First of all, I need help with some French stuff...I cannot figure out how to make sense of this sentence: "souvent, ma brève incertitude du lieu où je me trouvais ne distinguait pas mieux les unes des autres les diverses suppositions dont elle était faite.." I understand up to the text in red, then there are these three nouns in a row which I cannot sort out.. to which part of the sentence do they refer? I've read the English, which did not help. Can you?
Also, what is a glace à pieds? And what is the "y" in "..à me rappeler les lieux, les personnes que j'y avais connues..." and the "en" in "...ce qu'on m'en avais raconté.?" These are the little things that are driving me crazy!
On the more interesting (and less whiny) side, I have started to read Edmund White's biography of Proust, Marcel Proust: A life which is know for its in-depth exploration of Proust's life as a closeted gay man. Although not illegal in the 19th century(France was the first nation to repeal its laws banning homosexuality in 1791, following the Revolution), being gay was still not socially acceptable and was apparently a source of great misery for Proust.
More on this to come later...
-Michel
Chapeau, Michel! Normally bloggers (myself included) can't keep up the daily pace and instead adopt the practice of a weekly blog (à moins que le blogueur demeure dans une cork-lined room, ?une chambre doublée de liège) so you’re exceeding my expectations!
ReplyDeleteI have to confess I'm not creating my own translation as we go, just reading the original and checking a translation later to see if I've missed anything important (or exquisite).
My messy translation:
“These whirling and confused evocations never lasted more than a few seconds; often, my brief uncertainty of the place where I found myself was no clearer, between this one and the next, given the different theories on which it, my uncertainty, was based, any more than we isolate, when watching a horse run, the successive positions (of its body) shown to us by a kinetoscope.”
les uns les autres, the ones the others (not an expression we use in English these days, to my mind)
différents les uns des autres, different one from the other.
The kinetoscope metaphor runs nicely on to the one about the magic lantern, where (in both instances) "reality" becomes action-and-light, colour-and-movement (anything but 'real'). Reality is just as fictitious (and beautiful and meritorious and worthy) as the children's story he was reading before falling asleep, about kings and queens (Francois I and Charles V). Isn't reality (the purpose of life?) about love (being loved, remembering love) and creating stories?
glace à pieds quadrangulaires – a (cheval) mirror with feet (which in this case are) square
j’y avais connues (y = there, the people whom I had known (in those places, Combray, Balbec, Paris, Doncieres, Venice)
en, “of them”, i.e. the places
So for me there’s a striking beauty in the way he’s set this out in three phrases, looking back in time (!), each subtly different in terms of perspective, grammatically
- The people that I’d known there ( y denoting place)
- Whom I’d seen (i.e. use of the d’elles construction, instead of en as in, for example, ce que j’en avais vues)
- Which I’d been told about (i.e. use of en).
I have just two commentaries on Proust to hand : the Edmund White, which is nice and short and which having just finished I want to read again straight away, and the chapter in Gregory Woods, "A History of Gay Literature: the male tradition", which puts Proust in the context of other work of the period. For example, Death in Venice came out in the first year of Proust's publication and Ulysses in the last (1913-1922).
What keeps me inspired is that anyone who's anyone seems to have read ISOLT from cover to cover (a bit like Ulysees and the Divine Comedy, etc.). But I notice one reviewer who said he had to deliberately set the work aside because it was taking over his life (!).
Rod - merci mille fois!! I had a vague understanding of "y" but it is used to often in different ways, and my mind was already whirling from trying to wrap itself around this dense prose... My dictionary lists the following for "y": adv. there, here, thither, within; pron. to it, by it, in it, at it. So you can see my confusion! Sometimes dictionaries do more to confuse than to clarify, especially in the treacherous quicksand of the neophyte learner!!
ReplyDeleteIt is a distinct pleasure having your company on this journey!
Avec gratitude,
Michel
Also, thank you for the encouragement! I am beginning to wonder myself if I am going to be able to continue this pace for an entire year, as it is becoming all-consuming and, unlike "Julie & Julia" does not culminate daily with a sumptuous French gourmet meal!! Although one could consider the reading of ISOLT a sumptous literary meal.
ReplyDeleteAt present, however, I feel I must continue on a daily basis in order to keep myself moving ahead, and any encouragement is deeply appreciated!
-Michel
... I'm looking ahead to his birthday 10 July and considering testing a madeleine baking tray in the meantime.
ReplyDelete...and I notice there are reading groups for Proust - first-timers, second-timers and In-depthers (!). Nous ne sommes pas seuls.
...I notice names like Tadie and Moncrieff keep turning up, and, there exists a $1000 111-CD recording. One couple take turns reading the original out loud to each other for added effect. And the book I think you mentioned about paintings in Proust seems particularly valuable... have been checking out the 'competition' over at http://www.tempsperdu.com, especially the online article by Andrew Marr about modern-day Illiers-Combray.
Keep up the good work - I find I'm settling into a routine of reading at the same time every day, which is a good thing.
A bientot
Roderick
In my search yesterday for definitions of "transvertebration" I also came across a number of Proust sites, but not the one you listed, "Temps perdu." Very impressive and quite a font of information, so I have put it on my favorites list. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI have decided that I am going to bake madeleines, but in honor of the madeleine scene, which I hope to reach before July! I would send you some, but I think that by the time they reached you, they would be unlikely to be in a condition to spark any kind of pleasant memories!
--Michel