I used Leap Day to catch up on my
Marcel Proust reading. And my laundry. Now, it’s March, I’m doing laundry again, and I’m finally caught up and well into
Volume II. I was keeping a good pace with
Volume I until mid-February, when my son had a week off from nursery school. During that same week, my husband was traveling in Australia. So it was just me and a three-and-a-half-year-old and a bad Skype connection for six days. I planned activities and playdates but foolishly did not schedule a babysitter. Also, it didn’t occur to me that it would be summer in Australia, and that when I dialed up my husband for an end-of-the-day chat, it would be morning where he was, and that he would be wearing sunglasses, a short-sleeved shirt, and a helpless grin.
On the second-to-last day of winter break I was so exhausted that I went to bed at eight, shortly after my son fell asleep. I slept deeply, waking up the next morning with the sense that I was in my childhood bedroom -- that feeling Proust describes so well in the opening pages of Volume I. I closed my eyes and held onto the illusion, wondering if I noticed and identified the feeling because I had been reading Proust or if the feeling itself had arisen
from reading Proust. And then my son called for me to make his breakfast and the sensation of being in my old bedroom vanished.
At that time, I was still reading Volume I, finishing up the last pages of the third section, "Swann in Love." I was only managing a few pages a day, which was maybe an apt way to finish "Swann in Love," with the slow pace of my reading mimicking the protracted period in which poor Swann, tormented by jealousy, can’t get enough time or attention from his lover, Odette. The worst part is, even when he’s with her, he can’t enjoy her company. And then, one morning, after a strange dream, his love dissipates and he famously wonders how he could have spent years of his life pining “for a woman who did not please me, who was not my type!”
This is probably the fourth or fifth time I’ve read "Swann in Love," because even though I haven’t finished Proust’s novel, I’ve returned to "Swann in Love" several times and read it as if it were a stand-alone novella. When I first read it, I was most struck by Proust’s insights about romantic relationships, specifically, the role that memory plays in shaping our idea of a person, and how those memories create a narrative of “falling in love.” We use memories of shared experiences to build a story for our love and then we live in that story, inhabiting it so completely that we no longer see it as a fiction. Falling in love means abandoning an objective point of view for a subjective (some might say delusional) one. Somehow Proust manages to dramatize this change in perception in Swann’s story, making it feel epic and emblematic.
Over the years, I’ve approached "Swann in Love" from an apprentice fiction writer’s perspective, wondering how on earth did he do it? In earlier readings, I’ve thought the genius of the narration had everything to do with Proust’s prose style -- his beautiful sentences and insights, his similes, his sense of humor. Now I think what matters most is the distance from which Marcel tells the story. Finding the right narrative distance is a problem I’ve been tackling in my own fiction, so maybe this is just projection on my part, but as I reread "Swann in Love," this time, I kept thinking about the fact that Marcel introduces the story of Swann’s love affair with Odette as one that happened before he was even born. It’s a story he’s telling secondhand, “with the precision of detail which it is easier, sometimes, to obtain about the lives of people who have been dead for centuries than about the lives of our most intimate friends.”
Marcel never says who told him the story of Swann’s love affair, though there are occasional references to Marcel’s grandfather, who was friends with Swann’s father, and has a somewhat paternal and disapproving view of the younger Swann. We also meet Swann in the Combray sections of Volume I. He first appears as the visitor whose unexpected appearance disturbs Marcel’s bedtime routine, preventing Marcel from receiving a kiss from his mother. In this way, Swann is a father figure of sorts. But most of the time, Swann is like the fun, bachelor uncle whose unpredictable visits and dilettantish, social existence is in contrast to the staid routines of Marcel’s traditional, middle-class family. Swann fascinates the young Marcel, even more so after his “unfortunate marriage” to Odette, the coquette who is not even “his type.” But the younger Marcel of the Combray years doesn’t know her as Odette, he doesn’t know her “type,” and he has not yet heard the story of Swann’s tortured early years with her. All young Marcel knows is that his parents do not approve of the woman Swann has married.
To tell a story well, you need the right combination objectivity and intimacy. It’s important that Marcel’s fascination with Swann begins in childhood. Marcel will always have a memory of Swann that is visceral and associated with his family and his childhood home; he will always feel that he knows Swann in a deep way. That's where the intimacy comes in. The objectivity comes into play as Marcel begins to wonder about Swann and the world he inhabits -- a world that Marcel's parents conceal or else know very little about. Looking back on my own childhood, the most interesting stories were the ones that my parents only told in part. I would have to piece the untold parts together like a reporter, using logic, deduction, and my own observations to make sense of what little I knew -- as young Marcel does with Swann. Marcel’s questions about Swann’s life and his love affairs are essential questions of childhood: what is love, what is sexual desire, what is society, what is class, what, in short, are these mysterious forces that are shaping life but which no one alludes to directly?
A couple of months ago, I saw the movie,
Brooklyn, based on
Colm Tóibín’s novel of the same name and was struck by how well it translated to film. It’s not an especially dramatic story. It follows Eilis, an ordinary Irish girl who immigrates to Brooklyn in the 1950s and has to decide who she will marry and where she will live. Her choices are not very surprising or bold. And yet, in both the book and the movie, Eilis comes across as a brave heroine. Her ordinary life seems larger than life. Even with the period details, there was something slightly out-of-time about the story; it was almost like a fairy tale. Some critics objected to the tone, wishing for something more gritty and realistic, but I don’t think it would have had the same emotional depth without it -- the same mix of intimacy and objectivity. In
an interview with Tóibín, I wasn’t surprised to learn that the story was from his childhood, one he heard secondhand at an emotional moment in his life:
My father died when I was 12. We were living in a small town in the southeast of Ireland. An old woman came to our house to pay her condolences. She told a story about her daughter, who had left Ireland to live in Brooklyn. She never said “America” or “New York.” She always said “Brooklyn.” Like it was a country all by itself. The way she talked about her daughter’s experiences there -- working in a big department store on Fulton Street, marrying an Italian boy -- there was something magical about it. I knew even then that one day I would tell that story.
Flannery O’Connor famously said that anyone who has survived childhood has more than enough material to write fiction. When I first heard that quote, secondhand and out of context, I assumed she was referring to the trauma of adolescence, and that it was her way of saying, “if you can’t get a story from that transformation, you probably won’t get a story from anything.” That’s part of what she’s saying, but having read the quote in context, her main point seems to be that it’s not life experience that makes you a good writer; it’s your contemplation of whatever experience life gives you. More than any writer I know, Proust shows how the half-stories we hear in childhood, the people we meet, the histories and landscapes we absorb, can be excavated in adulthood, with an adult’s sympathetic imagination.
While in college, I promised myself that one day I would read the entirety of In Search of Lost Time after graduation. I made this vow, as all 21-year-olds must, knowing very little of the realities of full-time employment, commuting, and Sunday brunch plans. I also made this resolution at a time when my daily Internet activity consisted of checking my email and maybe, if I was really hungry, the dining hall menu. I had no idea that reading would one day become an activity that I would have to plan.
Unfortunately, the Tadié biography is terrible. So you shouldn’t feel bad that you haven’t read it. (I read it in French and it was quite bad, but apparently the the English translation is worse, as it’s somewhat abridged.) Bill Carter’s bio is much better.
As for reading Proust, go for it! I’ve read the cycle four times, once in English, then later in French. Not to toot my horn, but I wrote something on my website recently about re-reading Proust that might interest you:
http://www.mcelhearn.com/re-reading-proust-memory-and-exile/
@Kirk I’m actually reading a version of Swann’s Way that is annotated by Carter, and it’s excellent, so maybe I’ll give his biography a try, too. Good to know I haven’t missed anything with the Tadie, though I do notice that it is often cited as a reference in articles, and in an recent short biography of Proust by Benjamin Taylor.
Thanks for sharing your essay. It was interesting to hear how the original French compares, and interesting that you found it was closer to spoken French–I’ve always felt that way about Proust, that his sentences aren’t that hard to follow if you “listen” to them. Sometimes if I find myself getting distracted, I’ll read out loud for a bit.
Ah, Hannah, I had to smile….you created a new iPod Habit!
Proust’s wisdom on Habits made me look seriously at a few of my own.
So pleased you are reading Carter’s “Swann’s Way,” as it is the only annotated edition in English. His second volume came out last year, “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower,” and “The Guermantes Way” is being printed by Yale University Press this year.
“And so, here I am, 10 years (!) later, trying again to finish one of the best novels I’ve ever read, possibly the best novel I’ve ever read. (I’ll know for sure when I finish.)”
Hannah, if you took a break while reading the fourth volume, and have now returned to begin again, you must know, intuitively, that Proust resonates within you.
Please email directly, if you need any encouragement. ;)
And Kirk is one our most generous gurus!
Marcelita
PS I will be seeing Benjamin Taylor on Feb. 14th, at the 92nd St Y, New York.
Here is his audio course on the novel (scroll down):
“SEMINAR ON PROUST’S IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME”
Columbia University, Department of English and Comparative Literature
Winter – Spring 2013
http://www.benjamintaylorauthor.com/links/
A favorite:
Antoine Compagnon’s 2013 lecture series on “Swann’s Way,” with English voice-over. Very detailed, one lecture just on the thirteen re-writes of the first sentence!
http://www.college-de-france.fr/site/en-antoine-compagnon/course-2012-2013.htm
Taking a slow pace helps. I did the entire thing 2 books per year (Fall and Spring) and took 4 years to complete. Easily the best novel I’ve read in my life (and I’ve read a number of them). And because it is so rich, endlessly re-readable.Looking forward to reading your posts.
I quit reading after the fourth book because I found the character of Albertine so annoying I wanted to push her (and Proust) out of a window.
I read it in English and at the same time listened to an abridged audio version. So I’d read a chunk and then listen to the corresponding chunk. Now I feel as if I know the book inside and out, so my current project is reading it in French, a bit each night just before I go to sleep. Seeing I know what’s happening I can just go with the French without having to try and decipher anything.
@Hannah, I think the Tadié gets cited a lot because it has a lot of details. But it’s all details, there’s not much narrative. It’s not an enjoyable biography to read, it’s a biography for scholars. (And Tadié is criticized for his overly-scholarly approach to the current Pléiade French edition of Proust, where half of each volume is “notes and variants.”) I wrote a brief review of the book when it was published:
http://www.mcelhearn.com/book-review-marcel-proust-by-jean-yves-tadie/
@Marcelita: thank’s for the kind words! And thanks for pointing out the Taylor course. I recently ordered his book, and am looking forward to reading it, but his course might be interesting too.
@Kirk, you would enjoy listening to the Columbia students’ perspective on Proust.
Taylor assigns 250-300 pages a week!
Taylor instructs them, “Read fast…..because the end is a life changing experience.”
As a firm proponent of “reading innocently,” first-time readers should wait to listen, until they are well into the novel.
Just re-played Class 1:
http://benjamintaylorauthor.com/Lectures/Proust%20Seminar%201.mp3
@Marcelita Thank you for the links! I just listened to a bit of the first lecture and will definitely be downloading them onto my iPod ;) (Actually, I’ve transitioned to a smart phone, which is infinitely more distracting than that old iPod!)
It’s interesting you mention Proust on habit because I found myself underlining a couple of his sentences on the subject in the Combray sections. I love how he describes Habit as “that skillful but unhurrying manager”. I’m about three weeks into reading now and feel as if I’m beginning to form a new habit, but it hasn’t quite taken hold yet.
My book group is just starting to read this if you’re interested. We take our time.
I tried to read it slow and had problems. I discovered that, for me, reading it faster worked better. Even reading it a little drunk is fine. I don’t think of it like a regular book. It’s more like hypnosis. If you skip a sentence, don’t worry. Just keep going. You’ll read it again later because you’ll end up loving it so much. You just need a general idea what’s going on. Swann’s Way is beautiful in itself. It can stand alone. The second book takes up another thread. The third book is, in my opinion, the most dull. And then the story really takes off in the fourth book. The last book is like a lover. It’s that gorgeous and bittersweet. Getting bogged down in the scholarly aspects of it when you begin can intimidate. Later, you can look at all that and discover prisms of other worlds. It can be enjoyed and not taken like medicine.
If you speak French, there is a very good free audio reading of the whole of Proust. I am slowly wading my way through it. I will be very interested to read what you find reading him this time round. I’m sorry to say that he irritates me. He writes beautifully, but he does not know when to stop – but, in writing that, I think I’ve demonstrated how dreadfully I’ve missed the entire point.
PS If you are interested, here is what I’ve thought so far about the audio I’ve been listening to, which I’ve been making slow progress through, (I’m resolving to follow your small-amount-per-day method):
http://www.zmkc.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/the-story-so-far-proust-chapter-one.html
http://zmkc.blogspot.be/2014/10/listening-to-proust-part-two.html
Gosh, fishing for those links has made me realise it’s more than a year since I listened. Thank you for inadvertently inspiring me to return to the task.
When I was in the Navy in 1952 I found a two volume set of Remembrance of Times Past for $3 at a used book store in Jacksonville,.Fla., and I thought that was a bargain and bought the set. After I finished my Navy time and law school in 1955 I decided to read it. Started it on 27 or 28 April 1955 and finished it 7 August 1955. Some of it I liked but some I found utterly boring. Extensive quotations from my comments while reading it are in my “Review” of it on LibraryThing. I have over 5300 books listed on LibraryThing and I have read every one–since I never list a book until I have read it. And I have a “review” pf eveyone listed, and a rating of every one.
Bloggers, please save your Proust pages on the Wayback Machine (aka Archive.org), so they will always be available. So many wonderful Proust pages have already been lost, due to domain issues.
https://archive.org/web/
Example:
http://www.tempsperdu.com
I am part of a group which meets at Fullers Bookshop in Hobart. Over the past 3 years we have met Autumn and Spring.
We meet for 2 1/2 hours each week to discuss and read together Proust
We complete the Captive this week and commence the Fugitive next week.
The experience has been heavenly and a way of “keeping on track”
2017 will complete the journey.
Sue
I’d like to read Proust. Any recommendation on the order of reading the books?
In Search of Lost Time is all one super-long novel, not a series of connected novels, so it’s probably best to start with volume one and read all seven volumes through in sequence, starting with Marcel as a boy and going step by step through his life:
1. Swann’s Way
2. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
3. The Guermantes Way
4. Sodom and Gomorrah
5. The Prisoner
6. The Fugitive
7. Time Regained
It’s possible to read the volumes out of sequence, of course, but Proust was never a fan of dividing the novel up into separate volumes anyway. If publishing would have made it feasible, he would’ve much preferred to bring out the whole story in a single giant book. The novel is clearly designed to be read from start to finish, since it’s main technique is to introduce a theme or image and then gradually deepen and change our view of that theme or image as the novel goes along and as Marcel becomes older and brings greater knowledge to his experiences. I think you’d lose a lot of that development if you read the volumes out of sequence.