Day 18: A Dilemma - au secours!!

I am wondering whether I should just put away all the extraneous biographies, reading guides, art guides and other miscellany about Proust and just read the book.

On the one hand, "the book" is really the main course, if I may use gastronomic metaphors, and all the rest are little side dishes and condiments - tasty in themselves, some quite delicious, in fact. However, are they adding flavor, umami, if you will, or masking it? This is my dilemma.

Proust, of course, who is adamant that the man is not the book, would without hesitation tell me to cease and desist all my extracurricular reading. And he does have a point. All these guides and biographies are incredibly fascinating - Proust and his environs, the rich panoply of people and places in his life, on whom so many characters and places are modeled - and provide the reader with a great deal of "inside' information. But having all this information also invariably leads to comparisons between the book and the man, the fiction and his real life. And once read, cannot be erased from one's mind, perhaps creating a bias that would not be there otherwise.

On the other hand, the side dishes and condiments can also add to and complement the flavor of the main dish, enhancing and bringing out subtle flavors that might be missed without them. I am certainly finding Proust's life to be intriguing, and seeing the parallels to it in the book.

I have read that when Proust realized he was not ever going to have the life that he desired, he decided to create it in his book: in his introduction to the Moncrieff translation, Joseph Wood Krutch wrote, "Having come at last to reject completely that active participation in life which had never, in his case, been very full, he was determined to construct for himself out of memory and imagination, a more than satisfactory substitute. That is what Remembrance of Things Past is."

So, perhaps it is better to just read what it is Proust wanted his life to be, rather than what is was. Kind of like seeing the movie first, then reading the book.  Because, invariably, when one reads the book first, the movie is often disappointing - they've cut things out and added others, changed the plot, added new characters, taken others (always your favorites)... things you'd never notice if you hadn't read the book first (the bias I mentioned above....).

I'd love to hear what you all think... I'm torn!! I do know, however, that just reading the book would simply my life immensely, as I often do not know which book to pick up first, and so end up reading a chapter out of three or four.....but it is all SO fascinating!!

Help!!!

-Michel

Day 17: Progress!!

Well, I am making progress! I was able to get through ten, yes, ten pages today! Of course, my head is now pounding and my eyes feel like I've been rubbing sand in them... but it's a glorious feeling!

Now that we've left the magic chairs and worlds out of orbit behind, the language is easier to understand, although no less serpentine.  I am finding that writing out the very long sentences is a great help, as I can visually dissect and then reconstruct them in a way that makes sense. Provided they are not too long!

However, I did come across a sentence 23 lines long today! We have been introduced to M. Swann, and are being treated to the mistaken opinionations of the great-aunt. The sentence begins, "Mais si l'on avait dit a ma grand-tante que ce Swann qui,..."  Even in English, there are so many clauses within clauses that the mind begins to spin in the process of trying to  figure out what belongs to what.

But that is one of the things that makes Proust Proust. It seems very à propos that his writing style should be so very stream-of-consciousness, in the way that memories are very seldom linear and tend to not only jump around, but lead to thoughts within thoughts within thoughts.....

Proust's sense of humour is also most definitely now evident, especially in his descriptions of the grandmother, her two silly sisters, and the tart, disapproving opinions of the grand-aunt, who is constantly trying to turn everyone against grand-mère. 

I especially enjoyed the scene where Swann is invited to dinner and the two silly sisters wish to thank him for the case of Asti he brought, but for some reason feel it would be "vulgar" to just thank him, and they, "in their horror of vulgarity, had brought to such a fine art the concealment of a personal allusion in a wealth of ingenious circumlocution, that it would often pass unnoticed even by the person to whom it was addressed." The ensuing conversation at dinner is hilarious, where the two sisters try, in vain, via such circumlocution to thank M. Swann for the wine, and also show that they know of his being 'mentioned' in the newspaper, le Figaro, despite having been forcefully dissuaded of doing so by the dour grand-tante. Brings to mind Jane Austen...

And how is everyone else coming along with their reading?? Bien, j'espère!! 

À bientôt!! Two Aleves and off to bed...
-Michel


 

Day 16: Memory: an inquiry

Dear Readers, 

Please accept my apologies for the late posting! I hope this will make up for it, as I think it is quite interesting....

Have you ever spent any time thinking about what memory is, exactly? How do we remember? How many different kinds of memory are there? Why do we remember some things and not others? Why do some things trigger spontaneous memories while other things require some digging around? 

I think we all take for granted the many things that our memory does for us on a daily, even momentary, basis. For example, take the simple task of walking from the kitchen to the living room. Muscle memory allows your limbs to move in the correct manner to get you from one point to the other; proprioception, or being able to interpret where your body is in space, allows you to get from one point to the other without falling down or bumping into every object you pass. Memory, both short- and long-term, allows you to remember and recognize the objects around you, and to know which way to go to get from one point to the other successfully. We don’t normally even think about these things - we just get up and walk from the kitchen to the living room.

Memory is such an amazing thing! Try to imagine life without it. To not be able to remember one second to the next. I have taken care of people in the hospital with advanced Alzheimer’s for whom that is their life. One patient would want to know if her book was there, even though it was in her hands, and she would ask over and over and over, “Is my book here?” even when no one was in the room, all day long.

As little as 20 years ago, imaging of the brain was limited to CAT scanning, angiography and a barbaric procedure called pneumoencephalogram, used to image the ventricles of the brain, in which the cerebrospinal fluid is drained and replaced with air; even a small leak of csf can cause a terrible headache. Imagine then, having ALL the csf drained from your brain and being replaced with oxygen or helium, then being placed in a torture device which would spin you around like a carnival ride,  even upside down, in order to get the injected gas into the various spaces or ventricles of the brain. The headache was so extreme, patients would actually scream in agony; the procedure often lasted 30 minutes or more, and the headache for 2-3 months while production of CFS caught up!

The physiology of memory is extremely complex and is still very poorly understood, but we have come a long, long way in the last 20 years. Many types of extremely sophisticated neuroimaging are available today, some of which are exquisitely sensitive and can show the chemical and electrical activity of the brain (called “functional” neuroimaging) as well as its structure.

These include:
CAT - computerized axial tomography
DOI - diffuse optical imaging
EROS - event-related optical signal
fMRI - functional magnetic resonance imaging
MEG - magneto ecephalography using SQUID (superconducting quantum interference devices
PET - positron emission tomography
SPECT - single positron emission computed tomography
(Notice all the acronyms - truncation devices used to help remember groups of words, and in this case, long words!)

 Many of these devices can be used to pinpoint with great accuracy metabolic and electrical activity in the brain while the patient is awake and being given tasks to do during the scan.  Stroke patients are scanned to determine which parts of their brains have been damaged; epilepsy patients are scanned to determine the source of aberrant brain activity that causes their seizures; patients with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia are being studied to try to determine what is causing the degradation and loss of memory. It is a science still in its infancy, but has brought unprecedented progress to our understanding of the human brain.

Day 15: Enfin!! On respire! And petit Michel meets a tragic end (almost)

At last!! I've emerged from the constantly metamorphosing state of twilight into the solid world of Combray and grand-mère! 
Directly after the episode of Golo transvertebrating on the doorknob, we have our first introduction to his family, and the first hint of his attachment to his mother: "Après le dîner, hélas, j'étais bientôt obligé de quitter maman qui restait à causer avec les autres... (After dinner, alas, I was obliged to part from Mamma, who stayed to chat with the others)..."

Then we meet grand-mère, who seems at first to be a rather stiff, cold type, who feels her grandson needs to "buck up," and disapproves of his father's coddling. I especially love the image of her standing out in the thunderstorm, her grey hair drenched, face to the wind and rain, declaring, "Finally one can breathe!!"  This image brought a flashback of my early childhood in Landstuhl, Germany.... 

My mother had engaged a part-time nanny, named Helena, of whom I was reminded when I read about grand-mère. She was of very sturdy German stock and would have agreed fervidly with the grand-mère's views of health and hygiene. She got into extremely heated arguments with my mother over the virtues of fresh, cold air, espousing that even in the dead of winter, the bedroom windows should be wide open all night long to allow the fresh air in. The windows were screened and she also felt these should be removed to encourage the circulation of the frigid air.


So, when she put us to bed, under the immense weight of layer upon layer of heavy quilts and down comforters, she would then fling the windows wide open and stand, like grand-mère, with her face to the wind, taking in huge gulps of the frosty air. And I do mean frosty, as she would open the windows ever if it were snowing!!


Of course, the second she left the room, my mother would stomp in and, while chaffing her arms and muttering under her breath "Oooo, that stubborn woman!!", slam the windows shut, lock the handles and shut the curtains.  And not five minutes later, Helena would sneak back in, open the curtains and fling open the windows again!!


At some point, I think my mother realized she had lost the battle and threw her hands up in despair. I can't say that we ever suffered from the cold, fresh air; however, there was an accident related to this which could have had quite a tragic end. And it invoved yours truly. :-)

My mother actually did win the screen argument and the screens were back to stay. However, my mother was never known for her handyman abilities, and it was she who re-installed the window screens in our bedroom.

One day soon shortly thereafter, I was in the bedroom, yelling out the window to get my sister's attention; she did not seem to hear me, so I pulled a chair over, thinking perhaps some height might increase my volume, and while pounding on the screen and screetching a the top of my lungs, all of a sudden the screen gave way and out I went, ass over teakettle, just as my mother walked into the room to see what I was screaming about!!

She said she collapsed to her knees and could not look out the window.... we were on the first floor, but the window was a good ten feet off the ground, and I landed squarely on my head (yes, yes, yes... I know.. that explains a lot... I've heard it before!). Fortunately, I landed on wet grass, and although I was unconscious for several minutes, I did not fracture my skull or break my neck ( although I did get a really impressive grass stain on my scalp); apparently it appeared that the latter was the case when my mother got to the window and saw my motionless little body crumpled on the ground below. She thought I was dead.

But here I am.  My sister, with whom I shared the room, suffered the trauma of seeing me fall and land on my head. But worse than that, she developed a morbid fear of giraffes after constantly hearing my mother tell Helena the windows MUST be shut to keep "drafts" from coming in....she thought my mother has said, "giraffes!!" 

À demain,
Michel

Day 14: Word of the Day: Transvertebration...huh?!?!

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.

Day 13: Of Magic Lanterns and Kinetoscopes

I have finally made it through the wonderful description of the magic lantern, which was put in the young Marcel's room to provide some degree of distraction from his nocturnal melancholy, and, although he tries to enjoy it, it has the unfortunate effect, through its phantasmagorical, iridescent shiftings of light, of rendering the familiarity of a bedroom which had just become endurable into an unrecognizable place, as uncomfortable and discomfiting to him as room in an unknown hotel at which one has just arrived at for the first time (how's that for a Proustian sentence?).

Although I never had a magic lantern, I do remember the eerie, dreamlike scene in Bergman's Fanny and Alexander,

a movie with its own Proustian kind of magic,  where, after being put to bed, Alexander lights up a magic lantern and starts to tell the tale of Arabella...The room is completely dark, and the images projected by the revolving lantern make the walls seem alive - it's a great scene!

It is quite amazing how such things do have the ability to transport us right back into the past; one author who read Proust (can't remember who right now) remarked that she had relived, not recalled, more of her life through reading Proust than she ever could have by just trying to evoke those memories on her own. Andre Gide said, "through the strange and powerful subtlety of your style I seem to be reading .. my own memories and my own most personal sensations." Even in the just the first 8 pages or so, I feel I am experiencing the same thing. 

I've not yet come to the famous "madeleine" episode, and, if you've not read it yourself, I will not spoil the experience by going into detail about it now. I was quite struck by it when I read it in English, and am savoring the moment when I reach it again, but this time in the original French!! Je suis impatient de le lire!!

As for the kinetoscope, it is another contraption which led eventually to the development of the moving picture and is another example of the richly inventive time in which Proust lived: Edison and his discoveries of the electric light, the telephone, and the phonograph; the automobile, the discovery of anesthesia, x-rays, Pasteur and the proof of germ theory, and on and on... How much of it he paid attention to, sequestered as he was in his cork-lined, soundproofed apartment, is a good question!

In other news, my copy of William C. Carter's biography of Proust, also called Marcel Proust: A life, arrived today - all 946 pages of it!! I am like a kid in a candy shop... and am beginning to think that I'm going to need more like TEN years to get through all this!

À bientôt,

Michel

Day 12: Potpourri

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
 

Day 11: Posting change

Dear Readers, Due to the way my schedule works I am going to start posting after midnight, so I will be skipping a day today. In this way, my posts will appear first thing in the morning and those of you who are up early will not have to wait all day to see the posting. Hopefully this will be an improvement! À bientôt!! - Michel

Day 10: J'ai mal à la tête!!!

Je suis déçu!!  À partir d’aujourd’hui, j’avais lu seulement six pages. C’est très difficile!! Je ne connais pas la plupart des mots donc je dois regarder eux en haut dans le dictionnaire, qui prend la plupart de temps.

Wow!! This is so much more difficult than I had imagined it would be! Only six pages read as of today, so I’m not at all on track. But I am hoping, as I trudge on, that it will get easier. It must!  I’m having to look up about every other word right now, and then try to make the sentence or phrase make sense without thinking in English. It makes my brain hurt (I’m SO glad I went to hear the Evensong service at Grace Cathedral - the music calmed and cleared my mind...) but I firmly believe that constantly translating in your mind when learning a language is a huge stumbling block. So, I keep reading over and over and over, and eventually it begins to make sense.  I am even beginning to appreciate the beauty of his writing in his descriptions and choice of words...

Par exemple: around page 5-6, when he begins a long discourse on his successive memories of rooms in which he has slept and describes his rooms in summer:

“...chambres d’été où l’on aime être uni à la nuit tiède, où le clair de lune appuyé aux volets entrouverts, jette jusqu’au pied du lit son échelle enchantée, où on dort presque en plein air, comme la mésange balancée par la brise d’un rayon;"

“...rooms in summer where one enjoys being part of the warm night, where the light of the moon pressing against the half-open shutters, would throw down at the foot of the bed its enchanted ladder, where I would fall asleep as if it were almost outdoors, like a titmouse rocked by the breeze of a sunbeam;" (my poor translation)

OK. So I don’t get the titmouse part... but the description of the moonlight “throwing down at the foot of the bed its enchanted ladder....” That is such a beautiful image... I can hear Debussy's Claire de Lune playing in the distance.

May the moon's échelle enhantée fall at the foot of your bed tonight!

--Michel

Day 9: N'allez pas trop vite!!

Well, that is certainly my motto for today: don't go too fast!! Between being stuck in traffic for hours and trying to find to place to rest my travel-weary derrière, I have done absolutely nothing related to Proust today at all....


I had the best of intentions - I was actually expecting to get a great deal done today, as I am in San Francisco for the weekend and thought, "what fun it will be to sit in a nice cafe and read Proust whilst enjoying a good cup of coffee (or two..)."  But it was not to happen! I forgot that this is St. Patrick's Day weekend and the City is boisterously alive with green-clad hoards, all taking up the seats in all the restaurants and nice cafes!! 


I think I spent the better part of the day trying to find even just one place to sit down and read. I could hear my new iPad whining inside my bag..."but you promised!!"  Within a three-block radius of Union Square there a over 15 places to get coffee. I went to every single one and they were ALL full!! Even at 10pm, I couldn't get a seat in any of the four, count them, FOUR Starbucks within a two-block radius! Infuriating. Who are all these people? Don't they have HOMES??? 


So, I am just now sitting down to write and have nothing to offer except to share my frustrations. Monsieur Proust would be shaking his head, saying, "Il aurait été meilleur si vous étiez restés à la maison dans votre lit toute la journée!!" Well, perhaps I would have gotten more done by staying at home all day in bed; however, being back in San Francisco is marvelous and tomorrow is a new day.


Perhaps I'll go to the De Young and see the 19th and 20th c. French painters tomorrow for inspiration - Proust certainly lived during a rich period in French art and he knew quite a number of these painters personally. 


À demain,
Michel

Day 8: My Shelf Overfloweth

Day 8: My Shelf Overfloweth!!

I will post again later tonight, but for now, as I’m in the total thrall of a new iPad(!!!) I’ve nothing to report except excitement!! I think Proust would have LOVED having an iPad!

However, I thought I’d share my rapidly expanding Proust collection for your reference: (please excuse my citations... I need to pull out my Chicago Manual of Style!!!)

Proust, Marcel. Trans. Scott Moncrieff. Enright, D.J. rev. ed. In Search of Lost Time. The Modern Library, New York, 2003

Botton, Alain, de. How Proust Can Change Your Life. Vintage International, New York, 1998

Alexander, Patrick. Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time: A Reader’s Guide to “The Remembrance of Things Past.” Vintage Books, New York, 2007.

Karpeles, Eric. Paintings in Proust.  Thames and Hudson, London, 2008

White Edmund. Marcel Proust: A life. Penguin Books, New York, 1999.

Foschini, Lorenza. Proust’s Overcoat. Harper Collins, New York, 2008

Carter, William C. Marcel Proust: A Life.  Yale University Books, 2000.

Proust, Marcel. À la Recherche du Temps Perdu: Du Côté de Chez Swann, Tome I.
     Benediction Classics, Oxford, 2011

Proust, Marcel. À la Recherche du Temps Perdu: Du Côté de Chez Swann. Folio Classique, Gallimard, Paris, 1987.

Proust, Marcel. À la Recherche du Temps Perdu: À L’ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs. Folio Classique, Gallimard, Paris, 1987.

- Michel

End of the day tidbits

For anyone interested, here is the original French of the Proust quote from Contre Sainte-Beuve in my last post:

"Un livre est le produit d'un autre moi que celui que nous manifestons dans nos habitudes, dans la société, dans nos vices. Ce moi-là, si nous voulons essayer de le comprendre, c'est au fond de nous-mêmes, en essayant de le recréer en nous, que nous pouvons y parvenir "

-Contre Sainte-Bueve, ed. Pierre Clarac, 1971, p. 221

À demain,
Michel

Day 7: Temps perdu

In French, perdu can apparently also mean "wasted," as well as "lost."
So, am I wasting my time? I believe Proust would have thought so....
Today I read the following from Proust:

"A book is a product of a different self from the one we manifest in our habits, in society, in our vices.  If we mean to try to understand this self it is only in our inmost depths, by endeavoring to reconstruct it there, that the quest can be achieved." 

And, indeed, Proust very firmly believed that the book is not the man, and that knowing about the man does absolutely nothing in terms of understanding his writing. Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, a respected 19th c. critic (1804-1869), felt that the artist and his or her work were inseparable, that one must know and comprehend the artist's biography in order to understand their work.

Proust took great exception to this, and set out to refute it in a series of essays, called Contre Sainte-Beuve (Against Sainte-Beuve), from which the quote above is taken. But how can one discount the life-experiences of an author and say that none of these have any bearing whatsoever on his or her writing. Proust was, I feel, contradicting himself, as so much of ISOLT is drawn from his own experiences: his illnesses, his insomnia, his relationship with his mother, his wide circle of friends and acquaintances who had a great deal of influence on his thoughts and ideas....


I suppose that knowing all this information before hand might predispose one to some prejudice of opinion when reading the author's work; however, as soon as I started reading Proust, I felt the need to learn more about the man and what shaped his life and mind, what might have led him to write in such a way and about such subjects as sleep, dreaming, and memory.


In any case, it is too late now!  I cannot take away the knowledge I have gained. 
"Tant pis!!" I say!


  -Michel

Day 6: Proust the Druggie

Well, today has been a day of listlessness and not feeling well, so I must apologize for the lateness of the post. I did, however, manage to fix the comment posting problem and update a few areas of the blog.

I tucked into Patrick Alexander’s Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time: A Reader’s Guide to the Remembrance of Things Past which is quite fascinating! For one thing, I was not so off the mark when I remarked that Proust must have been on acid or indulging in too much absinthe when he started Chez Swann, with its endless stream of near-hallucinatory images.

According to Mr. Alexander, “With a steady and determined diet of caffeine (one of his hosts recorded his drinking seventeen cups of coffee in an evening), opiates, barbiturates, amyl nitrate and pure adrenaline, Marcel Proust probably consumed more drugs than any other figure in European literature. The vivid and hallucinatory memories that recur throughout the novel were obviously inspired by something stronger than madeleines and herbal tea.” (p.343)

Proust himself writes, “Not far from thence is the secret garden in which kinds of sleep, so different from one another, induced by datura, by Indian hemp, by the multiple extracts of ether - sleep of belladonna, of opium, of Valerian - grow like unknown flowers whose petals remain closed until the day when the predestined stranger comes to open them with a touch and to liberate for long hours the aroma of their peculiar dreams for the delectation of an amazed and spellbound being...”
And, having experienced a few drugs myself in college ( I didn’t inhale...) both voluntarily and involuntarily, I can attest in some instances to the very delectation of which he speaks, and say that it can most definitively open your mind to experiences which occur in a decidedly different plane of being and sensing, and which could not be experienced otherwise.

Alexander also has an excellent and enticing annotated bibliography of his own collection of books on Proust, which will prove fertile ground for further reading, such as:

Aciman, André, ed. The Proust Project. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. A compendium of 28 modern writers’ favorite passages and experiences of ISOLT. Covers all 7 volumes as a kind of synopsis.

For the art lover:
Karpeles, Eric, ed. and intro. Paintings in Proust. Thames & Hudson, 2008. Proust talks about many artists and their works in ISOLT. In this book Karpeles provides reproductions of the many paintings to which Proust refers.