Reading in Proust (The Guermantes Way) last night about the trials of Mme. Villeparisis and how she fell in society due to a neglect of the niceties, shall we say, and when she wanted to make her way back up the ladder to the top, the rungs were no longer accessible.
Snobbery tried and failed to rule on Jane Austen last night, as Pride and Prujudice and love triumphed.
I suppose we will always have snobbery. Right now, people look down on the new McMansions. Some suburbs are better. The right car, the right summer home, the right this, the right that, and above all the right school. The right shoes, handbag. It goes on and on. We are just as bad as Proust's or Austen's snobs. New money, old money.
Or as my very snobby (Mother was DAR, he likes to sail with the "right" people, i.e. the New York Yacht Club) friend said, when I talked about Burning Man. "I wouldn't have anything to saw to those people." Burners? You can say anything to Burners.
Ohmigod, the right yacht club, the destination wedding, the right table in the right restaurant even, if you write, the right genre.
I am a snob, too. I look down on people with no books in their houses, people who eat takeout 24/7 and people who drive enormous black SUV's. So there.
I'm leaving for a writing conference. Not taking Proust. Instead, I am taking a novel called Pasadena. I'll be back in a week, with a week's worth of Proust blogs, should there be any of interest, and there usually are.
I will be able to give a blow by blow of writer's snobberies. Chacun a son gout. Sorry for the lack of the proper French accents. I have never figured them out for Blogger except to cut and paste from word and that is just too tedious.
Odette
Monday, February 25, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
La Vie en Proust
Every now and then I find a post that is so perfect it has to be shared.
http://nathanhondros.blogspot.com/2008/02/blog-post.html
Nathan Hondros knows Proust. He has a wonderful post. It makes me happy to read it.
http://nathanhondros.blogspot.com/2008/02/blog-post.html
Nathan Hondros knows Proust. He has a wonderful post. It makes me happy to read it.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Saluting "Madeline Moments"
Another Proust blogger has an anniversary. A thoughtful, informative blog you should read.
http://marimann.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/one-year-anniversary-contest/
She is offering a contest with a "real" prize.
Odette (speaking here) is still reading about Rachel and St. Loup. As with Swann, one wants to slap St. Loup on the side of his head for wasting his time and money on such a gold digger.
On the other hand, did young women have any legitimate way to earn money back then? Besides marrying well? Maybe we should walk a mile in their moccasins. I am of two minds. Proust, too, seems to waver on the topic of Rachel. This makes literature good, the ability to see both sides of a conflicted character. And all the characters in Proust are conflicted. We like that.
Odette
http://marimann.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/one-year-anniversary-contest/
She is offering a contest with a "real" prize.
Odette (speaking here) is still reading about Rachel and St. Loup. As with Swann, one wants to slap St. Loup on the side of his head for wasting his time and money on such a gold digger.
On the other hand, did young women have any legitimate way to earn money back then? Besides marrying well? Maybe we should walk a mile in their moccasins. I am of two minds. Proust, too, seems to waver on the topic of Rachel. This makes literature good, the ability to see both sides of a conflicted character. And all the characters in Proust are conflicted. We like that.
Odette
Friday, February 15, 2008
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
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
Monday, February 11, 2008
Remembrance of a Proust Lecture
Oops! The lecture has come and gone. Not likely I would have come all the way from Foxborough. Once, in the depths of a Chicago winter very much like the current one (cold, cold, cold), I dragged my significant other through the snow to a lecture at Northwestern University about Proust.
My god, was it cold!
The professor said we should all read Proust. And I came home and did. From cover to cover.
And here I am again, years later. Sort of bogged down with the Duchess of Guermantes and the narrator's not very subtle (today we would call it stalking) arranging to run into her on her walks and business about town. Just reading the magazines and newspapers that come into the house is daunting, and then there's the books. But I am making progress.
Oh yes! The lecture: http://philostream.blogspot.com/2008/02/philo-event-8-philosophy-and-literature.html
Isn't he handsome in a European professorial kind of way? I have a Frenchman in my latest novel, Festival Madness, which I'll start flogging soon.
Alors,
Odette
My god, was it cold!
The professor said we should all read Proust. And I came home and did. From cover to cover.
And here I am again, years later. Sort of bogged down with the Duchess of Guermantes and the narrator's not very subtle (today we would call it stalking) arranging to run into her on her walks and business about town. Just reading the magazines and newspapers that come into the house is daunting, and then there's the books. But I am making progress.
Oh yes! The lecture: http://philostream.blogspot.com/2008/02/philo-event-8-philosophy-and-literature.html
Isn't he handsome in a European professorial kind of way? I have a Frenchman in my latest novel, Festival Madness, which I'll start flogging soon.
Alors,
Odette
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Not Reading Proust In Foxborough
Today is dedicated to the New England Patriots (who play in Foxborough) and their quest for a perfect season.
Found another Proust blogger who will keep you entertained. Love the blogger's graphics. Chasing down Proust blogs is almost as much fun as reading Proust and one finds some extremely interesting people.
here it is: http://fieria.livejournal.com/344169.html
I'm going to fix some superbowl food. See photo above. Superbowl food should be muscular, not wimp food.
Found another Proust blogger who will keep you entertained. Love the blogger's graphics. Chasing down Proust blogs is almost as much fun as reading Proust and one finds some extremely interesting people.
here it is: http://fieria.livejournal.com/344169.html
I'm going to fix some superbowl food. See photo above. Superbowl food should be muscular, not wimp food.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
And Yet Another Proust Blogger
John has joined the "little clan" of Proust bloggers. Actually it's a movement.
http://john44carr.multiply.com/journal/item/46/a_blockbuster_of_proust
His comparison of violent movies to Proust's work is interesting. Something I would have not thought of.
Last night I made good progress through The Guermantes Way, with St. Loup still at Doncierres and his troubles with his mistress and the Dutchess having a painting by Elstir. In Proust there's hardly any degrees of separation. Interesting that the mistress is not some air head but rather intellectual. Who knew? But that, of course, if St. Loup.
Doesn't Proust have great characters? The mark of a great writer is not the plots but the characters.
Odette
http://john44carr.multiply.com/journal/item/46/a_blockbuster_of_proust
His comparison of violent movies to Proust's work is interesting. Something I would have not thought of.
Last night I made good progress through The Guermantes Way, with St. Loup still at Doncierres and his troubles with his mistress and the Dutchess having a painting by Elstir. In Proust there's hardly any degrees of separation. Interesting that the mistress is not some air head but rather intellectual. Who knew? But that, of course, if St. Loup.
Doesn't Proust have great characters? The mark of a great writer is not the plots but the characters.
Odette
Saturday, January 26, 2008
The Guermantes Way
Fear not, Odette hasn't abandonned Proust. She is still plugging away at The Guermantes Way, enjoying how Marcel tries to fool Francoise and can't, especially enjoying the visit to the town of Doncierre and the barracks and St. Loup's life and friends there. The back and forth about St. Loup's cousin, the Duchesse of Guermantes, is rather comic.
St. Loup is such a sympathetic character and he has all these problems with his mistress and being a Dreyfusard, and he's so genuinely fond of Marcel. One gets a real sense of the military town and it's good to be outside of Paris and also away from the seaside and Balbec where we spent ever so much time.
So I am liking this volume a lot, although the evening at the opera and Berma seems to go on forever, but the reader is learning about French society, and Proust really takes you there, to Balbec, to Combray, to the opera, everywhere. Of course, nothing much ever happens until it happens, so the suspense is minimal and the conflict is mostly internal.
It's interesting how many of us there are, reading Proust in the year 2008 with all the other possibilities, computer games, movies, IPOD,the net, work,sports, so much stuff, so little time and yet we read Proust.
Merveilleuse.
Odette
St. Loup is such a sympathetic character and he has all these problems with his mistress and being a Dreyfusard, and he's so genuinely fond of Marcel. One gets a real sense of the military town and it's good to be outside of Paris and also away from the seaside and Balbec where we spent ever so much time.
So I am liking this volume a lot, although the evening at the opera and Berma seems to go on forever, but the reader is learning about French society, and Proust really takes you there, to Balbec, to Combray, to the opera, everywhere. Of course, nothing much ever happens until it happens, so the suspense is minimal and the conflict is mostly internal.
It's interesting how many of us there are, reading Proust in the year 2008 with all the other possibilities, computer games, movies, IPOD,the net, work,sports, so much stuff, so little time and yet we read Proust.
Merveilleuse.
Odette
My Own Proustian Moment
At my work out this week, the music began with Nel Blu, Dipinto di Blu (Volare) by Domenico Modugno.
A whole Proustian cloud of memories came percolating out of the speakers. The song was already old, but my first real memory of hearing it was in Aurora, Colorado playing water Frisbee in the swimming pool of somebody’s apartment house. I was a college student , and the party was one of those crazy affairs where everyone collapsed of tiredness and drunkenness about 3:00 a.m. and slept where they fell. It was a good song for water Frisbee, and the next morning I volunteered to make scrambled eggs for the remaining celebrants. Odette did not always know her way around the kitchen. In those days she didn’t cook at all, and she didn’t know you had to put a little butter or oil in the skillet to cook eggs. Yuck! Said eggs had to be scraped off the bottom of the skillet.
Flash forward a few years to San Remo Italy and my first trip to Europe as a very young bride. By then Volare was even longer in the tooth. We had changed hotels from the Londres to a modern sort of Scandinavian place a few blocks from the beach. All night long we heard Volare, again and again and again.
The next morning at breakfast, ye gods, there was Domenico Modugno himself in the dining room, and he was having a beer for breakfast. In all the wild parties I’d ever attended, no one had drunk beer for breakfast. Later at the Frankfurt Bahnhof (train station), I came to realize that beer is not an uncommon European male breakfast beverage.
Make beer your breakfast beverage. Haven’t seen that advertising campaign yet. So the song just rolled all those years (and by now they are quite a few) back and I was a college student splashing in the pool and an American girl in her first bikini strolling the beach in San Remo.We either ate at a restaurant on the beach or at a nice bustling trattoria in town or sometimes at night in a pizza place by the Orthodox Cathedral. When we first arrived, we ate at the Londres, but that was too boring. Lots of old folks, no doubt. It was the kind of place where you had the same napkin all week.
At the beach restaurant I first realized pasta was not a main course but a first course. In town for the first time I ate melon with prosciutto and melon with port wine. By the cathedral, we tasted Italian pizza for the first time. It wasn’t actually as good as American pizza. Who knew?
Volare! Hey Proust, how about them apples?
A whole Proustian cloud of memories came percolating out of the speakers. The song was already old, but my first real memory of hearing it was in Aurora, Colorado playing water Frisbee in the swimming pool of somebody’s apartment house. I was a college student , and the party was one of those crazy affairs where everyone collapsed of tiredness and drunkenness about 3:00 a.m. and slept where they fell. It was a good song for water Frisbee, and the next morning I volunteered to make scrambled eggs for the remaining celebrants. Odette did not always know her way around the kitchen. In those days she didn’t cook at all, and she didn’t know you had to put a little butter or oil in the skillet to cook eggs. Yuck! Said eggs had to be scraped off the bottom of the skillet.
Flash forward a few years to San Remo Italy and my first trip to Europe as a very young bride. By then Volare was even longer in the tooth. We had changed hotels from the Londres to a modern sort of Scandinavian place a few blocks from the beach. All night long we heard Volare, again and again and again.
The next morning at breakfast, ye gods, there was Domenico Modugno himself in the dining room, and he was having a beer for breakfast. In all the wild parties I’d ever attended, no one had drunk beer for breakfast. Later at the Frankfurt Bahnhof (train station), I came to realize that beer is not an uncommon European male breakfast beverage.
Make beer your breakfast beverage. Haven’t seen that advertising campaign yet. So the song just rolled all those years (and by now they are quite a few) back and I was a college student splashing in the pool and an American girl in her first bikini strolling the beach in San Remo.We either ate at a restaurant on the beach or at a nice bustling trattoria in town or sometimes at night in a pizza place by the Orthodox Cathedral. When we first arrived, we ate at the Londres, but that was too boring. Lots of old folks, no doubt. It was the kind of place where you had the same napkin all week.
At the beach restaurant I first realized pasta was not a main course but a first course. In town for the first time I ate melon with prosciutto and melon with port wine. By the cathedral, we tasted Italian pizza for the first time. It wasn’t actually as good as American pizza. Who knew?
Volare! Hey Proust, how about them apples?
Friday, January 18, 2008
Still Reading Proust in Foxborough
I took a look at Web Cowgirl's Blog today and what a fantastic collection of Proust links she had. Spent 'way too much time this morning, time when I should have been writing, looking at them.
So here they are:
http://tempsperdu.com/ops.html
http://www.whoswhoinproust.com/Pages/Images%20of%20Proust.htm
http://www.nysoclib.org/travels/proust.html
I have an idea. Why don't we all jump on a plane and fly to Paris and eat at the old bistros and visit the cemetery and find all the Belle Epoche spots and maybe buy some books along the Left Bank and eat and drink ourselves sick and dip down to the Riviera to recharge our batteries and nip over to Venice and look at the bridges and the churches and the city and then come home sated with Proust, and adventure and life?
What? No time, no money, no energy? Sigh. Me neither. But what a pretty thought!
Still plugging along on The Guermantes.
Odette
So here they are:
http://tempsperdu.com/ops.html
http://www.whoswhoinproust.com/Pages/Images%20of%20Proust.htm
http://www.nysoclib.org/travels/proust.html
I have an idea. Why don't we all jump on a plane and fly to Paris and eat at the old bistros and visit the cemetery and find all the Belle Epoche spots and maybe buy some books along the Left Bank and eat and drink ourselves sick and dip down to the Riviera to recharge our batteries and nip over to Venice and look at the bridges and the churches and the city and then come home sated with Proust, and adventure and life?
What? No time, no money, no energy? Sigh. Me neither. But what a pretty thought!
Still plugging along on The Guermantes.
Odette
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Proust Cookbook
Blogger lost my post again.
The cookbook is here, with all the expected Belle Epoque recipes and some unexpected dishes such as Beef Stroganoff and ravioli. Who knew?
The pineapple/truffle salad is dressed in a vinaigrette. My palette is experiencing difficulties imagining this, but the vinaigrette was a vrai vinaigrette, with the proper proportions of oil and vinegar. So the salad sounds better now that I know how it was made. When we hit the lottery, I'll try it.
Looking at the recipes made me recall some fancy dinner parties from the seventies when I was young and energized. The complicated recipes, the long dresses, everything just so, all as gone as the Belle Epoque.
Odette
The cookbook is here, with all the expected Belle Epoque recipes and some unexpected dishes such as Beef Stroganoff and ravioli. Who knew?
The pineapple/truffle salad is dressed in a vinaigrette. My palette is experiencing difficulties imagining this, but the vinaigrette was a vrai vinaigrette, with the proper proportions of oil and vinegar. So the salad sounds better now that I know how it was made. When we hit the lottery, I'll try it.
Looking at the recipes made me recall some fancy dinner parties from the seventies when I was young and energized. The complicated recipes, the long dresses, everything just so, all as gone as the Belle Epoque.
Odette
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Reading Proust in Foxborough
Blogger just lost my last post. Happens at least once a week. I am having modem problems---arrrgh, hate all these technical issues.
I read in The Guermantes Way last night, about Francois and her shenanigans. Such a great character, with her moods, and the sacrosanct servants meal and all the craziness in the new neighborhood. Proust is at his best sometimes with his sharp but gentle humor.
http://deweyorotherwise.wordpress.com/ Not all students read only what is assigned. I thought he brings up good points about Swann's Way and how Swann and Marcel mirror each other, and of course that happens even more so once Albertine comes on the scene.
Stay warm. Stay dry. I hope you have an excellent reading lamp and a bottle of something delicious to sip.
Odette
I read in The Guermantes Way last night, about Francois and her shenanigans. Such a great character, with her moods, and the sacrosanct servants meal and all the craziness in the new neighborhood. Proust is at his best sometimes with his sharp but gentle humor.
http://deweyorotherwise.wordpress.com/ Not all students read only what is assigned. I thought he brings up good points about Swann's Way and how Swann and Marcel mirror each other, and of course that happens even more so once Albertine comes on the scene.
Stay warm. Stay dry. I hope you have an excellent reading lamp and a bottle of something delicious to sip.
Odette
Monday, January 07, 2008
Web Cowgirl Reads Proust
It is incredibly cool to find technical people with a bookmark somewhere in Lost Time. Web Cowgirl http://webcowgirl.livejournal.com/1404525.html is another one of us plugging away at Proust.
Or am I the only plugger and everyone else is skimming along like it's a cozy novel that you start at 9:00 and finish at 11:00? Agatha Christie was like it. About 2 or 2 1/2 hours of a quick read.
Right now I am reading Sarah Winnemucca, a biography of a Paiute from Northern Nevada. The problem with this biography is that it is so heartbreaking I have to stop from time to time to avoid a complete meltdown.
I just finished Donald Maass' How to Write the Breakout Novel, which is edifying and something Proust learned instinctively. How did you do that, Marcel? I am also reading Jeff Herman's 2008 book about finding a publisher or a literary agent, again something Proust didn't need or maybe he did.
This bumbling around trying to get published is, well, the word is "painful." I don't "do" pain well. There are no drugs one can ingest to dull this pain. Well, I suppose booze and illegal substances, but they probably make it worse, don't you think? Why did so many writer's drink? Good writers? But not our narrator. He just locked himself in the corklined room and wrote. My admiration knows no bounds.
Or am I the only plugger and everyone else is skimming along like it's a cozy novel that you start at 9:00 and finish at 11:00? Agatha Christie was like it. About 2 or 2 1/2 hours of a quick read.
Right now I am reading Sarah Winnemucca, a biography of a Paiute from Northern Nevada. The problem with this biography is that it is so heartbreaking I have to stop from time to time to avoid a complete meltdown.
I just finished Donald Maass' How to Write the Breakout Novel, which is edifying and something Proust learned instinctively. How did you do that, Marcel? I am also reading Jeff Herman's 2008 book about finding a publisher or a literary agent, again something Proust didn't need or maybe he did.
This bumbling around trying to get published is, well, the word is "painful." I don't "do" pain well. There are no drugs one can ingest to dull this pain. Well, I suppose booze and illegal substances, but they probably make it worse, don't you think? Why did so many writer's drink? Good writers? But not our narrator. He just locked himself in the corklined room and wrote. My admiration knows no bounds.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
German Proust Blogger
Here is the link. If you page down, an English translation appears.
http://proust.twoday.net/
One of the greatest passages in world literature.
Odette
http://proust.twoday.net/
One of the greatest passages in world literature.
Odette
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