in French. Zowie!
http://onscreen-scientist.com/?p=35

Odette, the other one

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.

Conflict Moves Life, Not Just the Plot

To catch up, read my prior post about conflict in writing and how important it is.

Someone in my writing group mentioned that we spend our lives trying to avoid conflict, and attempting to live a serene existence, and then as writers we really set the pot to boiling, and how different is the way we (most of us) want to live versus what we must put down on paper.

Of course, in the literary world there are notable exceptions such as Hemingway and Mailer and Fitzgerald and Hunter Thompson. Hmmm. These are all men. Maybe it is women who want the quieter life, like Virginia Wolfe and Emily Dickenson. I wonder if this would make a good topic for a Ph. D. thesis.

If so, take it forth, because I won't be writing any theses.

More of the party at Mme. Villeparisis: I'm beginning to think this whole volume about the Guermantes takes place there. The very conflicted Charlus appears at this party. We'll see much more of him later.

Here's a blogger with good intentions who hasn't quite made it that far into the novel yet. The mention of Proust's translator, Lydia Davis, caught my eye. The blogger doesn't like her book, and mentioned some male authors, and that got me going on the contemplative life versus the life of action.
http://dahlhaus.blogspot.com/2008/09/books-end-of-story-by-lydia-davis.html

In another blog, I'm forever telling readers to go forth into the world and look around. That's not the same thing as being engagé, the existential idea of being engaged in life. Are there any existentialists left? I never see any mention, but perhaps I read the wrong periodicals. Perhaps they still haunt left bank cafes.

What amazes me is that the scene at the party goes on for hundreds of pages. And that's also how novel ends, at another party, years later.

If you write, you understand how difficult it is to juggle party scenes, because the intermingling of many people is hard to convey, and it's easy to confuse the reader and botch up the scene. Three or four way conversations become impossible with attribution and focus. Proust does an excellent job--of conveying the party, not of botching the scene. My admiration for Proust increases the longer I write. What a master!

If you are a trifle Proust-challenged, and who isn't, here is a cool web site that can be your character guide. Who's Who in Proust. How cool is that?
http://www.whoswhoinproust.com/

Odette, the other one

I Just Love a Good Proust Pun

Look what the web brought me this morning:

The chickens have come home to Proust!
http://wwidsith.livejournal.com/60734.html

Last night I continued reading (this is taking the entire summer) Mme. Villeparisis' party.
Robert St. Loup en Bray's mother has appeared, and the hostess has warned the Duchesse of Guermantes that Swann's wife Odette, shunned by the Dutchess, will make an appearance. Block has disgraced himself and tout le monde talks of the Dreyfuss affair. Odette has become an anti-Dreyfussard. (Sorry if I mangled the spelling.)

In my attempt to write, I have learned that conflict moves the plot. It moves Proust's masterpiece, slowly, lentement, so be sure, but conflict there is. Between the boy, the mother and the father in the opening pages. Internal conflict. Conflict with the servants, Tante Leonie, Swann and Odette, the narrator and Gilberte. And so on. Did someone mention Albertine?

Conflict rules, but cripes, this reception is sooooo long. Not boring, really, but I can only read a few pages before bedtime. Can't wait until Odette show up.

Onward,

Odette, the other one

Total Proust

How did I miss this Proust blog? Because it's a few years old, no doubt, but with Proust, unlike politics or popular culture old is good.

http://letempsdeproust.blogsome.com/

There are some old but good writings about Proust in the following books:

Axel's Castle by Edmund Wilson
Studies in Human Time by Georges Poulet

No idea if they are in print or re-issued. My copies are as old as the hills. Undoubtedly there are more modern takes, but I left literature and entered technology, and therein lies a tale.

Odette

A Proust Blog from Laura-Les-Crayons

Lately, not only has my reading of Proust been sort of la-di-dah, but the interesting Proust blogs have dried up for the summer.

Today, I found a singular one, on the topic (mostly) of a Proust lecture. The blogger is a young lady who lives in Paris. I had just been reading the Paris September Gourmet, and recalling our trip of a year and a half ago, or was it two? Anyway, everything converged in delightful serendipity.

http://laura-les-crayons.blogspot.com/

Love the name. Have to confess mega-envy over young women living in Paris. Sigh. Ah well, I can cook something French and get out the French linens and some vin rouge and pretend our deck overlooking the slough is a balcon en Paris. Nice, n'est pas? The chickadees and blackbirds can become pigeons and the slough can be the Seine.

Odette

Madam Verdurin

A blogger with a take on one of Proust's great characters, Mme. Verdurin.

http://bestofnow.blogspot.com/

And another blogger must be reading about the same party that I am. Pages and pages. Show don't tell. Well, maybe sometimes telling would not be a totally bad thing.

http://delta-november.livejournal.com/91240.html


Didn't take Proust to Chicago. Too tired to read most nights, due to overly large dinners with overly much wine and spirits. Lovely, just not conducive to a long read before bedtime.

Odette