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.
Am so glad to see your post. I really enjoyed the description of the clothes and the rooms too, in the first part of Volume 2. I m nearly finished the Balbec section now. Wonderful descriptions there too, of the hotel, the little gang of girls, the art of M. Elstir. I get tired of Marcel's habit of getting so excited about something he is so anxious to see or experience; then when it happens, he feels let down; first his opera experience with Berma, then seeing the porch of the church at Balbec, then meeting Albertine. I wish he would just enjoy something for once!
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that you like Robert St. Loup. I like him better now than when he first appeared, but why was he so distant and strange b efore he was finally introduced to \marcel?
It will be fun to watch eht DVDs later on. My daughter says that there is a graphic novel version of Swann's Way; that would be interesting to see too, if we can find it.
Yvette
Yes, the narrator is always setting himself up for disappointment! But remember, this is all part of his learning process and he is struggling with the nagging thought that he is missing something, that external sources of supposed happiness just aren't working for him. That leads him to explore other means of satisfaction, fulfillment, and energy and is a central theme of the novel as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI think Robert Saint-Loup comes off as so cold at the beginning is two-fold: the emotional distance is partly perceived by the narrator because he sees himself as an outsider relative to the aristocrats and he always struggles with ways to learn about them and to approach them. Also, Saint-Loup might have been treating him coldly because he did not know him or perceived him to be below his status, or felt that that was the proper way to treat a bourgeois such as the narrator. Saint-Loup is playing a role just as the narrator is.
The graphic novel is actually available at EPL so you should be able to check it out. There are three volumes in English so far (I think).
I found an interesting site with portraits of many of the characters we encounter in Balbec: http://resemblancetheportraits.blogspot.ca/
ReplyDeleteThat's a really cool blog, Sean! Thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteWe also decided last time that Dr & Mme Cottard seemed to be the happiest and most genuine of the book's characters. Among all the portraits on the Resemblance blog, I think that his is the one that most looks like what I was picturing.
ReplyDelete