What is it? What could it possibly mean? Where did it come from? After spending a fruitless hour searching online in dictionaries, blogs, and Wikipedia, I found many other people stymied by this word, and not a single definition. I am beginning to wonder if it sprang forth from Proust’s forehead like Brunnhilde from Wotan (minus the brass bra and winged helmet, of course)!
I found “vertebration,” which is defined as “division into segments like those of the spinal column.” But adding the “trans-” screws it all up. Personally, I think he means something more like “transmogrification,” which to me better describes the magical quality of the projections as they distort and swirl across the drapes and then the fun house mirror convexity of the doorknob.
Moncrieff translates it as “transubstantiation,” which is more of a substance changing into another substance and not quite how I imagine it. The later revisions by Kilmartin and Enright both use “transvertebration,” which makes one wonder if they knew what it meant. It is, after all, a Latin-based word and so why not just render it the same in English? That gets rid of having to provide a pesky translation!
I love how this section evokes for me the way of seeing as a child, so full of imagination and magic; the way he describes Golo and his steed as if they were really there and changing magically before his very eyes, rather than just as the projections of them on the various surfaces.
As adults we are often excited to revisit something we loved from our childhood, only to be disappointed to find that the magic we experienced is no longer there. For Proust memory is the key, as he believes that that magic resides not in the thing itself, but in our memory of the thing.
And that, I believe, is what In Search of Lost Time is all about.
the word that comes CLOSEST is tranverberation, a mystical piercing such as St Teresa experienced; assuming Proust did not make a mistake in choosing HIS word, I can only assume his referencing "skeleton" above, led him into thinking of Golo's spinal column being changed by doorknobs and such
ReplyDeletepROUST DID NOT WRITE IN ENGLISH. iT WAS HIS TRANSLATOR.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe French Wiktionary says that Proust invented the word "transvertebration" (as Michael Hattori suspected). If this is true, it is better for the translator to preserve Proust's neologism and leave us to ponder it. No other word conveys the same thought. "Reframing" and "restructuring" are the closest I can come up with, and they are poor substitutes. Proust is not writing about some kind of metaphysical transformation. He is describing a figure who appears to be incorporating parts of the room into himself.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this, I just started reading this edition and it threw me too.
ReplyDeleteYes I think TeeJay is spot on. I don’t think it is intended as a metaphysical term but a physical one.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it might be related to a word he (or the translator) used earlier in the sentence. "The body of Golo..overcame every material obstacle...by taking it as an ossature and embodying it in himself...". Ossature can refer to the arrangement of bones in a body part - e.g. the vertebrae of the back. The projected image of Golo's body incorporates the fixtures of the bedroom (e.g. the doorknob) without concern at "this transvertebration", here, perhaps, the body shape distortion that might be seen if his bones were shifted around.
ReplyDeleteI just started reading Proust and on day 2 wrote this word down on my list of ones to look up. Glad to see I’m not the only one confused by it!
ReplyDeleteJust encountered it in Lydia Davis translation. Suffice to say my very old American Heritage Dictionary, New College Edition, does not include it. (But it does include famous portrait photo of contemplative Proust!). At age of 70, I’m finally reading Swann’s Way, only a few pages a day, but so far it’s a delightful experience — such marvelously long sentences!
ReplyDelete