Tuesday 27 March 2012

March 21 meeting

During our most recent meeting, we discussed the first half of Place-Names: The Place, which is the second section of In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.  Specifically, we discussed the introduction of two key characters in Saint-Loup and the Baron de Charlus and why Saint-Loup was initially so cold to the narrator. 

We also discussed the swarms of secondary characters that flutter about the Grand Hotel of Balbec, including the young actressed who inhabit a sort of human aquarium, eating their meals in the large windows overlooking the beach but completely immune to the charms of the seaside.  There they sit as an exhibit in upper class insouciance for the "human ichthyologists" (i.e. people walking by who can look in the window to see them) study the lifestyle that will always be out of their reach.

Other Grand Hotel characters under discussion were the lift operator and the hotel's manager, Aimé.  Proust is very keen on filling his world with these sorts of functionaries and we will see the narrative develop with several connections created by such figures.

At our next meeting (which will be on Wednesday, April 4), we will finish discussing In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower so if you can, try to finish that volume.  See you then!

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Portraits of Proust characters

Sean pointed out this really neat blog that is compiling original portraits of various characters (major, minor, and everything in between) found throughout In Search of Lost Time.  Very enjoyable blog, but perhaps you will prefer your own perceptions of these characters nonetheless.

Anyway, our next meeting is tomorrow (March 21) so I will see you then!

Tuesday 13 March 2012

March 7 meeting

This past meeting was another engaging session!  Brad announced that he ordered and received the DVD of Swann in Love, so we will plan a viewing of that in April or May.  We also continued our discussion of the second volume of In Search of Lost Time, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.  Within that volume, we mostly concentrated on the first section with some discussion of the second section, Place-Names: The Place.

Specifically, we discussed parallels between the first and second volumes, how Odette has become more sympathetic or at least more fleshed-out in the second volume, the beauty of Proust's prose (especially in his descriptions of Odette's wardrobe on her walks in the Bois due Boulogne), and some matters of historical context (such as the significance of the Faubourg Saint-Germain).

Our next meeting will be on March 14 and we will be discussing Place-Names: The Place and the narrator's eventful excursion to Balbec. 

Thursday 1 March 2012

Feb. 25 meeting

I was unfortunately unable to attend our last meeting, but luckily Sean took some notes on what was discussed and passed them on to me to post here.  Looks like it was once again a pretty thought-provoking meeting and I'm sorry that I couldn't attend.  As Sean writes, the topics of discussion were:

-Proust's sense of humor in many sections, e.g. King Theodosious character (who is actually a Roman emperor who banned homosexuality)
-The place-name section serving as a bridge between Swann in Love and the next volume
-The change in the point of view of narrator from volume one to two
-"Multiple Swanns" - Swann from the point of view of young Marcel, vs. slightly older Marcel, etc.
-How we are experiencing reading the book - higher tolerance for longer sentences - "breaks" from very long descriptions make reading on easier
-We spent lots of time talking about the visit at Marcel's house from M. Norpois, and his initial encouragement of Marcel's literary career, and later his criticism of his admiration of Bergotte
-We also got into an interesting discussion of Marcel's experience at Phedre - how his expectations were higher of Berma than what he saw, but that he changes his mind after talking to M. Norpois
-Another interesting point brought up by MC is that Proust seems to be playing with the formation of an aesthetic theory throughout the novel

The next meeting will be on Wednesday, March 7 at the same place/time (7pm at the Strathcona Library meeting room).  I hope to see you there!