***Group Read: Swann's Way

Forum75 Books Challenge for 2010

Melde dich bei LibraryThing an, um Nachrichten zu schreiben.

***Group Read: Swann's Way

Dieses Thema ruht momentan. Die letzte Nachricht liegt mehr als 90 Tage zurück. Du kannst es wieder aufgreifen, indem du eine neue Antwort schreibst.

1billiejean
Bearbeitet: Jun. 16, 2010, 6:18 pm

The group read for Swann's Way starts reading on July 5th, with any translation. Anyone interested is welcome to join in!

Any thoughts on how to divide it up? My copy has 422 pages divided into 3 parts, with the first two parts being longer. We could divide it by parts. Let me know what you think.
--BJ

2labwriter
Jun. 16, 2010, 6:40 pm

Hi BJ. I like your idea of dividing the book into parts. When I was looking at the books and thinking about "6 volumes," I was thinking that it would fit my schedule pretty well to try for one book every two months, finishing the entire set within a year. We had talked about reading just Swann's Way for this group read. Would two months for the first volume be too slow for everyone? I'm just sort of thinking out loud here and wondering how fast people want to do this.

It would seem reasonable to read this first volume in a month, if people would rather. I'm sort of open to whatever. My copy is about 600 pages. Maybe split the difference and say 6 weeks? I'd like to know how others feel.

3KarenSchulte
Jun. 16, 2010, 6:52 pm

I have always meant to read Swann's Way. If it can be done in 3 parts that would be fine. It's a big project.
KSchulte

4billiejean
Jun. 16, 2010, 8:07 pm

Hi, Becky and Karen!
I would also like to eventually read all of the books. I think that six weeks would be good for Swann's Way. My copy has no chapters, just the three parts, and it comes out to 422 pages. The first part is 184 in mine, the second is 195 and the last is only about 45. We could do 2 1/2 weeks for parts one and two and one week for part three. Or is that too confusing? We could do 3 weeks for parts one and two and one week for part 3, for a total of 7 weeks. Let me know what you think. See how that looks in y'all's copies.
--BJ

5billiejean
Jun. 16, 2010, 8:08 pm

By the way, my library does not have that Paintings in Proust that I have heard so much about. It does qualify for supersaver shipping, though. I think I might go ahead and order it.
--BJ

6labwriter
Jun. 16, 2010, 9:17 pm

Hi Billiejean and Karen,

Billiejean, 6 weeks for SW sounds good to me. I'm sure we can figure it out as we go along. No chapters in my version either, just the three parts. The first part takes up about half the book.

I bought the Paintings because I figured if I was going to spend that much time on Proust, then it would be a good investment. The book gets amazingly positive ratings over at amazon.

Karen, I'm glad you're going to join. "Schulte" is a Dutch name, no? My maiden name is Roorda.

Bye for now.

7drneutron
Jun. 16, 2010, 10:12 pm

This thread is now linked on the group home page so it can be easily found!

8Eat_Read_Knit
Jun. 17, 2010, 10:04 am

6 weeks sounds fine to me. That words out about 12 pages a day in my copy.

9BookAngel_a
Jun. 17, 2010, 3:00 pm

I found my copy and I'm ready to see if I can handle Proust!

10labwriter
Jun. 17, 2010, 3:05 pm

>9 BookAngel_a:. Hi Angela. I feel the same way. I've made two previous half-hearted stabs at reading Vol. One, and I didn't get very far either time, which is absurd. What I've found in the group reads that I've participated in here at LT is this: 1) there's safety in numbers; 2) accountability to other people helps keep me on track; and 3) it's fun when other people are reading and commenting on the same thing I'm reading.

>7 drneutron:. Thanks very much for the link.

11billiejean
Jun. 17, 2010, 6:11 pm

#7 Yes, thanks so much for the link!
--BJ

12labwriter
Jun. 18, 2010, 3:54 pm

"My book is a painting."--Marcel Proust to Jean Cocteau

I just received the Paintings of Proust book in the mail. Certainly not everyone who reads Proust wants or needs this book. I'm a visually oriented person, so I think that this will help me to appreciate better what Proust was doing. I also figure it will act as a little "boost" to keep me working at reading Proust.

If you're interested, I will say that the book is a beauty. It's printed on good art-quality paper and is divided into the volumes which correspond to the volumes of Proust's novel, with the illustrations printed in order as they appear in the text, along with the quotation from Proust. There's also a long introduction which I haven't read yet. There are 206 illustrations, 196 of them in color. Included are notes and an index of painters and paintings.

I bought the book used at amazon for about $20, which is about 4 or 5 times more than I pay for almost any used book I buy there. The book was published in 2008; I would hope that most reasonably-sized libraries would have a copy.

13billiejean
Jun. 18, 2010, 8:06 pm

Thanks for the wonderful description of the book!
--BJ

14labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jun. 18, 2010, 11:57 pm

Welcome, Billiejean.

I was talking to (well, actually emailing) a friend whose mind and way with words I greatly admire. He's an L.A. screenwriter, and by coincidence he just recently finished Proust's novel, all 1.5 million words of it. I asked him, what's the best way to read Proust? His answer: slowly. He spent a year reading all 3,000 pages, ten pages a night.

I love the way my friend writes: "Nothing prepares the reader for the forbidding scale, the mind-bending syntax, the wide cast of characters, and the hypnotic sentences that curl back upon themselves with digressions folded into digressions."

Then he gives the example of the 958-word "grammatical beast" beginning sentence of Vol. IV, Sodom and Gomorrah.

He says it takes a while to realize that the spine of the story is simplicty itself: "Will the young protagonist, Marcel, become a good writer? That's it."

P.S. My friend said something else that might be helpful: "Jump in and plow ahead, no matter what." He said he also kept this handy, and found that it helped a lot: Proust's Way: A Field Guide to in Search of Lost Time by Roger Shattuck. If my friend recommends this book, then I trust that it's good. If I feel like I need it, I may get it. I'll sort of see how it goes, I think.

15billiejean
Jun. 19, 2010, 12:08 am

Thanks, again, for all the wonderful insight. I love "Jump in and plow ahead, no matter what." That is just the advice I need. :) I haven't ordered the other book yet, so I am going to look into this one as well.

I am getting really excited about this, and I hope everyone else is too.

Here is a proposed reading schedule:

Part One: Combray July 5 - July 22

Part Two: Swann in Love July 23 - August 9

Part Three: Place-Names: The Name August 10 - August 16

Total reading time 6 weeks. How does that sound to everyone?
--BJ

16arubabookwoman
Bearbeitet: Jun. 19, 2010, 1:03 am

I don't know how to do links, but the web site group with which I am reading Proust (we started in November and are now on Sodom and Gomorrah) is at www.thecorklinedroom.wordpress.com. If you scrollback to the November entries you can follow along from the beginning. The moderator posts each weekday. Usually he summarizes what has happened in the pages we have read for the day, points out important or beautiful phrases or sentences, and provides references to (and quotes from) any number of pertinent Proust scholarly and critical works, including Roger Shattuck's. We read between 10 to 20 pages a day. This may seem like too much structure for some people, but I have found it immensely enriching, and I don't know whether I could have gotten as far as I have without this site.

Edited to add that it looks like LT made the link for me. But don't forget to scroll back to get to Swanns Way.

17labwriter
Jun. 19, 2010, 7:11 am

My edition is the Modern Library paperback. For my copy your schedule translates into:

Part One: about 14 pages a day.

Part Two: about 16 pages a day.

Part Three: about 9 pages a day.

That schedule seems pretty reasonable. I propose we give it a try and see how it feels. I don't imagine that it will feel too slow. Anyone else have thoughts about this?

>16 arubabookwoman:. Thanks very much for the link. The more I read about how other people have read this book, the more I think that "slow" and "structure" are both good strategies to successfully reading Proust.

18billiejean
Jun. 19, 2010, 2:02 pm

Arubawoman, thanks so much for the link. I know that I will want to check that out.

Becky, we can always adjust, too, if we want. Thanks for figuring out the page count. I always like the Modern Library books.
--BJ

19RebeccaAnn
Jun. 20, 2010, 11:08 am

Would anyone mind if I joined in? Proust is one of those authors I've always wanted to read and I've been craving a more "serious" book to read...

20BookAngel_a
Jun. 20, 2010, 11:13 am

The more, the merrier! ;)

21labwriter
Jun. 20, 2010, 12:09 pm

You bet, Rebecca, please join. BTW, my name is "Rebecca Ann" as well. I don't know how old you are, but in the 1950s where we lived, for some reason "Ann" seems to be been the fallback middle name for a girl. Why that was, I can't imagine. I would have loved it if my mother had given me her maiden name as a middle name--Rebecca Denton. But nope. Actually, my father's sister was "Anna," so maybe they were thinking of that.

Anyway, Welcome!

22RebeccaAnn
Jun. 20, 2010, 1:23 pm

I'm only twenty three actually but I was named after my mother and one of my mother's cousin. Her cousin's name is Rebecca and my mother's middle name (and she was born in the '50s) is Ann, so I became Rebecca Ann!

23billiejean
Jun. 20, 2010, 4:58 pm

Glad you are joining us, Rebecca Ann!
--BJ

24labwriter
Jun. 24, 2010, 11:40 am

On the advice of my L.A. screenwriter friend ("Are you kidding? Get this!"), I bought the Proust guide: Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time: A Reader's Guide to The Remembrance of Things Past. If anyone is interested, here's what's in the book. I like books like this, probably because my background of reading in school encouraged me to use supplementary sources. I know some people don't like this sort of thing--don't even like to read reviews of books. Different strokes. . . .

He gives a high level summary of all the volumes: "What Happens in Proust."

Then he gives a summary of each book. The summary for Swann's Way is pretty short and I haven't read any of it yet.

Then about half of the book is "Who's Who In Proust," a guide to the main characters.

Then, briefly at the end, he covers the life of Proust, Proust's Paris, Proust and French History, and the Dreyfus Affair.

At the very end is a list of "suggestions for further reading."

Wow, July 5 will be here before we know it.

25billiejean
Jun. 24, 2010, 12:18 pm

Thanks for the resource, Becky! I can't wait to get started!
--BJ

26KristeninLA
Jun. 28, 2010, 8:04 pm

I would love to join this group read. I have been looking for a group that wants to read Proust, mostly because I'm a little anxious about reading his work alone! Looking forward to getting started!

27billiejean
Jun. 29, 2010, 11:43 am

I am so glad that you can join us, Kristen! We are starting to read on Monday!
--BJ

28RosyLibrarian
Jul. 1, 2010, 12:22 pm

Mind if I tag along? :)

I tried reading him last year, but I think it may be one of those books best read with others. I'm also grateful to all the supplemental books being posted. I have a feeling they would be very helpful for me!

Marie

29billiejean
Jul. 1, 2010, 1:48 pm

Sure, Marie, the more, the merrier! I feel the same way about this book. I got the Paintings in Proust book in the mail and enjoyed looking through it.
--BJ

30labwriter
Jul. 1, 2010, 6:04 pm

Hi Marie. I second what billiejean said--Welcome!

31BookAngel_a
Jul. 1, 2010, 9:30 pm

I'm looking forward to reading this. Stasia posted a quote from Swann's Way on her thread. I liked the quote so it's given me hope that I will enjoy Proust!

32valerette
Jul. 2, 2010, 2:55 am

Is it too late to join this group read? I wouldn't normally have thought of reading Proust but with the support of a group I might be able to do it!

33Eat_Read_Knit
Jul. 2, 2010, 4:50 am

It's definitely not too late to join in, Julie! Welcome.

34billiejean
Bearbeitet: Jul. 2, 2010, 8:50 am

We are starting Part 1 on Monday, July 5th. And welcome to the group!
--BJ

35valerette
Jul. 2, 2010, 10:20 am

Thanks! Based on the recommendations here I went ahead and ordered Paintings in Proust. I know it won't get here by July 5th but I'll have it for most of the read.

36billiejean
Jul. 5, 2010, 10:18 am

Today we start the group read of Swann's Way! We will read Part 1 from today until July 22.
--BJ

37BookAngel_a
Jul. 5, 2010, 3:24 pm

I'm reading How Proust Can Change Your Life as an intro to Proust and it's been helpful so far. It's a short book, too!

38Eat_Read_Knit
Jul. 5, 2010, 3:31 pm

Just a few pages into Swann's Way so far, but enjoying it a lot.

39labwriter
Jul. 5, 2010, 5:22 pm

My plan is to read between 10 and 20 pages a day, averaging 15. That will get me to the end of the first section in my edition by July 22. There are no chapters or other divisions, so I think for me that would work out best--just a certain number of pages per day. I assume we'll all be posting here as the spirit moves us?

40labwriter
Jul. 5, 2010, 9:27 pm

Someone suggested I read Patrick Alexander's book, Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time along with the novel. I'm dipping into it here and there, and here's something that I found encouraging:

"Apparently formless and abstract, {the} first forty pages are difficult to read on first attempt, and are probably the reason that many people never progress further into the book."

41valerette
Jul. 5, 2010, 11:43 pm

I just bought Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time today and skimmed it a bit as well, labwriter. I found that quote tremendously encouraging, and also the introduction of the book in general.

Although it is a bit hard to follow at times, I am enjoying it and identifying with it more than I thought I would.

42billiejean
Jul. 6, 2010, 7:45 am

I think that is a pretty good pace, Becky. I am going to try that, too.

I think that the writing so far at the beginning is beautiful. I loved how he wrote about his mother kissing him goodnight.

My book has a synopsis at the end, but it doesn't make that much sense to me. I ordered a reader's guide, but I seem to have misplaced it. So I am off to locate it.
--BJ

43KarenSchulte
Jul. 6, 2010, 11:06 am

I have started reading. I am amazed at the flow and musicality of the language. I am still in Overture and love how he speculates on his younger self, his fears
of the unknown and attachment to his mother. He immediately sets the stage for exploration of time, fears about change, and the construct of self.
KarenSchulte

44labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 6, 2010, 2:50 pm

I don't know if anyone is like me in their response to this first "introductory" part (and believe me, I'm taking it on faith that somehow the first forty pages aren't representative of the book as a whole), but I find it useful to come at Proust's writing with something of a sense of humor. I am slowly, slowly getting the cadences of his sentences into my ear, and I trust that will happen eventually, but until it fully does, sentences like these tend to crack me up:

(in my edition--the Modern Library paperback--this is page 20)

"Had it been absolutely essential to apply to Swann a social coefficient peculiar to himself, as distinct from all the other sons of other stockbrokers in his father's position, his coefficient would have been rather lower than theirs, because, being very simple in his habits, and having always had a 'craze' for antiques and pictures, he now lived and amassed his collections in an old house which my grandmother longed to visit but which was situated on the Quai d'Orleans, a neighborhood in which my great-aunt thought it most degrading to be quartered."

Seriously, is Proust having us on? And yet something tells me he is just getting warmed up. I come from a public school background where the English teachers (and Latin as well) still found value in spending time teaching students to diagram sentences. Why, oh why didn't they use sentences such as these? What a gold mine! "Find the subject of this sentence" alone would have been a useful morning's exercise. I'm thinking there are surely academics who have made their entire careers on nothing more than the Proustian sentence.

I just found a website that claims the longest Proust sentence would stretch around the base of a wine bottle 17 times--haha.

I also just found an article about diagramming sentences, an NPR interview with the author of the book, Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences. This book is obviously a must-have.

Here's the link to the article.

45KristeninLA
Jul. 6, 2010, 9:17 pm

Haha Labwriter, I love the reference to the wine bottle!

I have to admit, this is my third time starting Swann's Way. Third time's a charm, right? I can do this .......

Cheers,
Kristen

46labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 7, 2010, 8:50 am

Hi Kristenin, and welcome. This is probably my third or fourth time also, and I've never made it beyond the "Overture"--but this time we will, right? No one ever told me before that Proust is funny. That helps.

Sorry--that should obviously be "Kristen." It was late when I wrote that--ha.

47billiejean
Bearbeitet: Jul. 7, 2010, 8:43 am

Love the blast from the past about diagramming sentences. Neither of my girls learned how to do that, and I just could not believe it.

As Proust started going on and on about wanting his mother to kiss him goodnight, I began to wonder what does this mean??? The first reference (which I loved) was just a few sentences, but later it is pages long. So I got out my guide, but it could not really explain this part to me. What do you think it means?

This is my second attempt. My first time only lasted for 13 pages, so I am doing better this time. I wonder how it changes after the overture.
--BJ

48labwriter
Jul. 7, 2010, 8:49 am

I hope nobody minds if I use this thread to keep track of my "reading goal" for the day. I can see how, as the days go by, it may get to be a little bit difficult to keep track of where I want to be. I usually do my Proust reading at night, and sometimes I fall asleep before I get to the end of that day's goal, so I need to catch up the next day, and I've already found myself thinking, is this day 3 or day 4 and how far was I supposed to read.

So I'll keep track here, and feel free to ignore these posts. We're probably all reading different editions, so the page numbers won't really be of use to anyone who isn't reading the Modern Library paperback edition (published 1992)

Day 3. By the end of today I'd like to be at page 45 or so--averaging 15 pages a day.

49KarenSchulte
Jul. 7, 2010, 10:25 am

I just finished Overtures, and while some of the sentences( most, I think) are miles long I have some observations:
one, that Proust was writing in French; everything we read is a translation. The other is that he is exploring memory of past events thus there is a possibility he is working with a sort of stream of consciousness pre-James Joyce. The last is that analogy of music which may account for these wild long sentences. Any way I think diagramming is a great idea.
Karen

50RosyLibrarian
Jul. 7, 2010, 5:26 pm

This is my third attempt at reading Proust - one of which was with an audio book. I thought maybe hearing Proust read aloud would be helpful, but the narrator made it even worse!

I am still in the Overture section myself and am encouraged by all the suggestions in this thread. He does seem to be an author you cannot hurry yourself through and diagramming is an interesting thought I will try tonight.

Marie

51labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 8, 2010, 8:09 am

I had an Emily Litella moment last night reading my Proust pages (the link is for those of you who are too young to remember Gilda Radner doing Emily on SNL).

It came from Aunt Celine, when the name of Saint-Simon "arrested the complete paralysis of her auditory faculties. . . ." Aunt Celine then pops off with a rant that I couldn't help but read in Emily Litella's voice. This happens on pages 34, 35 in my book.

>47 billiejean:. Hi BillieJean. You're not the only one who has had trouble with the first part. Evidently one of the publishers approached by Proust, one who turned the novel down, wrote to him on reading the manuscript: "I may be as thick as two short planks, but I fail to understand why a chap should require thirty pages to describe how he tosses and turns in bed before falling asleep." Heh.

I assume some editions label this "Overture" section as such, so some of you at least have the benefit of knowing when you're out of it. My edition doesn't do that. I'm simply reading a section titled "Cambray" which is 264 pages long.

OK, so I found a website that says the Overture ends with the "famous madeleine scene." Good. Now I know.

Day 4
Goal: Page 60.
(Again, that's just me keeping track of what I'm doing here--we're probably all reading this differently. My friend who just finished the entire thing read 10 pages a night. I'm not convinced that for me that's the best way to approach Proust, but I'll try it this way for awhile.)

Happy Reading

52billiejean
Jul. 8, 2010, 8:53 am

I think reading a few pages a day is a good idea. Last night I was reading it out loud to my girls (one has read this, one has not). It does seem a little different out loud.
--BJ

53arubabookwoman
Jul. 8, 2010, 12:24 pm

Becky--Your commentary is cracking me up! Keep it coming.

54labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 9, 2010, 7:31 am

The mother is reading to her son Francoise le Champi, translated: The Country Waif, the story of an orphan boy placed in a foster rural home. Snort. The boy is "befriended" by the miller's wife, whose name is Madeleine. His mother's choice of books is certainly no coincidence.

Well hoo-ah, I finally made it to the "famous madeliene cake" scene, which signals the end of the Overture. In my book it starts around page 60 and ends on page 64. I have officially made it through. I hope you all have too.



Day 5
Goal: Pg 75

55BookAngel_a
Jul. 9, 2010, 8:08 am

I wish!! My Kindle says I'm....2% finished with Swann's way. I've GOT to find some more reading time soon.

Are we supposed to get to the end of the Overture by July 22nd?

56labwriter
Jul. 9, 2010, 2:05 pm

>55 BookAngel_a:. Check message #15 from billiejean:

Here is a proposed reading schedule:

Part One: Combray July 5 - July 22

Part Two: Swann in Love July 23 - August 9

Part Three: Place-Names: The Name August 10 - August 16

Total reading time 6 weeks. How does that sound to everyone?

--BJ


So our goal is to finish up Part One by July 22--which, depending on your edition, is probably somewhere around 10-20 pages per day.

Hope that helps.

--Becky

57billiejean
Jul. 9, 2010, 2:48 pm

The overture is just part of Combray. I liked the madeleine scene. The way each bite was less effective than the previous. Let me go find it in my book.

He is drinking the tea with the madeleine drenched in it.

"I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, then a third, which gives me rather less then the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing its virtue. It is plain that the truth I am seeking lies not in the cup but in myself. The drink has called it into being, but does not know it, and can only repeat indefinitely, with a progressive diminution of strength, the same message which I cannot interpret, though I hope at least to be able to call it forth again and to find it here presently, intact and at my disposal, for my final enlightenment."

Actually, the whole scene is beautifully written. This is only a snippet.

I first learned what a madeleine was when watching the movie The Transporter.

Thanks for looking up the plot of the book, Becky! There must connections like that all over the place that I am missing.

The end of the overture in my book is page 45. It is around 1/4 of part one in my book.
--BJ

58labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 10, 2010, 6:47 am

Great-aunt Leonie, who talks quietly to herself, who believed "there was something broken inside her head and floating loose there"--she's quite the character. The tisane made by the Narrator for his aunt is made from lime blossoms, an herbal tea used to "calm nerves and reduce tension." I actually had a neighbor who drank lime blossom tisane. I wonder if she read Proust?

I like Francoise, one of those kinds of servants who are without "superficial affability, that servile chit-chat which may impress a stranger favorably, but often conceals an incurable incompetence." Knowing very little myself about servants, I'll just have to take Proust's word for it.

The whole business about knowing everything that was going on in the town--the Mme. Goupil gossip, the strange dog that she "didn't know from Adam"--is hilarious. There's some back-and-forth between the aunt and the grandfather: "who could it have been" that he passed on the street, someone he didn't know? On the contrary, the grandfather said, he did indeed know the man--"Why of course I knew him. It was Prosper, Mme Bouilleboeuf's gardener's brother." Ha.

Day 6
Goal: Pg 90

59arubabookwoman
Jul. 10, 2010, 2:02 pm

Francoise remains an important character, at least through vol. 4 where I am now. Marcel has quite the love/hate relationship with her.

60labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 10, 2010, 4:05 pm

So I'm really dying to know--how is everyone doing with this thing? Has anyone just plain given up and thrown it out the window yet? You know, it's OK to say that if you have. This is my FOURTH stab at this thing in about 20 years, and truth to tell, if I didn't have my screenwriter friend checking in with me occasionally ("So, how's it going with Proust?") and if I didn't have this group also to be accountable to, I might already have just sort of slipped it to the bottom of the pile of books sitting beside my dresser--which is my way of abandoning a book without "officially" abandoning it.

Seriously, I'm finding the section about Combray to be OK. I'm glad to hear that Francoise will become an important character, as our friend in Message #59 indicates, because I like her--I think she has possibilities. I think it will be hugely helpful to my liking of the book as the characters become more developed and more "known." Frankly, I didn't care for the Narrator as a young boy with a mother fixation in the Overture. I'm glad to move on from there. I'm willing to keep working at this book because it's such a cultural touchstone, but at this point it does feel like a bit of work. I'm seriously hoping I will like it better as I get farther into the book. Surely I will (I hope).

I'm really curious to hear how some of the rest of you feel. Is there someone here who absolutely loves it so far? Great--please post something here!

Anywho, I hope everyone is having a good weekend.

P.S. arubabookwoman's post at #59 reminded me of the link to a blog she told us about earlier (see post #16). I took a fast look at this blog some weeks ago, and I meant to look it in more detail because it looked quite good, and frankly I forgot about it (mind like a sieve sometimes). So the comments there might also be either a help or just something interesting to read for this group. Thanks again for the link!

61billiejean
Jul. 10, 2010, 4:04 pm

Becky, I am enjoying the read this time through so far. There is a surprising amount of humor here. I read that part about Great-Aunt Leonie out loud to my girls. I thought it was too funny. This morning I was reading about the Narrator's friend Bloch, who does not know anything about the weather or time and shows up randomly in atrocious condition. I kind of stopped in the middle of that part and want to read some more tonight.

The biggest problem that I have with this book is finding a stopping place. But I don't think I have the stamina to just read and read, either.

I have to go out of town without Proust on Monday. I will check back in when I get back Thursday night. I hope that I will not be too far behind.
--BJ

62labwriter
Jul. 10, 2010, 4:08 pm

Hi Billiejean. Oh--I absolutely agree. Where to stop? I'm reading along at night and hit my "goal" for the day and there's no good stopping place, so I keep going. And half an hour later--still no good stopping place, so I just quit. It's very awkward, and really one of the only novels I've read like this.

I'm sure you will get caught up again without much trouble--just drop back in when you get back!

63Eat_Read_Knit
Bearbeitet: Jul. 10, 2010, 4:27 pm

I haven't given up yet - but I'm already way behind where I wanted to be. Haven't got to the Madeleines yet.

I *will* make better progress. I will, I WILL.

64valerette
Jul. 10, 2010, 4:26 pm

I'm still plugging away it, and I'm actually enjoying it and it doesn't feel like plugging away. It is REALLY helping me to have a set number of pages to read a day, if I had to think about the 6 and 3/4 volumes stretching ahead of me I think I would feel overwhelmed (more often).

I agree with you, Becky, I didn't care much for the narrator in the Overture (it's just called "1" in my copy). He seems rather neurotic. It did help me to think that he is remembering this from a much later time, it may not be what he was really like in "its" time--maybe we all appear a bit this way in our memories. As he says, I remember events with strong emotions around them much better.

Now that I'm in part 2 in my copy I loved the section discussing the layers of odors in his Aunt's sitting room, I could almost smell them and felt I had been there too. So I guess I could say I'm strongly liking it so far, and it is only the thought of it's daunting size looming over me that is keeping me from loving it.

65labwriter
Jul. 10, 2010, 8:17 pm

>63 Eat_Read_Knit:, 64. My husband has a saying from work that he repeats frequently: "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

My screenwriter friend read all seven volumes in one year, 3,000 some-odd pages, 10 pages a night. I'll admit at that pace I sometimes get behind--but I also sometimes get interested in what's going on and I get ahead.

I'm thinking "reading Proust" will be one of those things you can always point to, and say, "If I read Proust, then I can read (fill in the blank)." The book I think of when I say that is George Eliot's Middlemarch. That was a seriously formidable book, but by time time I finished it, I loved it--and I was sorry to see it come to an end.

Anyway, Catherine and Julie, I hope you'll hang in there--and thanks for posting!

Bye for now.

66BookAngel_a
Jul. 10, 2010, 10:08 pm

I'm enjoying it more than I expected to. As far as the length - I'm just telling myself to make it through Swann's Way. After we finish SW, then I can decide if I want to continue with the other volumes. It's less daunting for me this way.

67labwriter
Jul. 10, 2010, 11:11 pm

I think that's a great strategy. That's pretty much what I'm doing as well.

68alcottacre
Jul. 10, 2010, 11:28 pm

Just popping in to say that I am lurking on the thread although not actively participating. I am enjoying Swann's Way immensely thus far and am into the Combray section, but not reading on a consistent basis.

I hope everyone continues to enjoy the book.

69labwriter
Jul. 11, 2010, 8:25 am

Hi Stasia, great to see you here. I know what a formidable reader you are, so even if you're not reading Swann's Way "consistently," I know you will undoubtedly move through the book with alacrity. Happy reading.

70labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 11, 2010, 9:15 am

I'm going to rely on the Dennis Abrams site, "The Cork-Lined Room" for some sort of commentary on last night's pages--because I've got nothing of my own to comment of particular interest. Last night was p75-90 in my Modern Library edition. It was mostly about Saint-Hilaire and the steeple.

Here is the Abrams for these pages.

Proust's Combray was Illiers, and the steeple that rose up over the town was the steeple of Saint-Jacques. Abrams gives us a view of Illiers and the steeple. I'm a visual person, and I find such illustrations add to my reading. Someone ought to come out with an "illustrated" Proust (grin).



If you want to see a larger version of the photo, go here. Note the satellite dish--haha.

"It was the steeple of Saint-Hilaire that shaped and crowned and consecrated every occupation, every hour of the day, every view in the town" (88).

On this post at the Abrams site, one of the commenters posts about the translation she's using, the Lydia Davis translation of Swann's Way. Evidently Abrams recommends this translation for SW and the revised Enright Moncrieff/Kilmartin translation for the other volumes, which is the one I'm using for SW.

If you're interested in Abrams' discussion of "Which Translation Will We Read?" you can find it here.

Here's the short answer from Abrams:

Read the Lydia Davis translation of Swann’s Way, published by Penguin, then read the rest of the series in the Modern Library Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright translation. What is it about the Davis translation that he likes? “Even though I’ve read the Moncrieff several times and know it quite well, what I like about the Davis is that it has less of an Edwardian English overlay to it. Davis removes some of the fustiness of the language of the period, which Proust did not have in French. She manages to retain an authenticity of tone, making it fresh and seemingly less pompous, infusing it with more of a Proust-like delicacy.


Although I'm intrigued by the Lydia Davis, I will probably stick with the version I have.

71labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 11, 2010, 5:21 pm

How to Read and Why, by Harold Bloom is a wonderful book that I discovered not all that long ago, even though it was published in 2000. Bloom, of course, has an essay on Proust, and what I read there I find fantastically encouraging:

"How to read a novel, and Proust in particular, is in the first place how to read and appreciate literary character. Alphabetically listed, the indispensable personalities in Proust are Albertine, Charlus, Francoise, Oriane de Guermantes, the narrator's Mamma, Odette, Saint-Loup, Swann, Madame Verdurin. Add a tenth in the narrator himself, and you have a roster more vivid, inward, and titanically comic than any other novel whatsoever affords us."

That give me great hope, especially after last night's reading.

That's enough from me for today. Bye for now.

Day 7
Goal: Pg. 105

72billiejean
Jul. 11, 2010, 12:16 pm

Becky, thanks so much for the photo of the church! It looks different than I had pictured it. My volume has a few illustrations, old photos to go with the text, but they are few and far between.

I love the way Proust is writing. I wonder how much credit goes to the translator? I have the same translator as you do, Becky, and I like the way the words flow -- even though some of the sentences are quite long!
--BJ

73labwriter
Jul. 11, 2010, 1:06 pm

Well, that's the church of the town of Proust's boyhood--I don't know how much literary license he took with the way it looked. Maybe a lot--maybe none--I have no idea. It's what I found on Abrams' site.

74billiejean
Jul. 11, 2010, 1:18 pm

One thing that I have noticed about the Narrator is that he seems to say the wrong thing which causes friction between people. He acts mystified by it, but I wonder if he is doing it on purpose? The two times in particular are the visit with the grandfather (or at least, I think it was his grandfather, maybe an uncle) and his lady friend, and then later reporting on his friend Bloch.
--BJ

75valerette
Jul. 11, 2010, 2:11 pm

Thanks for the links to the Cork-lined Room, Becky! I was also reading about the steeple last night and I admit I kept drifting off, when I do that when I read my mind inserts its own story line into the books. I was being chased in Combray, I was trying to find the church but whenever I looked the steeple had moved. Anyway, I will be glad to be through with this bit I think.

I was also interested in the translation issue--I have the Lydia Davis translation but apparently I have to make the choice anew with each book. I am enjoying the book but have not really compared translations so it's hard to judge my choice. Like a bird attracted to shiny objects, I like the shiny red designs on the cover of my Swann's Way:



I don't think you can tell from the picture, but the design is metallic red and shiny. In the interest of completeness it would be nice to have a matching set and read all the new translations, but apparently the last two books aren't going to be published in the US and even if I ordered them from the UK or Canada they wouldn't match. Is anyone else here reading the newer translation?

76billiejean
Jul. 11, 2010, 3:58 pm

How could they not publish the whole thing? That seems crazy. Love the book cover, by the way.
--BJ

77KristeninLA
Jul. 11, 2010, 7:20 pm

I'm also reading the Lydia Davis translation, Valerette. The final two books MUST be available in this set somewhere, no?

.... BTW, made it through Combray 1 and am now into Combray 2. I sometimes stop just to enjoy the beauty of the words -- eg. the madeleine scene:

"A delicious pleasure had invaded me, isolated me, without my having any notion as to its cause. It had immediately rendered the vicissitudes of life unimportant to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory, acting in the same way that love acts, by filling me with a precious essence: or rather this essence was not merely inside me, it was me."

78dennisabrams1
Jul. 11, 2010, 8:15 pm

Hi:

Dennis Abrams of The Cork Lined Room here.

Just wanted to leave you a note thanking you for stopping by my site, and to encourage you all to keep going with your reading -- it's worth it.

Dennis

79labwriter
Jul. 11, 2010, 8:29 pm

>78 dennisabrams1:. Note to Dennis Abrams.

Thanks very much for your encouragement. I've enjoyed looking through your posts on Proust plus some of the commentary, and I'm sure that our small group here will rely on the site. We were very fortunate that an LT member ("arubabookwoman") tipped us off about your Proust group.

Thanks for your encouragement and your great work on Proust.

Becky ("labwriter")

80KarenSchulte
Jul. 11, 2010, 8:59 pm

I, too, am reading the Modern Library Edition, the Lydia Davis translation and am finding it easier than the old and huge copy from the local library. I'm still in Combray I, and when I read those long sentences, I read them quickly once for the poetic sound and feel, and then again for content. What I find most revealing is that the scenic quality is as much a character as are the actual human beings, including the narrator. They are all linked together. It is a gestalt of movement. If only I could read this faster!

81labwriter
Jul. 11, 2010, 11:18 pm

My Modern Library Edition is the Moncrief/Kilmartin translation revised by Enright. The Lydia Davis translation was published by Penguin Books. So which one are you reading, or do I misunderstand--are you reading both?

82billiejean
Jul. 12, 2010, 7:50 am

#78 My thanks, also, Dennis!

Well, at Mass last night, I must admit that I had a fleeting thought about whether Eulalie had made it to Mass before the Elevation! (This is really, really late in our Church!)

See y'all when I get back!
--BJ

83KarenSchulte
Jul. 12, 2010, 10:01 am

My mistake, it is the Penguin Books Edition.

84dennisabrams1
Jul. 12, 2010, 12:40 pm

My pleasure.

And anytime you want to post anything here from my blog, please feel free. That's what it's there for.

Denis

85labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 12, 2010, 12:55 pm

In last night's reading (p 90-105 in my ML edition), we meet some new characters.

The first was M. Legrandin, an engineer by profession who visits his family on the weekends in Combray. He sounds like so many of those commuter fathers who would take the train from Manhattan to the family's summer home for the weekend back around the turn of the twentieth century and earlier. The Narrator tells us that M. Legrandin, a tall, handsome man, was seen as "an example, the very pattern of a gentleman" by the Narrator's family--all, that is, except the grandmother, who found his vocabulary a bit unnatural, and was also astonished at his "furious tirades" against the aristocracy.

I like to keep track of characters like the grandmother, who see things differently than "everyone" else; sometimes the author is using a character like this to insert a particular point of view--or to give the reader a "corrective" of what everyone else believes. If I had a lot of time, this is the point where I would check back in the book and find other instances of the grandmother, wondering if Proust has used her this way before? But I don't have time for that today, so I'll just make a note to myself to watch for other "grandmother" sightings.

The other character introduced in these pages is Eulalie, "a limping, energetic, deaf spinster." If you need more proof that this is a comic novel, just look to Eulalie. One of her "most rooted beliefs" is that she confuses Mme Sazerin's name, calling her Mme Sazerat. Everyone is "powerless" to eradicate the error.

Day 8
Today's goal: p 105-120 (Modern Library paperback edition)

86labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 13, 2010, 7:51 am

Yesterday's reading, p105-120, ML edition.

There's a lot going on in these pages--too much for me to comment on in one post.

I'm skipping over the actress, courtesan, lady-in-pink section.

The kitchen maid is "some way 'gone' in pregancy when we arrived at Cobray for Easter. . . ." She was becoming fuller and larger every day, and M. Swann asks, "Well, how goes it with Giotto's Charity?"

One of Giotto's Seven Virtues, painted on one side of the chapel; the Seven Vices are on the other.

The Narrator would be reading and his grandmother would "beg me to go outside." So outside he would go--with his book. I remember doing the very same thing when I was a kid. I would be reading happily inside, and one of my parents would say, with a rather hysterical tone, "You ought to be outside in the fresh air." So I would take my book outside. Now, I was a kid who very often happily played outside; by the end of summer I was always brown from the sun, and I was skinny as a rail from running everywhere I went, so I was no couch potato. How much better it would have been if my parent had once said, "How nice to see you reading--what is it you seem to be enjoying so much today?"

I love the discussion of "real people" vs. people found in a book, starting on p116 of my edition. I'm going to quote the same passage about reading that Abrams quotes (although from a different translation) because I like it so much.

"And once the novelist has brought us to this state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every emotion is multiplied ten-fold, into which his book comes to disturb us as might a dream, but a dream more lucid and more abiding than those which come to us in sleep, why then, for the space of an hour he sets free within us all the joys and sorrows in the world, a few of which only we should have to spend years of our actual life in getting to know, and the most intense of which would never be revealed to us because the slow course of their development prevents us from perceiving them. It is the same in life; the heart changes, and it is our worst sorrow; but we know it only through reading, through our imagination: in reality its alteration, like that of certain natural phenomena, is so gradual that, even if we are able to distinguish, successfully, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change" (p117).

See Dennis Abrams for a wonderful discussion of Marcel's summertime reading in the garden.

Reading goal for Day 9
p120 - 135

I don't know how the rest of you are finding the pace of the reading, or actually if you're reading this the way I am--averaging about 10-20 pages a day, depending on your edition. I find that at this point I've settled into this amount of Proust--my "nightly pages," so to speak. One of the commenters at the Abrams website posted something at this point about the pace of the reading, saying, "Sometimes I think a page a day would be enough!" I'm not in that camp of readers who, like that one, find it a shame not to linger over a paragraph. I'm content to read Proust with pleasure, but not with particular reverence. So shoot me--heh.

87labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 13, 2010, 7:50 am

I'm quoting a post from my friend Lucy over at The Aeneid group read in the 75 group. She's attending a week-long Irish music festival in the Catskills. Talk about dedication! Ha.

I am reporting in, but I am not making much headway for the moment. However, where I am is sitting next to the Post Office/Reading Room (in lieu of a proper library) in the dark in the car in the tiny hamlet of East Durham in the Catskills because there is free wi-fi and it is delightfully cool now. I've just come from a concert and will go to a session at a pub now, most likely. I may read a page or two tonight but I have a roommate and since I like to read it out loud, I might find myself back out in the car.... I don't want to lose momentum.


88labwriter
Jul. 14, 2010, 12:09 am

Well, our group here had fallen off the first page of links for lack of posting (where is everyone?), so I decided to post a Proust Trivia Fact of the Day:

Did you know there are about four hundred and fifty characters in Proust's immense novel?

89labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 14, 2010, 7:58 am

In yesterday's reading, the Narrator (I guess we should call him Marcel) is reading the works of the novelist Bergotte, introduced to him by his friend Albert Bloch--even though he, Bloch, has not read the works himself. Ha.

Here's a quote from someone I know who is reading Proust for the second time: "Albert Bloch: the narrator's oldest school friend. Proust has been accused of Jew-hatred for his portrayal of Bloch's family as pushy, vulgar and ill-bred. But in fairness, Proust was, at best, conflicted about his Jewish roots and Bloch serves as Proust's dark alter-ego."

The Narrator's grandfather doesn't care for Marcel's Jewish friends, even though "his own friend Swann was of Jewish extraction." I thought it was hilarious that every time Marcel brought home a new Jewish friend, the grandfather would start humming "O, God of our fathers."

Swann find Marcel in the garden one morning, and asks him what he's reading and who had been telling him about the author. Marcel tells him, it was Bloch, and Swann replies, "Oh, yes, that boy I saw here once, who looks so like the Bellini portrait of Mahomet II."

90labwriter
Jul. 14, 2010, 7:57 am

I'm trying to fix the above post, but it's not happening. I think LT is having issues this morning.

91valerette
Jul. 14, 2010, 10:48 am

I didn't get all of my reading for the day finished last night, but I'm still here.

Yesterday I did read some of my Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time, the section about his life, which is somehow tremendously sad--he seemed to stop living around 35 or so. Becky, I was also reading that bit about his friend Bloch and his Jewishness, and whether or not he was using Bloch to create an unflattering version of himself--there's the person he feels like, the person he is to him (the narrator) and maybe Bloch is what others see?

He does seem to get obsessed with things--meeting his uncle's "friends", reading, Bergotte, getting a kiss goodnight. He sounds, at best, eccentric, but he's starting to grow on me.

It would be interesting to have a sort of "roll-call" to see who's still reading and how many of us there are.

92labwriter
Jul. 14, 2010, 12:01 pm

>91 valerette:. Hi Julie, I'm so glad you're still here! Yes, I agree with you, this Bloch character is certainly one to watch.

I really like your idea of the roll-call. So who's still in the group? There's you and me and . . . who else? Don't sweat it if you're behind in the reading. If you still consider yourself part of this group read, let us hear from you! (Of course there's always the possibility that someone is lightyears ahead of where we are--anybody?)

I was trying in Post #89 to insert an image of Belinni's portrait of Mohamet II, the one who "looks so like" Bloch, according to Swann. I'll try again.



93BookAngel_a
Jul. 14, 2010, 12:58 pm

I'm still here and keeping pace with you! I'm surprised at how much I've enjoyed it so far. Reading Proust seems to relax me. Maybe it's the slow pace.

94RosyLibrarian
Jul. 14, 2010, 1:33 pm

I'm still here - though far behind! I'm trying a new approach and going back to the audio book version. I commute about two hours a day so this may be my only way of keeping up with the deadlines.

The problem I think is that I usually read right before I go to bed and Proust's writing is so lulling that I never get very far.

So far I have met M. Swann and learned more about the narrator's family. I haven't met Bloch yet, but be assured that all these posts are helping!

95labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 14, 2010, 11:14 pm

Just to keep myself on track, this is the reading I'm doing tonight:

Day 10
p135-150

Hi Marie & Angela. Glad to see you're still here. I think we had something like nine names at the beginning of this read, so either people aren't posting (at all) or several have dropped out. BJ said she would be gone until Thursday and hoped that she wouldn't get too far behind. So it would seem like we still have about five people. Maybe there are others who just haven't checked in.

I feel sort of like a dope. My friend who just finished the whole six volumes of the novel asked me, "How do you like the Shattuck?" My reply was something like, "Huh?" It turns out he recommended a really helpful book for reading along with the book, and I bought the WRONG ONE. Sigh.

So here's the one he actually recommended: Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time by Roger Shattuck. I bought the thing (overnight delivery) at Amazon and started reading it today. It's really, really good. More on it later.

96arubabookwoman
Jul. 14, 2010, 11:38 pm

I'm following along on this thread, even though I'm not reading Swann's Way at this time (read it last year). I am really enjoying people's comments and viewpoints, and being reminded of the book. I hope that you all keep commenting on this thread, because I'll be reading it, even if I don't post very often.

97KarenSchulte
Jul. 15, 2010, 12:11 am

I'm still reading and actually becoming addicted to Proust. I still have about 50 some odd pages to go before I finish Combray. My feelings thus far about the development of the narrator and the intense world he is building for his imagination, is that out of
so little a provincial a life, he makes such an interesting world: a world in a nutshell almost.
Regarding the Bloch character, I have two observations: one is that the narrator betrays Bloch, who due to his Jewishness, is an alien to his class. He also betrays his Uncle, another character, who doesn't fit into the bourgeois surroundings of his family. This narrows his world considerably, but it was his choice. Now to make a work of art out of this is his challenge!
Also, regarding Bloch, he may well be a partial play on Proust himself since Proust's mother was Jewish. Outsiders are the classic observers, and therefore are the ones most likely to create art as our narrator is doing.

98Eat_Read_Knit
Jul. 15, 2010, 9:19 am

*raises hand*

I'm still here. Way behind, but still here.

99RosyLibrarian
Jul. 15, 2010, 11:06 am

I just finished reading the madeleine scene and thus the Overture. This is the furthest I've ever read - yay!

My thoughts so far are a bit jumbled. While I appreciate the painstaking beauty of his words, I am a little relieved to be moving on with the story. Perhaps this is not the right way to approach Proust, but there you have it... :)

I've also just met the narrator's Aunt Léonie and Françoise. I am looking forward to some character development from the latter as several people have mentioned that she plays a bigger role in the series.

100labwriter
Jul. 15, 2010, 12:49 pm

Great to see posts from everyone!

#97. Karen, I like your "outsiders are the classic observers." I would add that outsiders also are people who tend to live in a liminal space and time--a place of possibility and magic! Or of disaster.

I love the quotation that Abrams pulled from the reading (p135-150 in my Moncrieff/Enright edition):

"What! Still amusing yourself with a book? This isn't Sunday, you know!" haha

And since it's not Sunday, I'll get back to work. The Roger Shattuck book is good, but good grief, I only have about five books going right now, so it may be awhile before I comment on it here.

/Day 11
p 150-165

101KristeninLA
Jul. 15, 2010, 9:38 pm

Mihess, I agree with all that you wrote.

Also, I haven't read Proust since Sunday as it's been a busy week with biz travel ... feeling anxious about jumping back in. Wish me luck! :)

102msjohns615
Jul. 15, 2010, 11:42 pm

Ooh, I just got this book in the mail, I´ll have to come 'round this group when I start reading it! Never read anything by Proust, taught myself to read in French last year and have been looking for great authors to inspire me in my continuing studies of the language.

103labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 16, 2010, 5:19 pm

Welcome to the group. Along with Swann's Way some of us are also reading Roger Shattuck's Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time. Here's what Shattuck has to say about in "what language?" should we read Proust:

"Anyone who can comfortably read Balzac or Tocqueville or Camus in the original should tackle the Search in French. The translation will not turn out to be much easier, and one should at least make the attempt. A reader whose French is shaky should choose a translation. Yet I know several enterprising individuals who have laid out the French and English versions side by side and developed their own gymnastic method for straddling these two platforms. It required added time, but they also learned a great deal of French."

Welcome, and bonne chance!

Day 12
p165-180

104labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 16, 2010, 6:25 pm

Last night's reading, p150-165 in the Moncrieff/Enright edition, was multiple pages about how every Saturday "the whole household would have to have lunch an hour earlier."

What is the reader supposed to do with this? Me, myself, I have NOTHING. Thankfully, however, on the Abrams website, a commenter did have something to say about "early lunch":

"What I loved most in these pages was the long section on the early lunch. I can think of no other example of an author writing about the banalities of shared lives and in so doing showing their importance, their charm."

My comment: I'm grateful for the Abrams site. "Banal," yes; "importance," I don't see that. The way it struck me was that in a very quiet way, Proust was showing us that the aunt was a lunatic. But that's just me.

105billiejean
Jul. 16, 2010, 9:37 pm

Becky, I have enjoyed catching up with all the group's comments and your commentary. I got back yesterday, but I haven't been feeling too well. But I did get Proust back off the shelf (planning to read some tonight), and I think that I am still on track with the group. I think I left off with all the Saturday discussion. To me, it is amazing how he can talk so much about life in general without any real plot, but it is still so interesting and beautifully written.

I continue to find lots of humor in what is written. Sometimes I do read a paragraph over twice, but I don't read it over more than that. I haven't opened the book Paintings in Proust yet, but I have read some of the Shattuck book (trying to figure out the mystery of the good night kiss section that went on and on forever -- I don't think he really figured that one out either!).
--BJ

106labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 17, 2010, 8:49 am

Hi billiejean, glad you're back.

Pages about food in last night's reading: Francoise kills a chicken; Proust describes asparagus.

M. Legrandin plays a large role. The narrator's family regards him as a "gentleman," but he reveals himself to be a snob: haughty and arrogant to his inferiors, and fawning and obsequious to his superiors. On being introduced to a "lady," Marcel observes a side of Legrandin "altogether different from the one we knew": "Rapt in a sort of dream, he smiled, then began to hurry back towards the lady; as he was walking faster than usual, his shoulders swayed backwards and forwards, right and left, in the most absurd fashion; and altogether he looked, so utterly had he abandoned himself to it, to the exclusion of all other considerations, as though he were the passive wire-pulled puppet of his own happiness" (175). I love that last part--Proust writes the longest sentences ever, and yet he can say so much with just a few words--wire-pulled puppet of his own happiness--can't you just picture this foppish, obsequious little man?

I also was struck in last night's reading by the long passage about attitudes and actions which reveal a man's underlying character--177 in my edition. And then as I was reading the Abrams website, he reminds us to consider: "are you listening to the young Marcel or the older Narrator? And, always keep in mind, that Proust is nothing if not gently ironic."

There was a lot to absorb from yesterday's pages. The complexity here certainly warrants the slow pace, IMO--the 10 to 15 pages per day. Many have said they're behind in the reading, which is certainly understandable--who doesn't have more to do on beautiful summer days than just read Proust--ha. But one comment I would have is that the slow pace is for a reason, that it's hard to absorb too much of Proust at one time. He's not someone you can sit down and read profitably for 100 pages or so. So I guess I would just encourage people to catch up before getting too far behind, and then try to find 30 minutes or so every day for Proust. This is just my own suggestion, obviously, but I see that others, like readers at the Abrams website, and certainly my L.A. screenwriter friend, have successfully and happily read Proust using the strategy of a little bit every day: "my daily bread," as my French teacher used to say of our daily written assignments.

And billiejean, I haven't done too much with the Paintings in Proust by Eric Karpeles either.

This is quite nice, from Karpeles: On warm, moonlit evenings in Combray, the young Narrator and his father and mother would often stroll through the town, admiring the lime trees and the houses.

This painting is the Cenotaph of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the Tuileries, Paris, a painting by Hubert Robert, 1794.

107billiejean
Jul. 17, 2010, 9:00 am

I thought the description of Francoise killing the chicken was quite a different view of her. Scary, almost. Of course, I always get my chickens from the grocery store. :) And asparagus seems to get mentioned quite a lot. I happen to love asparagus and kind of look at it as a special treat. It might be worth my time to check out Shattuck on the asparagus.

Last night, I read about where the title comes from -- Swann's Way. This is one of the two paths that they choose for a walk, which runs by Swann's property. The other path is Guermantes Way.

For me, it is a special treat to read a few pages every day. I did have one day that I was enjoying so much that I read extra. I was wondering if I would be able to jump back in after so many days away, but the writing is such a treat that I enjoyed returning to it. I wonder if all of the books are like this one?
--BJ

108valerette
Bearbeitet: Jul. 17, 2010, 9:37 pm

I've finally caught up again to where I "ought" to be--my "ought" is actually 2 days before the 22nd to give me some wiggle room.

The Narrator has talked a lot about hawthorn.



Pink Hawthorn. He feels that religious holidays are more "real" than secular holidays, because there is a concrete reason for them, something that can be pointed to in life--like the hawthorn--that sets the day apart as special. At least, that's what I got out of what he said--it sounded like he feels nature takes part too.

I was also struck by how much the book is about who you can talk to, who you can like, who you can trust. M. Vinteuil's daughter makes to me what seems like an ordinary comment, but in Proust's world growing up nothing is what it appears to be:

"If his daughter said to us in her loud voice how happy she was to see us, it would immediately seem as if a more sensitive sister were blushing at this thoughtless, tomboyish remark, which might have made us think she were asking to be invited to our house."


To me that comment seems so benign! She certainly stands out as one of the few characters who says what she means in a straightforward manner, unlike everyone else I've met so far.

I ended last night near a bit of Proust's humor--him hugging the hawthorn bushes and saying, Oh my poor hawthorns, I will always love you! While his Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit gets shredded by the thorns.

109billiejean
Jul. 17, 2010, 9:17 pm

Thanks for the photo of the hawthorn plant. I was wondering about them!
--BJ

110BookAngel_a
Jul. 18, 2010, 9:41 am

Thanks for this discussion - it's been helping me retain more of what I read.

I'm enjoying the glimpses into someone else's life. The narrator wouldn't HAVE to share all these tiny little details to tell his story, but it does help me feel a part of his family life - as if I'm right there with the family when they eat one hour early, for example.

111labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 18, 2010, 1:45 pm

Thanks for the posts, everyone. I enjoy hearing what everybody has to say.

Yesterday was Day 13, p180-195.

Today is Day 14, 195-210.

Cheers.

112billiejean
Jul. 19, 2010, 12:12 am

Well, I checked the index of Shattuck under asparagus, food, and Francoise but nothing about the asparagus there. It seemed like a bigger deal, I guess. But then, Proust describes quite a few things in lots of detail.

In the part that I read today, I noticed how he always purports to tell us what everyone else is thinking, even when he does not speak with them. Is he just guessing?

And I also read that part about the hawthorn plant today, so I kept the photo in my mind while reading it. Funny, I tend to prefer the white blossoms on things to the pink ones -- like dogwoods, azaleas, petunias. (The exeption that proves the rule is the redbud, where I prefer pink to white.) We are getting close to the end of Part One. Yea!

How old do you think the Narrator is during Combray? I cannot really tell. I was guessing teenage, but sometimes he seems younger. What do y'all think?
--BJ

113arubabookwoman
Jul. 19, 2010, 12:19 am

His age at Combray seems to be one of the unsolved mysteries of Swann's Way. Sometimes he acts like he's four, and sometimes like he's fourteen (or even older).

114labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 19, 2010, 7:22 am

Good question, billiejean. I don't know how old he is, really, but I picture him as about 10 years old. One of my biggest problems with the book at this point is that I don't like this kid, not even a little. I've had nothing but boys around me all my life--brothers, cousins, son, (husband--heh). None of them are even remotely like him. I think someone earlier mentioned his "Little Lord Fauntleroy" clothes:

"On the morning of our departure I had had my hair curled, to be ready to face the photographer, had had a new hat carefully set upon my head, and had been buttoned into a velvet jacket . . . ." Then later his mother finds him in tears over something. I guess it's the babyish passivity that bothers me as much as anything--he was buttoned into his jacket, his hat was carefully set on his head.



Yeah, I know, it was a different time, but still.

Moving on. One of the touchstones of my whole life was Charles Schultz and Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown had an unrequited love, the little red-haired girl. That's what went through my mind last night when the Marcel narrator unexpectedly saw Swann's daughter when he was out for a walk with his father and grandfather: "the picture of a little girl with reddish hair and a freckled skin, who held a spade in her hand and smiled as she directed towards me a long, sly, expressionless stare" (200). Poor Charlie Brown was always trying to get up courage to speak to his little red-haired girl, but he never does.



The hawthorn again plays a large role in the reading. Abrams does a really nice job with a post about the gardens in Swann's Way.

Day 15
Reading goal for today: p 210-225

115labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 19, 2010, 8:05 am

Add me to the group of Proust readers who believe that this is one of those books that can only be re-read. That's the subject of a post of one of the commenters on yesterday's reading at the Abrams Cork-lined Room website (see above, #114).

I was just reading about the character of Gilberte Swann in Patrick Alexander's A Reader's Guide to the Remembrance of Things Past: "In the opening pages of the novel (in the eighth paragraph), there is a passing reference to a Mme de Saint-Loup and the bedroom in her house. This can have absolutely no meaning or significance to a first-time reader. But for those embarking on a second reading of the novel, that passage has a very powerful effect, and the subtle and intricate structure of the whole work is suddenly revealed." Really.

We learn that the little red-haired girl, Mlle Swann, is later Marquise de Saint-Loup.

I just thought I would throw that in. My L.A. screenwriter friend finished the entire 6 or 7 volumes of Proust (depending on your edition) and then immediately started again. I thought he was loopy, but maybe there's good reason, although at this point I'm still leaning towards "loopy."

116billiejean
Jul. 19, 2010, 1:45 pm

Interesting. The only thing I wonder is if after reading the whole thing I would remember it all well enough to catch all of that. My memory isn't so great these days.

My daughter read the whole thing a couple of years ago. She did mention this summer that she wanted to reread it. But then she had to go before she could. I do think that I might reread it sometime. But I would need a break first.
--BJ

117labwriter
Jul. 19, 2010, 6:05 pm

I would need a "break" too, billiejean--maybe about 20 years. haha

For me right now, reading Swann's Way is like lighting a campfire. You think it's gonna catch, you know you've got all the right stuff put together in the fire pit to make it catch, and yet for some reason, you're just having a deuce of a time getting the thing to take off and burn. We'll see. I'm going to finish Swann's Way, but what I do after that is still up in the air. I feel good having come this far. If SW is all I ever read of Proust, at least I can feel that I'm not ignorant of what it's about. Maybe if I can get beyond the child narrator, I will like it better. I know I could get rocks thrown at me here for saying what I've said about Proust. Well, that's OK. I just hope I haven't dampened anyone's enthusiasm.

118BookAngel_a
Jul. 19, 2010, 8:52 pm

117 - I think I know what you're saying. I haven't developed a dislike for the child narrator yet, but there have been times where I've wondered if he really was a nice person or not. He seems to cause problems with people by accident, but it happens so often you have to wonder if he enjoys it.

119labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 20, 2010, 8:02 am

It would make a lot of sense if I caught up with Abrams--I'm always just a few pages behind what he's posting on for a particular day. For example, my reading last night was p210-225; he comments on p217-233. So that's what I'll do.

M. Vinteuil is the retired music teacher/composer living near Combray. Swann has a "friendly regard" for his daughter, and has invited her to visit at Tansonville, but M. Vinteuil would never send his daughter to visit Swann (210) because of the local gossip concerning her lesbianism (from Alexander, 327).

Marcel, the boy narrator, describes his walks along the Meseglise way. We learn that Mlle Vinteuil is in "deep mourning" because her father has died (225). Marcel spies on Mlle Vinteuil and her female friend, and Proust writes of their lesbian sado-masochistic love, the two women running after each other in the room, "clucking and squealing like a pair of amorous fowls" (228).

Abrams reminds us that what we have here is the young Marcel as voyeur, watching the mutual seduction through a window.

Day 16
Matching Abrams' posting, the reading goal for today: 233-245.

120billiejean
Jul. 20, 2010, 3:59 pm

Becky, I am pretty much right where you are in the book. I find that I really don't like the Narrator at all. And I am not really sure that he hurts people accidentally. I agree, Angela, that he seems to enjoy the troubles that he causes. Which is part of why I don't like him.

That being said, I did love the part where he wrote about walking after the rain. I don't have my book with me, but I thought it was beautifully written.
--BJ

121labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 21, 2010, 5:24 am

Moncrieff/Enright: Pages 233-245.

What I loved from this reading was the description of the water lillies. St. Louis has a wonderful botanical gardens, one of my favorite places here, and the water lillies that grow there were what went through my mind as the Narrator describes them in his walk along the Guermantes way.

Also in these pages is the first hint from Marcel that he wants to be a writer.

Ah-ha. Abrams says this about last night's reading: "I have to admit that the long description of the walk itself, at least for me, was fairly rough going. I found myself, probably for the first time in the book so far, wishing that Proust would just get on with it." --Oh, but then Abrams reconsiders. OK. Then one of the commenters says: "Sometimes a passage that seems tedious really is tedious, even if someone tries to persuade you that Proust's temporality is insistently heterogeneous."

I'm encouraged when I look at the marker in my book that we are just about halfway through.

Day 17 and 18
Matching Abrams posting: pages 245-264

Abrams covers almost 20 pages next time. My goal has been to average 10-15 pages per day. I think I'll give myself a bit of a break and allow two days for these 20 pages. See you on Friday.

122KarenSchulte
Jul. 21, 2010, 11:33 am

Finally finished Combray last night. So much to digest,
but I am able now to stay in the flow of the language with some help from my pen underlying main clauses.
Along the Guermantes Way, he begins to talk about himself as the artist as a young man, and his desire to be a writer; the difficulty of applying the right words to sensations and feelings even though they are fleeting( as is time and memory) sensations. I feel in these last pages as he describes the two paths from his rather claustrophobic early world, he is laying out his voyage to the larger world in the books to follow.
Some things I wonder: what was the influence of James Joyce on his writings? I know they were acquainted.
As for the narrator question, I think in Combray he sifts a lot from being a child, an adolescent, and then a faceless actual narrator. He is a shifting shape
character himself.
What I loved about the last 40 or so pages of Combray was the deftly painted scenes of landscapes and buildings, and of course Churches which told the history of the places he knew. People and landscapes told stories; both were characters told with psychological insight, irony, and even respect.
Well, I'm on to Swann in Love. Thanks everyone for your comments. It has been very helpful. I really like reading with all of you.

123BookAngel_a
Jul. 21, 2010, 1:03 pm

I think How Proust Can Change Your Life discusses a meet-up between Joyce and Proust. It didn't go well. Can't remember the exact details though, sorry...

124billiejean
Jul. 21, 2010, 1:26 pm

I just finished Combray as well. I also loved the description of the water lilies. And later the descriptions of the Church and then the steeples. Interesting that he included a part that he had written about the steeples. Seems like I heard from here or read somewhere that he wrote part of this at 14 -- maybe this part?

We come full circle to the desire for his mother to tell him goodnight and then waking in whatever bedroom, leaving the memories behind and returning to the present.

He does write beautifully, so the part where he describes his desire to write and wonder what kind of writer/poet he will be is interesting, since he is already there when we are reading it.

Ready for Swann in Love. I wonder if it will be different from what we have read so far?
--BJ

125labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 23, 2010, 7:21 am

So in the last section that finishes out Combray, we meet Mme. de Guermantes. In his book, Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time, Patrick Alexander writes that the Guermantes family represents the "oldest nobility, the purest blood, and the deepest roots of France" (242). Proust, says Alexander, describes the final generation of the Guermantes dynasty: "With no children to carry on the name, the ancient dynasty, with roots as old as France herself, would die. The Guermantes can be seen to act as a metaphor for many of the other themes of the novel" (245).

On to the next section, "Swann in Love." I'd second Karen's comment--I've enjoyed the comments here and look forward to continuing on through the book with everyone.

Day 19
Matching Abrams posting: Page 264 through 277 (Moncrieff / Enright)

126billiejean
Jul. 24, 2010, 2:22 am

I started Swann in Love tonight. I did not connect with it as much as the first section, but I am just at the beginning. The Narrator seems to have mostly disappeared. I did think the description of the aunt of the pianist who worried about saying the right thing was funny.
--BJ

127BookAngel_a
Jul. 24, 2010, 8:50 am

Aack - I've fallen behind! Hopefully I'll get some uninterrupted reading time soon.

128labwriter
Jul. 24, 2010, 8:59 am

Hooray, hooray for all of us who have made it past Cambray! This is the first time I've gotten this far.

Well, billiejean, the child narrator has disappeared, and to that I say, "Good riddance!"

At the beginning of "Swann in Love," we're introduced to Mme. Verdurins and her "faithful" little clan. Mme. de Crecy is part of this "little nucleus," and permission is granted for her to bring along one of her friends, a M. Swann.

Proust quickly makes it clear that Swann is not a serious man, a dilettante with no serious goals, of wasted talents, of a superficial and aimless existence: "a man of fashion in which he had squandered his intellectual gifts on frivolous amusements and made use of his erudition in matters of art only to advise society ladies what pictures to buy and how to decorate their houses" (270).

We meet Odette de Crecy as Swann sees her the first time: "Her profile was too sharp, her skin too delicate, her cheekbones too prominent, her features too tightly drawn, to be attractive to him. Her eyes were beautiful, but so large they seemed to droop beneath their own weight, strained the rest of her face and always made her appear unwell or in a bad mood" (276). Odette is the woman who is married to Swann in the Cambray section, the "unfortunate marriage" that causes the Narrator's grandparents to allow Swann to visit them only by himself, never with his wife. So in terms of "time" in this section, Proust has taken us backwards, to a time before the birth of the young Narrator of the first section.

Swann was introduced to Odette by an old friend, "who had spoken of her as a ravishing creature with whom he might possibly come to an understanding, but had made her out to be harder of conquest than she actually was in order to appear to have done him a bigger favour by the introduction" (275, 76).

So in these few pages, Proust gives us the measure of Mme. Verdurins' circle, of Swann, and of Odette.

Day 20
Matching Abrams' posting: Page 277 through 294 (Moncrieff/Enright)

129labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 25, 2010, 7:17 am

The Narrator's grandfather's opinion of M. Verdurin: that he had more or less "fallen . . . among the riff-raff of Bohemia" (281).

Odette de Crecy visits Swann and invites him to the Verdurins'.

A description of one of the "faithful" that Swann met at the Verdurins' home:

Proust's description of more of the Verdurins' circle is brilliant and hilarious. "Dr. Cottard was never quite certain of the tone in which he ought to reply to any observation, or whether the speaker was jesting or in earnest. And so by way of precaution he would embellish all his facial expressions with the offer of a conditional, a provisional smile whose expectant subtlety would exonerate him from the charge of being a simpleton, if the remark addressed to him should turn out to have been facetious" (281, 282).

Mme Verdurin has Swann sit with Odette, where she is sitting in a Beauvais settee, which I gather is some sort of loveseat: "You can make room for M. Swann there, can't you Odette?"

Abrams' post on yesterday's reading gives insight into Odette's observation about Vermeer: "I've never heard of him"--that it shouldn't be taken as a sign of cultural deficiency, since in the era of Swann's Way, only a small circle would have recognized the name, let alone been able to identify his work. Abrams says there will be much more discussion on Vermeer and his influence on Proust in future posts.

Day 21
Matching Abrams: page 294 - 314

130billiejean
Jul. 25, 2010, 2:04 pm

I was reading aloud to my daughter some of the scenes in Mmd Verdurin's home. I loved the part about how she liked to receive flowers and chocolates because they were mortal -- as opposed to the cushions and knickknacks that stayed around forever. My daughter is taking French this summer, and I have tried to get her to help me with the French names, but I really have trouble pronouncing them. She also pointed out to me how interesting it is that Swann is romantically involved with Odette as Odette is the lead in the ballet Swan Lake. I had not thought of that before.

Swann did not at first seem too involved with Odette, but at the conclusion of what I have read today, seems more so. I really must pick up Paintings in Proust now to see what Odette looks like!
--BJ

131labwriter
Jul. 25, 2010, 10:16 pm

It's great that you're reading this aloud to your daughter. Good catch with the Odette in Swan Lake--how interesting.

132labwriter
Jul. 26, 2010, 8:05 am

Yesterday's reading: Page 294-314 (Moncrieff/Enright). Here are just a few things that caught my attention.

Proust reveals a lot about the character of Swann in a long passage beginning, "Thus he had grown into the habit of taking refuge in trivial considerations, which enabled him to disregard matters of fundamental importance" (297 in my book).

Swann hears the andante of Vinteuil's sonata for piano and violin played at Mme Verdurin's. It's amusing that he dismisses the idea that it might be written by the same Vinteuil who he knows, who he calls an "old fool" whose company would be "torture" and "ghastly."
"I know someone called Vinteuil," said Swann, thinking of the old piano-teacher at Combray who had taught my grandmother's sisters.

"Perhaps he's the man," cried Mme Verdurin.

"Oh, no, if you'd ever set eyes on him you wouldn't entertain the idea" (302).

This musical phrase by Vinteuil becomes the "national anthem" for the love between Swann and Odette when they are together at one of Mme Verdurin's gatherings of the "faithful."

Mme Verdurin, who skips "lightly from one stepping-stone to another of her stock ready-made phrases" (300).

Besides Odette, Swann is seeing a "little seamstress," whose style of beauty he "infinitely preferred to Odette's" (307).

Swann takes tea with Odette at her house (twice only, Proust tells us, he enters her house); we learn more about Odette from the description of her home (310-314).

Abrams quotes a passage about Proust from Harold Bloom's book, The Western Canon. Bloom is very readable, and he addresses his book to the "general reader." I love this book, as he argues against every politically correct idea I was taught in my years of getting my literature degrees at the university. Some people detest the man and his ideas for the same reason I like him so much. My favorite book of his is Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.

The chrysanthemums--one of Odette's favorite flowers "because they had the supreme merit of not looking like flowers, but of being made, apparently, of silk or satin" (312).

Odette's handwriting: "an affectation . . . suggestive, perhaps, to less biased eyes than his, of an untidiness of mind, a fragmentary education, a want of sincerity and will-power" (314).

There's some interesting commentary by the posters on Abrams' site for yesterday's reading.

133billiejean
Jul. 26, 2010, 11:10 am

I thought that was pretty hilarious that the flowers were appreciated because they looked artificial!!

After describing things so much on the visual level, it is interesting to see the shift to the sense of hearing.

"It is true that Odette played vilely, but often the most memorable impression of a piece of music is one that has arisen out of a jumble of wrong notes struck by unskilful fingers upon a tuneless piano."

Poor Odette, the love of his life, seems to get insulted left and right.

I am not sure that my daughter likes when I read this to her. I just can't keep it to myself.
--BJ

134alcottacre
Jul. 26, 2010, 6:36 pm

I finally finished the Combray section last night. I am very surprised at how much I am enjoying the book.

135billiejean
Jul. 27, 2010, 2:09 am

He can definitely write, can't he? And I am constantly surprised by the humor.
--BJ

136alcottacre
Jul. 27, 2010, 2:12 am

#135: If he could not write, I would not have stuck with him thus far :)

137labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 27, 2010, 8:22 am

Yesterday's pages, 314-339 in Moncrieff/Enright.

Swann's second visit to Odette: Odette's face distressed him--"as proving that the ideal is unattainable and happiness mediocre" (314). As she stands there "with those great eyes of her which seemed so tired and sullen," she struck him with her resemblance to Botticelli's Zipporah, Jethro's daughter, wife of Moses.

Even though we know Odette to be a prostitute, does that absolve Swann from being a cad? "He told himself that in associating the thought of Odette with his dreams of ideal happiness he had not resigned himself to a stopgap as inadequate as he had hitherto supposed, since she satisfied his most refined predilections in matters of art" (317). It seems to me he gets what he deserves in Odette.

"He placed on his study table, as if it were a photograph of Odette, a reproduction of Jethro's daughter" (318).

Then there's the scene of Swann and Odette in the carriage (328-331).

On his website, Abrams posts part of an essay from The Proust Project, an essay by Lara Vapnyar, that describes this scene: "Here they are in the carriage. Both 'quivering and breathless.' He is reaching for her, mumbling about the cattleyas with the naive slyness of a schoolboy. She is bending her neck with the exquisite precision of a veteran prostitute--bringing her face close enough to Swann's lips, but doing so as if against her will. The kiss is about to happen and as a result it will be lost.

"It doesn't happen--not quite yet.

"Just as Odette's face is 'falling' upon Swann's lips, his hands slow her down as if to freeze the frame. What follows is a breathtaking process of saving the moment." (end quotation from essay)

And at the end of yesterday's reading, Proust writes: "Other people as a rule mean so little to us that, when we have invested one of them with the power to cause us so much suffering or happiness, that person seems at once to belong to a different universe, is surrounded by poetry, makes of one's life a sort of stirring arena in which he or she will be more or less close to one" (334).

What a perfect description of adolescent infatuation.

"he realized that Odette's qualities were not such as to justify his setting so high a value on the hours he spent in her company" (335).

I think this is Day 23, if it matters.
Matching Abrams' posting, the reading goal for today: Page 339-356 (Moncrieff/Enright).

138valerette
Jul. 27, 2010, 10:48 am

I'm having a harder time with this Swann in Love section then I did with Cambray. I guess I'm missing the narrator! It is definitely funnier but so far I haven't liked anyone.

I'm having trouble with my reading in general this week but I'm still plugging away with my 11 pages a day. I did like the descriptions of Odette's house and the different layers of artifice going on there.

139KarenSchulte
Jul. 27, 2010, 2:14 pm

I,too am having a harder time with Swann in Love thus far, and finding myself really disliking this self-involved
narcissistic fool. What is interesting is that the narrator is there in the background making fun of it all, but also states that all this about Swann happened before he was born. So perhaps there is room for Swann to grow, probably by suffering in his love for Odette ( who he basically wills himself to love.) I quess I'll have to wade through all of this to find out.

140billiejean
Jul. 27, 2010, 3:55 pm

I finally got in my reading for today. Boy, these people like to sit around and talk. Now they are talking about what constitutes intelligence.

'In your opinion,' pursued Forcheville, 'does intelligence mean the gift of gab -- you know, glib society talk?'

Not in my opinion. They really need to get out and do something, I think.
--BJ

141labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 28, 2010, 9:18 am

Yesterday's reading: Moncrieff/Enright: 339-356

Swann spends time with Odette only in the evenings and knows essentially nothing about her life: "he never asked himself what she might be doing, or what her life had been" (339). Odette's life appears to him, since he knows nothing about it, "with its neutral and colourless background, like those sheets of sketches by Watteau" (340).



A friend tells Swann how he had seen Odette "walking up the Rue Abbattucci, in a cape trimmed with skunk, a Rembrandt hat, and a bunch of violets in her bosom: "he longed to know whom she had been seeking to impress by this costume in which he had never seen her" (341).



Woman in a Rembrandt hat.

Swann and Odette begin to know each other somewhat better. He discovers that Odette has "manifold errors of taste" in both music and literature (341). Odette is "inspired" with respect for Swann's position in society, but she makes no attempt to ask him to secure invitations for her: "perhaps she . . . feared that, merely by speaking of her to his friends, he might provoke disclosures of an unwelcome kind" (342, 343).

The narrator gives us small, dark disclosures about Odette--who is this woman, really?--"she had, for instance, kept up a friendship with a little dressmaker, now retired from business, up whose steep and dark and fetid staircase she clambered almost every day" (343)--Every day?

Swann discovers that Odette's concept of "smart people" is fatuous and trivial, but "his own came no nearer to the truth," so he sees no point in enlightening Odette, which results in Odette feeling disappointed in Swann's concept of the fashionable life. In his mind she displays vulgar ideas and bad taste "on every possible occasion", and yet he "could not help loving everything that came from her" (348). But because he's in love with her, now he wishes "to share her sympathies, to strive to be one with her in spirit" (349). Oh good grief. Abrams has little to say about this reading on his site; instead, he backtracks with reference to an essay about yesterday's reading. Little wonder--what's to say, except Odette is vulgar and Swann is even more vulgar. I'm not sure how or why we're supposed to have any sympathy for either of these people.

In Roger Shattuck's book, Proust's Way, he mentions what Proust is doing with "the imaginary subjective nature of love" (74). So what I'm beginning to take away from this, if I'm reading it right, is Swann's relationship with Odette is Proust's critique about love. I'm not sure where Proust is going with this, but at least in these pages, Proust seems to be showing how love is ridiculous and subjective. I have no idea if I'm reading this right. Anybody?

So I go back to Abrams to look for some help, and what he says is, "Yesterday's reading, I think, pretty much spoke for itself." Sigh. The comments made by one reader on Abrams' site about these pages begin, "I have to say, on this second reading. . . "--well, I don't have the advantage of looking at Swann at this point from a "second reading." From my perspective of a first reading, he seems like a cad and an effete snob and pretty much of a dim bulb.

So on 351 we're back at the Verdurin's. Oh Lord. I'm sure Proust means to make us laugh when Swann says, "Possibly I make no great intellectual demands in conversation, but I'm perfectly happy talking to Cottard, although he does trot out those idiotic puns" (351). A painter he meets there is "disagreeably pretentious" yet "What a flow of good humour there is every day in that drawing room!" (351, 352).

The Verdurins begin to mistrust Swann, sensing in him a hypocritical nature: that he professes "silently" to himself that "the Princesse de Sagan was not grotesque and that Cottard's jokes were not amusing, . . . a resistance to complete conversion, the like of which they had never come across in anyone before" (354).

Here's a comment from Abrams: "Yesterday’s reading, I think, pretty much spoke for itself. It was a ruthlessly brilliant description of a dinner party, using both conversation and observation to illuminate some of the most dislikable guests in literature. For any readers who may have been lacking sympathy for Swann, I’m hoping you’re now feeling a little differently about him." Um, not me.

Day 24
Reading goal: 355-377

142billiejean
Bearbeitet: Jul. 28, 2010, 1:28 pm

Me, either. I don't really find much sympathy for anyone here in this book.
--BJ

143billiejean
Bearbeitet: Jul. 28, 2010, 3:34 pm

In my reading today, on reflecting on someone calling Odette a "kept woman," Swann has this reaction:

He could not explore the idea further, for a sudden access of that mental lethargy which was, with him, congenital, intermittent and providential, happened at that moment to extinguish every particle of light in his brain, as instantaneously as, at a later period, when electric lighting had been everywhere installed, it became possible to cut off the supply of light from a house.

Funny! But is it true??? With the tune of "Suspicious Minds" running through my head, I read on of his attempts to discover if she is entertaining other men when he is not around. And I stop the reading with these thoughts by Swann:

'She admits that she heard me ring and then knock, that she knew it was me, and that she wanted to see me,' Swann thought to himself. 'But that doesn't fit in with the fact that she didn't let me in.'

Tune in tomorrow for "Swann in Love."
--BJ

144labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 29, 2010, 7:21 am

>143 billiejean:. billiejean: Hilarious. "Suspicious Minds"

Reading: 355-377 (Moncrieff/Enright)

Oh dear. Another dinner party at the Verdurins'. These things are deadly.

If you're interested, "Abrams" gives a synopsis of the dinner party reading for today. Again, a commenter speaks from the pov of "a second reading" for his take on Swann. Maybe that's what it takes to appreciate Swann.

Proust keeps reminding us that Swann finds himself among the inane, as if we needed reminding: "A sort of wit like Brichot's would have been regarded as out-and-out stupidity by the people among whom Swann had spent his early life" (359).

Here's something about Mme Verdurin from Patrick Alexander's Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time:
Mme Verdurin represents the ruthless ascendancy of the bourgeoisie. Although she and her husband both come from immensely wealthy families, their money comes from trade and industry, not land. Without a social pedigree or noble blood, they are therefore excluded from the aristocratic world of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Rather than acknowledge this rejection by smart society, the Verdurins dismiss society as being full of 'bores' and have created their own alternative and more bohemian circle. Mme Verdurin's salon is filled with a cast of rather brash and buffoonish characters: 'the faithful' or 'the little clan' who worship 'the Mistress' and slavishly attend all her soirees (318).

Swann has fallen out of favor with the Verdurins: "'I know his sort,'" says Mme Verdurin, "'the dear, good friend of the family who runs you down behind your back'" (as she runs Swann down behind his back). "'Didn't I say so?' retorted her husband. 'He's simply a failure, one of those small-minded individuals who are envious of anything that's at all big'" (377).

Today's reading, Day 25
Moncrieff/Enright, page 378-392.

I can't help but notice how my marker is actually moving its way through the book. We're about two-thirds of the way through.

Happy reading!

145billiejean
Jul. 29, 2010, 11:06 am

The Verdurins are the sort that always have to ridicule others to feel good. Now it is Swann's turn. The soap opera continues with Swann reading Odette's mail and trying to get invited to the Verdurins so he can be with Odette. Alas, it is not to be. I am wondering how on earth they will ever get married the way things are going???
--BJ

146labwriter
Jul. 29, 2010, 11:14 am

Hi billiejean. What edition are you reading of Swann's Way? Can you give page #'s? You're a little bit ahead of me. I haven't yet come across Swann reading Odette's mail. Classy!

147billiejean
Jul. 29, 2010, 11:14 am

By the way, thanks for the link to the Elvis video, Becky! I just had to watch it and how perfect with all the Vegas glitzy lights, too! I was thinking about how Swann saw Odette's window lit up and heard male voices. Then he knocks on the window and discovers that it is the wrong house. Oops!
--BJ

148billiejean
Jul. 29, 2010, 11:21 am

I am reading the Folio Society edition. I found it at Half Price Books in Austin and could not resist. I think it is the same translation, but the pages are different. I just finished on page 290 in that edition. So you are further along as far as page numbers. I will have to get a little ahead as I am going out of town again next weekend (the 7th and 8th) right before we finish this part. I thought about trying to follow your pace, but I could not figure out how since the page numbers don't match and there are no chapters or breaks. I find the lack of chapters one of the harder things about reading this.
--BJ

149BookAngel_a
Jul. 30, 2010, 7:21 am

I'm reading this on my Kindle so I don't have page numbers. I'm around 60% finished with the book. Currently I'm at the part where Swann is beginning to realize that Odette has a life apart from him. He hears someone describe seeing her in an outfit he's never seen and he wonders who she was trying to impress.

This is definitely not your typical love story. I had a hard time understanding why Swann spends so much time with Odette when he keeps putting her down in his mind. Now it seems he is beginning to be obsessed with her.

150labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 30, 2010, 8:32 am

So you're right around the same place where I'm reading, Angela. That's one of the things about my Kindle that I don't like--no page #'s. But usually a book at least has chapter headings--not this one. Oh well.

Yesterday's reading (where I'm reading along with Abrams, anyway) was Page 378-392.

I would agree with what you say, Angela, Swann seems as though he's becoming obsessed with Odette. There's a certain adolescent quality to his feelings about her, it seems to me: "he was constantly looking for opportunities of claiming her attention in ways that would not be displeasing to her. . . . As in an earlier phase, when he had tested the reactions of chagrin on Odette's nature, he now sought by those of gratitude to elicit from her the intimate scraps of feeling which she had not yet revealed to him" (378).

He's starting to wonder if he's "keeping" her (as he contemplates giving her 7,000 francs next month instead of only 5,000--heh); the first feelings of jealousy cause him to stay in Paris instead of going to Combray.

Swann finds himself in a "strange phase of love" which causes him to go to Odette's house late at night and spy on her outside her window (389). Except that it's the wrong window.

Day 26
Page 392-410

Bye for now.

151billiejean
Jul. 30, 2010, 1:27 pm

Obsession is definitely the right way to describe Swann's feelings toward Odette.

"And, as a matter of fact, Swann's love had reached the stage at which the boldest of physicians or (in the case of certain affections) of surgeons ask themselves whether to deprive a patient of his vice or to rid him of his malady is still reasonable or indeed possible."

Followed by,

". . . as surgeons say, his love was no longer operable."

The more obsessed he becomes, the more unhappy he becomes.
--BJ

152labwriter
Bearbeitet: Jul. 31, 2010, 8:47 am

Yesterday's reading, Page 392-410, Moncrieff/Enright.

I'm so tempted to take a day off, but if I take a day off, all that means is adding another day to the end. I'd really like to get this book off my desk. I'm sorry I feel that way about it. I don't understand, really, what it is I'm missing here. It's sort of like Moby Dick--you know you're supposed to read it, that it's an amazing classic, but--really? I'm just being honest here.

I do find it interesting that when I go to Abrams, again he doesn't have too much to say, except for a rather useful summary of yesterday's reading. If I had been reading along with Abrams, I think at this point my comment would have been, "Would someone please tell me what there is to like here?"

It seems this section could be summarized simply by saying, Swann's growing sense of jealousy in his relationship with Odette.

Swann finds himself thinking that the smile he's getting from Odette these days is the converse of the one he got from her in the carriage--mocking.

"A fresh turn was given to the new screw" (392) occurs at yet another dinner at the Verdurins' when Swann intercepts a look, a "malicious smile of congratulation" for something her friend Forcheville had said to one of the other guests. The Baron de Forcheville has been introduced as a guest at the Verdurins', and where he appears he is contrasted unfavorably with Swann. Patrick Alexander, in Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time points out that Forcheville is "unusually one-sided" for a character created by Proust: "He has no redeeming characteristics and serves only as a vulgar foil to the discerning sensitivities of Swann" (239). We are going to see a lot more of this character.

Swann goes to Odette's house at a time when he normally doesn't see her, and she doesn't answer the door. He returns later, and she claims to have been asleep the first time he was there. He doesn't believe her. "Swann could at once detect in this story one of those fragments of literal truth which liars, when caught off guard, console themselves by introducing into the composition of the falsehood which they have to invent, thinking that it can be safely incorporated and will lend the whole story an air of verisimilitude" (394).

Swann shows some self-awareness that his feelings for Odette, his suffering, the gloom, was "like a disease," and that when he was cured, his feelings for Odette would become "once again as innocuous as those of countless other women" (396). Yet his jealousy continues to grow.

The section should be called "Swann's Adolescent Infatuation" instead of "Swann in Love."

So Swann knows she's lying. The look on her face as she tells him the lie reminds him of the same look she had when she "had lied in apologising to Mme Verdurin," a look of "sorrow. . . . What depressing lie was she now concocting for Swann's benefit, to give her that doleful expression, that plaintive voice, which seemed to falter beneath the effort she was forcing herself to make, and to plead for mercy?" (398, 399).

Eric Karples' Paintings in Proust suggests a painting by Bottecelli for this particular look on Odette's face, a detail from Venus Offering Gifts to a Youth Accompanied by the Graces, 1486.



Swann gains further insight (?) into Odette's relationship with Forcheville when he reads a letter to him she has asked Swann to mail. "Now it {Swann's jealousy} had something to feed on, and Swann could begin to worry every day about the visits Odette received about five o'clock, could seek to discover where Forcheville had been at that hour" (402).

The Verdurins' pointedly make an attempt to separate Swann and Odette by inviting Odette and Forcheville to a party but intentionally not inviting Swann(403).

When Proust goes into one of his expletive phrases about lying (see above) or about gaffes (see next), this is where I find him particularly interesting. Maybe this is part of the genius of Proust that I'm supposed to "get." Mme Verdurin knows she's been overheard by Swann, saying something she doesn't want him to hear: "Mme Verdurin, seeing that Swann was within earshot, assumed an expression in which the two-fold desire to silence the speaker and to preserve an air of innocence in the eyes of the listener is neutralised into an intense vacuity wherein the motionless sign of intelligent complicity is concealed beneath an ingenuous smile, an expression which, common to everyone who has noticed a gaffe, instantaneously reveals it, if not to its perpetrator, at any rate to its victim" (404). Anyone alive knows exactly what Proust is describing here.

Then Swann goes on a (hilarious) internal rant about the "odiousness" of Mme Verdurin and her circle which goes on for pages in my edition: "filthy old procuress" he call Mme Verdurin when he imagines her encouraging Odette to sit beside Forcheville (408). For this I find myself liking Swann better than at any other time: "an old hag like Verdurin. Verdurin! What a name! Oh, it must be that they're perfect specimens of their disgusting kind! Thank God, it was high time that I stopped condescending to promiscuous intercourse with such infamy, such dung" (409).

153labwriter
Jul. 31, 2010, 8:46 am

Today's reading:

Day 27
Page 411-433 (Moncrieff/Enright)

154BookAngel_a
Jul. 31, 2010, 8:10 pm

I'm currently at the part where Forcheville has just been introduced. Amazingly, I'm feeling some sympathy with Swann in this instance. He is sincerely trying to like the Verdurins, even though they are lower class than the people he could be with. They, on the other hand, seem to be getting annoyed with him because he doesn't insult the upper classes, saying how much better it is with them.

I was thinking that there is a lot of truth in this book. We all know people (like the Verdurins) who are only content with their select 'faithful' friends and only invite others to join their clique if the new friends will join them in putting others down.

We also have all known someone who wants to possess the one they 'love', wanting to make sure no one else can have that person, taking for granted they will always be there...until one day they're not. Like Swann with Odette.

It gets tedious at times, but I'm enjoying these small observations about people that still ring true in our day.

155labwriter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 1, 2010, 7:49 am

I agree with you, Angela, that we know the kinds of people that inhabit this book. I've always been hopelessly bad at cliques and herd behavior--the kinds of groups that identify themselves largely by the people they exclude. Proust really has these people down.

Yesterday's reading, Page 411-433 (Moncrieff/Enright).

I'm surprised to find out that this thing Swann has for Odette has been going on for two years: "Then he would look at photographs of her taken two years before, and would remember how exquisite she had been" (414).

My time is short today. Abrams covers this section exhaustively.

Day 28
Page 433-450 (Moncrieff/Enright)

Happy reading!

156billiejean
Aug. 1, 2010, 1:45 pm

I also think you are spot on, Angela. Kind of like middle school, isn't it?

Last night I started my reading of Swann's Way late, because I was enjoying another book that I was reading so much. So I fell asleep. This morning I caught up with it and was relieved to have a little break from the Swann-Odette melodrama. I found the monocle discussion interesting as my daughter and I had just been discussing the difficulties of a monocle. Funny.

I have to finish this part in the next 3 days as I will be out of town for 4 days. What will I do going 4 days without Proust? I might just go into shock! :D
--BJ

157labwriter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 2, 2010, 7:45 am

Yesterday's reading: Page 433-450 (Moncrieff/Enright).

As usual, I recommend Abrams for his comments about today's read. Abrams has a long quotation from Harold Bloom about Swann's relationship with Odette. We are given to understand from Bloom that all of this is Proust's genius regarding an "insight into erotic obsession."

Swann's relationship with Odette is certainly deteriorating, at least from her point of view: "if she was now frequently away from Paris, even when she was there he scarcely saw her, and she who, when she was in love with him, used to say 'I'm always free' and 'What do I care what other people think?' now, whenever he wanted to see her, appealed to the proprieties or pleaded some engagement (442, 443).

Swann is hearing rumors about Odette. This is information is almost slipped into the narrative, much the way that it probably slips in and then out again of Swann's consciousness: "to be able to get him to throw light on certain rumours with regard to the life that Odette had formerly led in Nice." And then: "he accepted them, he could no longer have understood their not existing" (444). Swann is beginning to question Odette's past and to accept that she is, indeed, a kept woman. Their evening meetings are becoming more rare and last-minute. She would use any excuse of a dinner party or theater with her friends to leave him, "when she would fly off with irresistible zest" (447). Swann is going so far as to thinking about dreaming up "an alliance with Forcheville" (448) because he would know with whom she was spending the evening.

Swann is starting to seem like one of those bad ideas you can never get rid of. I'd love to hear Odette's view of their relationship.

Anyway, today is Day 29
Page 450 through 465 (Moncrieff/Enright)

If you're reading Davis, that would be Page 328-340.

I have to admit to a bit of disappointment that so far we've haven't had much use for Paintings in Proust. When I bought the book, I assumed I would have more need for it. I guess this means I'm going to have to read all six volumes--ha.

Bye for today.

158billiejean
Aug. 2, 2010, 12:49 pm

Today I read more beautiful writing about music. I really enjoyed it.

My concluding sentence (not about music) ended:

". . . and he said to himself that people did not know when they were unhappy, that one is never as happy as one thinks."

I am wondering how things are going to turn around for him and Odette.
--BJ

159labwriter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 3, 2010, 7:35 am

Yesterday's reading, page 450 - 465.

One of the commenters at Abrams today
writes of the tediousness of all the detail about Swann and Odette. Then another one says, "I also feel that we are spending a lot of time wallowing in Swann’s agonies. But, Swann’s Way is the most commonly read part of the larger work and it is about 15 percent of the whole. I figure it is the price I have to pay to better understand the juicy bits to come."

Oh dear, I just don't know that I can make myself continue on, "juicy bits" or no. I am heartily sick of Swann and Odette. Proust has made the point and made the point.

Swann is becoming ridiculous: "the invisible boundary which separates, at a few months' interval, the face of a successful lover from that of a cuckold" (455).

Odette had adopted a "new manner" with Swann--"indifferent, offhand, irritable," a change that was "his deep, secret wound, which tormented him day and night" (456, 457).

He mentions the "little dressmaker" visited by Odette a couple of times: "Ah, with what joy by contrast would he have raced up the dark, evil-smelling, breakneck flights to the little dressmaker's, in whose attic he would so gladly have paid the price of a weekly stage-box at the Opera for the right to spend the evening there when Odette came," (461).

I think it's interesting to note that, throughout all of this chapter about Swann and Odette, including the apparent deterioration of their relationship, such as it is, we already know, because of the Combray section, that Swann and Odette marry. Would the book read differently or would our reaction to this section be any different, if Proust had reversed the two sections, "Combray" and "Swann in Love," putting them in chronological order, so that we wouldn't have known about the marriage? It's just sort of an idle question, since I have nothing much to say about yet another day's reading of Swann obsessing over his obsession of Odette. One of the Abrams commenters puts it well, I think: "It isn't Odette that Swann is in love with, but a fantasy of his own unconscious mind which has lighted on Odette as the woman to represent the fantasy."

Day 30
Page 465 through 487

Happy reading. We have a little less that 100 pages to go still in this section, "Swann in Love." I was just looking ahead to the third and final section in this volume: "Place Names - The Name." Who knows?

160BookAngel_a
Aug. 3, 2010, 7:46 am

Oh my.... I'm behind schedule. Just this morning I read about Swann reading Odette's mail, and tapping outside the wrong window!

I can see why you'd be tired of all of that, Becky. So far I'm still enjoying the reading though. I was, however, getting mighty sick of the Verdurins! Glad they are out of the picture at the moment.

161billiejean
Aug. 3, 2010, 9:38 am

Becky, I was just wondering the same thing about the order of the chapters the other day. There must be a reason, but the whole time I read about the problems with Odette, I keep thinking "How is it that they marry?"

Angela, you are not really behind schedule, I don't think. Plus the last section is short.
--BJ

162BookAngel_a
Aug. 3, 2010, 1:42 pm

Okay, thanks. I just checked the beginning of this thread and we're supposed to finish Swann in Love by August 9th. I might be able to do that!

Yep, this doesn't sound like it's going to lead into a happy marriage by any stretch of imagination...

163KarenSchulte
Aug. 3, 2010, 2:45 pm

I am still reading, but getting bored with the whole lot of them as some of you have also said. I wonder now with Swann having alienated the Verdurins by being honest with his own sense of who he is, and with the second man in the picture, this Forcheville, who creates a triangle of expectations and infatuation, if Proust is more Swann or the other way around. If I finish this book by the 9th it will be a miracle.

164billiejean
Aug. 3, 2010, 4:13 pm

We are just finishing this part by the 9th. One more week for the last section. But no hurry, really. I forgot to read again, today. Maybe I can get it read tonight. :)
--BJ

165Eat_Read_Knit
Aug. 3, 2010, 5:53 pm

I'm ridiculously far behind schedule now: I haven't picked the book up in ages. I will try to get back to it in the next couple of days.

166labwriter
Aug. 3, 2010, 6:59 pm

My experience with reading this book is that it's torture to try to read too much at one time. So if you're trying to catch up with reading 25 or 50 or more pages, and it feels excrutiating, then don't feel too badly.

I wish there was someone in the group who LOVES this book, and I hope that my snarky, semi-negative comments haven't put anyone off a read that they might otherwise enjoy.

I would say this, that when I was in school getting my lit degrees (BA, MA), I read a lot of stuff that I never would have read on my own, that I didn't like while I was reading, but that I was happy to have read once I was finished. I think this book fits right into that category. I think it's one of those books that takes a good deal of effort (and maybe even pain), but that is worth the effort when finished. That's my story and I'm sticking to it--haha.

167BookAngel_a
Aug. 3, 2010, 7:57 pm

I gotta admit I'm enjoying this read...I'm not in LOVE with it, and it's not like I can't put it down...but I am enjoying it. It's similar to my experience reading Barbara Pym. I called her books "quietly gripping".

I love the study of people, so perhaps that's why. This book really takes you inside other people's heads, that's for sure! ;)

If I can make it through Proust, I will be very pleased with myself. So far I definitely think it's worth the effort.

168billiejean
Aug. 4, 2010, 1:58 am

Caty, I would say to read at your own pace and don't worry too much about the schedule. We will be happy to see your thoughts even after August 16th. I would have to agree that there is no way I could sit down and read 50 pages of this in one sitting. Sometimes I enjoy what I read, other times less so. I do like the turn of phrase, but wonder about the point being made at times.

I finally did get my reading in for today. The relationship between Odette and Swann continues to deteriorate. I was singing my Elvis again today. :) I hope to finish Swann in Love tomorrow before I go out of town until late Sunday night. I will check in when I get back.

I did check my volume to see if it had been abridged since my page numbers are so different. However, it does not appear to be abridged. I am glad, because I would no way start over with a different copy!! I am pretty sure that I won't turn back to the beginning and start again when I finish. :)
--BJ

169labwriter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 4, 2010, 9:02 am

Yesterday's reading: Page 465 through 487.

Today we find Swann at an event at Mme de Saint-Euverte's. All seem to agree at Abrams that this is a wonderful, funny scene. The people he meets there are ridiculous and hilarious. She is a fashionable hostess of a glittering social gathering. Her gatherings represent high society at its most dazzling, contrasted to the pretentious gatherings at the Verdurins'.

Here we meet Mme de Cambremer, "a woman who had received a sound musical education," who beats time with her head. Very funny.

The music: Chopin vs. Wagner (472).

"Meanwhile Mme de Gallardon was saying to herself how annoying it was that she had so few opportunities of meeting the Princesse des Laumes, for she meant to teach her a lesson by not acknowledging her greeting" (473). The Princesse des Laumes belongs to "that witty Guermantes set"--from which we'll hear much more. "She belonged to that half of the human race in whom the curiosity the other half feels about the people it does not know is replaced by an interest in the people it does" (476).

What a beautiful, bitchy scene between Mme de Gallardon and the Princesse des Laumes.
"Oriane, don't be angry with me," resumed Mme de Gallardon, who could never restrain herself from sacrificing her highest social ambitions, and that hope that she might one day dazzle the world, to the immediate, obscure, and private satisfaction of saying something disagreeable, "people do say about your M. Swann that he's the sort of man one can't have in one's house {because he's a Jew}; is that true?"

"Why, you, of all people ought to know that it's true, replied the Princesse des Laumes, "since you must have asked him a hundred times, and he's never been to your house once" (477).


The Princesse des Laumes refers to her husband, Basin, of whom "the whole world knew that, ever since the day when the Prince des Laumes had married his ravishing cousin, he had been consistently unfaithful to her" (481).

We learn that Swann is "extremely fond" of the Princess: "the sight of her reminded him of Guermantes, the estate next to Combray, and all that country which he so dearly loved and had ceased to visit in order not to be separated from Odette" (483).

Someone points out how "dreadfully ill" Swann is looking (483).

This is Day 31
Page 487 through 501 (Moncrieff/Enright)

170BookAngel_a
Aug. 4, 2010, 9:31 am

Wonderful! I had a good stretch of reading time yesterday and I actually read to the event at Mme de Saint-Euverte's.

It was amusing to read about the cat fight between the two women.

I also enjoyed finally reading about someone who is fond of Swann, after Odette and the Verdurins who despise him and spend most of their time trying to avoid him.

171billiejean
Aug. 4, 2010, 1:12 pm

I finished this part of Swann's Way and I thought the last line was terrific. I will see what y'all thought of the end of this part when I get back in town. Have a great weekend!
--BJ

172labwriter
Aug. 4, 2010, 3:41 pm

Safe travels, billiejean!

173billiejean
Aug. 4, 2010, 6:48 pm

Thanks!
--BJ

174labwriter
Aug. 5, 2010, 8:34 am

Yesterday's pages: 487 - 501.

I like this quotation from one of the commenters on yesterday's pages at the Abrams site:
I tried to explain this Proust project and why I’m participating in it to my vacation companions, and they were utterly perplexed. They had all heard of Proust, but couldn’t understand why anyone would want to read some 3200 pages unless the book can be described as a page-turner like Harry Potter.

I'm behind in my morning routine today, so I'll have to come back later to deal with my daily Proust.

175labwriter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 6, 2010, 6:24 am

Well, yesterday's reading didn't happen, so today becomes yesterday or however you want to think about that. I'm not going to try to make up a missed day.

Yesterday's pages: 487-501.

Mme des Laumes, speaking to her husband: "I do feel it's absurd that a man of his intelligence should let himself suffer for a woman of that sort, and one who isn't even interesting, for they tell me she's an absolute idiot" (487, 488).

Swann is forced to remain at the party: "He suffered greatly from being shut up among all these people whose stupidity and absurdities struck him all the more painfully. . . "(489, 490).

Swann hears "the little phrase from the sonata by Vinteuil" and it throws him into memories of the time when he was loved by Odette.

Day 32
Page 502 through 529

I think we have two more days of reading for this section, "Swann in Love." Then on to the last section.

Since I don't have too much to say about today's reading, I thought I would add something from Harold Bloom's book, How to Read and Why.
How to read a novel, and Proust in particular, is in the first place how to read and appreciate literary character. Alphabetically listed, the indispensable personalities in Proust are Albertine, Charlus, Francoise, Oriane de Guermantes, the narrator's Mamma, Odette, Saint-Loup, Swann, Madame Verdurin. Add a tenth in the narrator himself, and you have a roster of more vivid, inward, and titanically comic than any other novel whatsoever affords us. . . . Proust, like Shakespeare a better physician than Freud, offers us his characters as humanely as Chaucer and Shakespeare presented theirs. All of Proust's characters are essentially comic geniuses; as such they give us the option of believing that the truth is as funny as it is grim.

Happy reading!

176labwriter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 7, 2010, 9:13 am

Yesterday's pages: 502 through 529. This is the longest section at one time we've had so far. I think Abrams is trying to get through "Swann in Love," which is great. Let's move this along!

Swann's relationship with Odette takes a definite turn, and what we see here is a relationship unraveling: "Swann understood that the feeling which Odette had for him would never revive" (502). He even starts work again on his Vermeer essay, which is a good sign, I think, that there is finally a crack in this crazy obsession he has with Odette: "He was convinced that a picture of 'Diana and Her Companions' which had been acquired by the Mauritshuis at the Goldschmidt sale as a Nicholas Maes was in reality a Vermeer" (502).



The narrator mentions Odette's "Plan B": "his wealth, from which she stood too often in need of assistance not to shrink from the prospect of a definite rupture (having even, so people said, an ulterior plan of getting him to marry her)" (503).

Swann finds himself daydreaming that Odette might die "painlessly" in some accident, maybe when she's crossing a busy thoroughfare (505).

"And Swann felt very cordial sympathy with the sultan Mahomet II whose portrait by Bellini he admired, who, on finding that he had fallen madly in love with one of his wives, stabbed her to death in order, as his Venetian biographer artlessly relates, to recover his peace of mind" (505).



Swann receives an anonymous letter telling him Odette has been the mistress of countless men and women, "and that she frequented houses of ill-fame" (506).

Swann questions or suspects everyone he knows of having sent the letter: "He also suspected my grandfather. Every time Swann had asked a favour of him, had he not invariably refused? Besides, with his ideas of middle-class respectability, he might have thought that he was acting for Swann's good" (509).

Swann suspects everyone he knows as being capable of sending him such a letter; conversely, he refuses to imagine that Odette might be guilty of the things charged to her in the letter: "Swann had a naturally lazy mind and lacked imagination" (510).

"But to suppose that she went to procuresses, that she indulged in orgies with other women, that she led the crapulous existence of the most abject, the most contemptible of mortals--what an insane aberration, for the realisation of which, thank heaven, the remembered chrysanthemums, the daily cups of tea, the virtuous indignation left neither time nor place! (511).

Swann wonders if Odette has had a relationship with Mme Verdurin, and he presses her to tell him the truth. "My anger with you has nothing to do with your actions--I can and do forgive you everything because I love you--but with your untruthfulness, the ridiculous untruthfulness which makes you persist in denying things which I know to be true" (516)--which is itself an "untruth" from Swann. Her admission of "two or three times" seems to flip him into crazy.

"People often say that, by pointing out to a man the faults of his mistress, you succeed only in strengthening his attachment to her, because he does not believe you" (517)--oh, how true. I don't like X's girlfriend because she's running around on him; I tell X what she's doing. Immediately, in X's eyes, now I'm the bad person. Whoops....never a good idea to tell someone a truth that they are working hard not to see.

Interesting--the narrator slips in an overt judgment on Odette: "'A lot of good that would do you!' she concluded, with unconscious stupidity but intentional malice" (519).

Swann: "Poor Odette! He did not hold it against her. She was only half to blame. Had he not been told that it was her own mother who had sold her, when she was still hardly more than a child, at Nice, to a wealthy Englishman?" (522).

"But often enough, the things that he did know, that he dreaded now, to learn, were revealed to him by Odette herself, spontaneously and unwittingly; for the gap which her vices made between her actual life and the comparatively innocent life which Swann had believed, and often still believed {emphasis mine} his mistress to lead, was far wider than she knew" (524).

We're learning a lot about Odette in this section. Odette's omissions, rather than putting Swann's mind to rest, only serve "as a starting point" (526). Swann discovers "even in the months of which he had never dared to think again because they had been too happy, in those months when she had loved him, she was already lying to him!" (527, 528).

"The presence of Odette continued to sow in Swann's heart alternate seeds of love and suspicion" (529).

Whew, long reading for yesterday. Today is Day 33, and per Abrams we are to read to the end of "Swann in Love," which would be pages 529-543 in Moncrieff/Enright. So one more day of "Swann Obsessed" and we move on to the third and final and shortest section, "Place-Names - The Name." What this refers to, I have no idea.

Happy reading and have a good weekend!

177labwriter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 8, 2010, 8:19 am

Yesterday's reading: Page 529-543.

Mme Cottard and the Machard portrait. Swann finds himself a temporary captive audience on the bus heading to the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris to Mme Cottard, one of the Verdurin set. Her "subject of the day" is the Machard portrait: "You aren't smart, you aren't really cultured, you aren't up-to-date unless you give an opinion on Machard's portrait" (533). The woman is of course a fool and says the portrait is "commendable," although "I don't understand his work" (533) and "I do think that the most important thing about a portrait, especially when it's going to cost ten thousand francs, is that it should be like, and an agreeable likeness" (534).



Having established herself to be a fool, Mme Cottard goes on to tell Swann that he was much spoken of on a recent yachting trip with Mme Verdurin. "Wherever Odette is, it's never long before she begins talking about you" (534).

Despite hearing from Mme Cottard that Odette speaks of him fondly, Swann finds that with "the diminution of his love there corresponded a simultaneous diminution in his desire to remain in love" (536, 537). Even when he finds proof that Forcheville had been Odette's lover, "he realised that it caused him no pain, that love was now far behind, and he regretted that he had had no warning of the moment when he had emerged from it forever" (538).

Abrams tells us the section ends with one of the most famous lines in all of Proust:

"To think that I've wasted years of my life, that I've longed to die, that I've experienced my greatest love, for a woman who didn't appeal to me, who wasn't even my type!" (543). Abrams writes, "No matter how many times I read this passage, I'm never sure if I should laugh or cry--sad or ridiculous--for me, at least, the balance between the two is perfectly balanced."

One commenter says that what she can't understand is when, how, and why they marry. I guess for that we will just have to keep reading. My response to this section is that Proust has given us a perfect rendering of adolescent (by which I mean "immature") "love" which in reality is infatuation, not love. It has the same emotional tone as the times I remember in junior high when I would go out of my way to make sure I would pass my current "love interest" in the hallway between class. My whole day could be made if I saw him; my whole day could be ruined if I didn't. It was all about me and almost nothing about him, since he really didn't know that I was alive, which wasn't even the point. There was a lot of magical thinking and imagination on my part that went on about this daily encounter. It was an infliction, and it took up a large part of my emotional energy, which, when you're 13 or so is probably a good thing, but in an adult, that sort of self-absorbed, irrational state is self-delusional, immature, and foolish. Do we think more of Swann for this folly of emotion? Hardly. He seems to be a fool, or at least that's how he comes across to me, a fool because he's wasting his life on something that's so unreal. Infatuation might be a pleasant diversion of a few weeks or maybe months, but to stay in that state with someone for "years" is absurd.

So what is Proust doing here? Is "Swann in Love" Proust's commentary on heterosexual love?



This is a book by William C. Carter, published 2007, written by a Proust biographer and described as "a moving chronicle of the comic and tragic aspects of Proust's sexual escapades."

So today's reading starts the third and last section of Swann's Way, "Place Names - The Name." Abrams tells us that we now leave the third person narrator of "Swann in Love" and return to the first person narrator of the first section--we are back to the world of young Marcel.

Day 34
Unfortunately Abrams went traveling at this point and had with him only the
Davis version of Swann's Way, not the Moncrieff/Enright as well, so his pages at this point are for Davis only. I'm guessing at the pages he's reading, trying to continue to match his posts. It looks like he's reading page 545 to 560. If you have Davis, then it's 399 to 410.

178labwriter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 9, 2010, 7:48 am

Where is everybody? These group reads start out with such enthusiasm and then . . . fizzle. Oh well, I hope some of you are still around. I'm going to give a summary of this next section, "Names," so if you would rather, read it first and then read the notes here.

Yesterday's reading was 545 to 560.

We're now into section three, "Place Names - The Name" for the first time. Back to the Marcel narrator.

He's speaking of his room at the Grand Hotel de la Plage in Balbec. My note says that "Balbec" is a fictional town modeled from Cabourg, France. Balbec: "that funeral coast, famed for the number of its wrecks, swathed, for six months of the year, in a shroud of fog and flying foam from the waves" (547).



The narrator is often in poor health, and when he is allowed outside, he is accompanied by none other than Francoise, "who had entered our service after the death of my aunt Leonie" (560).

This is from Patrick Alexander, Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time: The Name section is "a transitional chapter of about fifty pages, serving to place the previous two works in perspective and to prepare the reading for the following volume.
Many years have passed since the events of "Swann in Love," and we realize that, despite his bitter reflections that Odette was not "his type," Swann has obviously married her perhaps for the sake of their daughter. Odette de Crecy has become Mme Swann.

Marcel, still a young boy, and his family have returned from their vacation in Combray and are home in Paris, living near the Champs-Elysees with Francoise. Following Aunt Leonie's death, Francoise had been inherited by the narrator's family and--a mixed blessing--moves to Paris to serve and torment them.


This is from one of the commenters today at Abrams:

"The short section where Proust is playing with place names--Bayeaux, Vitre, Quimperle, ... mingling sound, sight, history is as delightful a piece of writing as I've ever come across."

Day 35
Page 560 to 574, Moncrieff/Enright

After today's reading, I have about 30 pages of text left in my book, so that would be about three more days of reading, including today.

179BookAngel_a
Aug. 9, 2010, 7:36 am

I was away for a couple of days but I just got all caught up again! It was nice reading your above posts - it helps me retain all that I've just read. Appreciate it. I also love that last line in "Swann in Love". It is hard to imagine that Swann and Odette ever marry...

180labwriter
Aug. 9, 2010, 7:49 am

Hi Angela! Glad to see you.

181KarenSchulte
Aug. 9, 2010, 12:03 pm

I finished Swann in Love yesterday, on time! I am glad I stayed with it. It is a remarkable literary masterpiece.
His infatuation with Odette is a statement on trying to pin her down, as if she was a piece of art, or a strain of music he heard. What he has produced out of memory is an artifice not art. No wonder he is tortured because it is ever changing, as is memory.
I was especially relieved when toward the end of the novella, he introduces, again, the Guermantes theme of the novel. His superb eye for catching the essence of character and social satire is sometimes extremely
funny as when he describes someone at the high-end society as having the "head of a carp." I loved it!
Thank you all for keeping me reading. And thank you labwriter for your photos and commentary.
Now to finish the Name section.

182billiejean
Aug. 9, 2010, 12:57 pm

Hello, everyone!
I am back from my trip at last. I totally agree that the last line of Swann in Love was classic! I, too, am wondering how it ever is that they will marry, Angela. I have also been enjoying all of your commentary, Becky! And I was also glad for the change towards the end of Swann in Love, Karen. I am ready to start the last section. I am excited that it is a short one, too. Kind of energized! I will check back in after I read.
--BJ

183labwriter
Aug. 10, 2010, 7:32 am

Hi billiejean & Karen.

Today's pages: 560 to 574 (Moncrieff/Enright). That would be 410-420 in Davis.

Marcel discovers "the little red-haired girl" (again, I can't help but think of Charlie Brown), Gilberte Swann, at the Champs-Elysees. Here we have the beginnings of another obsession, that of Marcel for Gilberte.

"This day which I had so dreaded was, as it happened, one of the few on which I was not unduly wretched" (567). . . .they were the only moments in my life on which I concentrated a scrupulous, unflagging attention, and yet could not discover in them one atom of pleasure" (568).

We seem to be repeating the obsessive "love" that we were treated to with Swann and Odette.

Day 36
Page 574 - 590, Moncrieff/Enright (420-429, Davis)

184billiejean
Bearbeitet: Aug. 10, 2010, 11:43 am

You are right where I am, Becky. I was wondering if she were the same Gilberte or not. I did find this part a relief from the Odette-Swann part. How old is the Narrator here? I cannot figure this out ever, it seems. At first he seemed to be talking about traveling alone. But maybe that was a different time. I loved reading about the seaside storms.
--BJ

185labwriter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 10, 2010, 12:47 pm

>184 billiejean:. How old is the narrator here?

That's a good question, billiejean. Abrams asks his commenters the same thing:

"What age to you think Marcel and Gilberte are at this stage of the book? While it's true they are meeting to play in the park, I think they're older than we think they are."

Patrick Alexander in Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time says that Marcel is "still a young boy"--but that doesn't really narrow his age down very much, since I think it's clear that he's pretty young, but whether he's 10 or 16--I can't really say, and both to me could be "young." He's still young enough to need Francoise to accompany him when he goes out to "play" at the Champs-Elysees, so he can't be all that old, do you think? I'm thinking no older than 12 or so, but that's just my own guess.

186billiejean
Aug. 10, 2010, 2:00 pm

That's what I was thinking. He still needs Francoise. Maybe he is young, but precocious. I don't really know that much about the location and how safe it would be for kids. But he must be older than in the first part where Francoise was with Aunt Leonie.
--BJ

187labwriter
Aug. 10, 2010, 2:05 pm

he must be older than in the first part where Francoise was with Aunt Leonie.

Great point!

188labwriter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 10, 2010, 3:23 pm

I've got some extra time this afternoon, so I'm going to finish Swann's Way.

Page 574 to 606.

Abrams discusss 574 to 586 here.

And 586 to the end, 606, is here.

I feel like I'm back reading Swann and Odette all over again: "If at times she showed me these marks of affection, she pained me also by seeming not to be pleased to see me, and this happened often on the very days on which I had most counted for the realisation of my hopes" (574).

I like the character of the old lady reading the Debats--she was in the last reading and now in this one.

Marcel finds out from Gilberte that he won't be seeing Odette again for days. "I returned hom with Francoise through the streets that were still gay with sunshine, as on the evening of a holiday when the merriment is over. I could scarcely drag my legs along" (580).

Going back to the question we have about how old the children are, one of the commenters at the Abrams site posted this from Edmund White's biog of Proust:
Modern readers of the last pages of Swann’s Way, in which the young narrator falls in love with Gilberte, are often confused about how old these children could be, with their adult-seeming flirtations but also with their silly games of tag and the constant surveillance of them by their nannies. In fact they are teenagers, sixteen or seventeen, in a period before adolescence was invented, at a time when people passed directly from childhood to adulthood, when a boy would be wearing short pants one day and taking a mistress the next.

Sixteen or seventeen? I never would’ve guessed so old. I was thinking more like twelve or thirteen.


189labwriter
Aug. 10, 2010, 3:46 pm

And the last, 586 to 606.

The young narrator Marcel feels that the pleasure he gets from the sound of the name "Swann" is sinful (587).

Marcel's mother tells him that the old lady who reads the Debats has a mania for getting to know people and must "really be a sort of maniac . . . if she does in fact know Mme Swann" (588). She is always forcing herself on strangers, "a horrible woman, frightfully vulgar, and affected as well" (588).

His mother met Swann out buying an umbrella and Marcel is dazzled "with the stupendous revelation that I existed in Swann's mind" (589).

"I was so madly in love with Gilberte that if, on our way, I caught sight of their old butler taking the dog out, my emotion would bring me to a standstill and I would gaze at his white whiskers with eyes filled with passion. Francoise would say, 'What's wrong with you now?'" (591).

This has been fun. I'm glad I persevered to the end, which I probably wouldn't have done had I been reading it on my own. I'll check in to see if others have concluding remarks.

Bye for now, and Happy Reading!

190msjohns615
Aug. 10, 2010, 3:58 pm

I realized that what I have is "Un amour de Swann," published separately as a stand-alone novel, and not "Du côté de chez Swann," so what I'm reading only corresponds to a portion of your conversations. I'm enjoying reading what you all have to say, though, and wanted to add my own feelings about what I've read so far, which corresponds to the first fifty or so pages of Swann in Love.

Swann reminds me of one of my friends, a guy who floats along socially and whose behavior can be exasperating at times, but not without charm. Their similarities have led me to take a positive, benevolent stance on his character and his feelings for Odette. He might be a bit ridiculous, and he hasn't amounted to much in life, but he seems like the kind of guy who's fun to have at a social gathering, as he doesn't take up too much of everyone's attention and is agreeable in his conversation. It seems like the people who he's drifted away from, his old friends and social networks, probably don't miss him that much, but that they wouldn't mind if he came back around again either.

I've enjoyed the focus on meaning in art and people's ability to "understand" art. Swann has a little epiphany when he hears the awesome piano line, and it becomes incorporated into his romance with Odette. He also sees her in the painting by Botticcello (if I recall, I don't have the book with me), perhaps giving him an appreciation of the genius in the painter's work. The other characters have different reactions to art. The doctor tries to prevent himself from looking or saying something clueless, using often funny social tactics to hide his social fears. Madame Verdulin has such strong reactions to music that she convinces people that, even if she doesn't know exactly what she's talking about, she seems to "understand" something in the music strongly enough that it makes her need to see a doctor. Then, Swann looks at Odette's bad taste and his own tastes, the differences between them, and whether one is really better than the other. It seems like everyone is portrayed in their tastes and ability to understand art (except the pianist and the young painter, the artists themselves). I think the ways that people fake understanding are really interestingly depicted and funny. I'm looking forward to further social functions with the Verdulin clan, because the last twenty or thirty pages I've read are focused on Swann and Odette.

I remember in high school I played trumpet in the jazz band, and while I could read music and understand the basic concept of what was going on in the music, I didn't take solos or really learn the tools necessary to improvise on anything but a rudimentary level. My friends played in smaller combos and took solos with the band, and when I sat around listening to jazz music with them, I think I felt a bit like the doctor or even Mme. Verdulin, trying to anticipate appropriate reactions and feelings about music that I didn't really understand. So I've enjoyed Proust's look at people's relationship with art, and I'm interested to see what comes next with Swann and company.

191billiejean
Aug. 10, 2010, 7:31 pm

#190 Interesting comments on people faking understanding of art! Art, in painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and, in a way, plants and flowers, is such a big part of what Proust has to convey. And I don't really have much understanding of any of it. I did take a lot of piano, but I was never really all that good at it. So, I guess I know how they feel!

By the way, good job, Becky finishing up! I am also feeling an urge to finish.
--BJ

192billiejean
Aug. 10, 2010, 11:54 pm

I read the next 15 pages of the last section. Only 12 more to go, which I hope to read tomorrow. He does seem to be a teenager with a crush.
--BJ

193BookAngel_a
Aug. 11, 2010, 8:09 am

I finished it too! When the narrator first began discussing Gilberte in this last section, my first thought was "Oh no! Not again! Not another Swann and Odette!"
But as I read, his behavior did remind me of some of my behavior when I was in the deep throes of a crush at age...13...or 14.
I liked the reflective part at the end.

I have to say, this has been one of the most enjoyable group reads for me, largely thanks to everyone's postings - especially Becky's daily posts. They really helped keep me motivated, and helped sink the information down into my mind, to retain it.

If anyone wants to keep going with book #2 at some point, I'm all for it. I would like a short break at least, however. ;)

194billiejean
Aug. 11, 2010, 9:11 am

I just finished the book, also. I liked the ending of the book as well.

". . . the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years."

I would also be interested in continuing with the books of In Search of Lost Time.
--BJ

195KarenSchulte
Aug. 12, 2010, 9:23 pm

I finished Swann's Way and feel good about it. It was worthwhile slugging through the Verdurin and Co. narratives as well as the obsessive descriptions of Swann's love affair with Odette.

I now see a continuation of themes with Marcel and Gilberte, as well as those concerned with the nature of art, the temporal flow of time, and the ravages of memory.

As billiejean noted, those last lines regarding" the memory of a particular image....." were very touching.

I would be interested in continuing with the rest of his book, but also need a rest for a few weeks!

196billiejean
Aug. 15, 2010, 10:02 pm

I pulled the next book off the shelf. It is longer, but I still think it might be doable in 6 weeks. Would anyone be interested in starting September 1st? There are two parts in my book. The first is 200 pages and the second is 300 pages. But I think that my page numbers vary from everyone else's page numbers. I was thinking we could do part 1 in 2 1/2 weeks and part 2 in 3 1/2 weeks. Any thoughts?
--BJ

197labwriter
Aug. 16, 2010, 12:38 pm

Hi billiejean,

No, I'm not going to be able to do the next volume anytime soon. I have a really busy fall schedule, which all of a sudden is feeling right around the corner. Thanks for the invite, though.

Becky

198BookAngel_a
Aug. 16, 2010, 12:46 pm

196- I will see if I can manage that. Hopefully I can, because I do want to continue.

199Eat_Read_Knit
Aug. 16, 2010, 1:51 pm

If I can get caught up with volume 1, I will try to join in with volume 2.

200billiejean
Aug. 30, 2010, 12:17 pm

I know how busy the Fall can be (and the Spring for those in the Southern Hemisphere!), so I made the thread for the second book a little longer on the time frame: 3 weeks for part one and 4 weeks for part two. I hope that some of us can carry on for the second book Within a Budding Grove. Here is the new thread:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/97620&newpost=1#lastmsg

Start date is September 6th.
--BJ