Thursday 17 May 2012

May 16 meeting

Hey, everyone!  I'm back on track with these blog updates (hopefully).  What can I say?  I am a poor blogger.

Anyway, last night's meeting covered a good chunk of The Guermantes Way.  Topics ranged from the salon at Mme de Villeparisis's house through the death of the narrator's grandmother with a bit more from later in the book sprinkled in.  Not everyone has finished the volume though, so we'll wrap up discussion of The Guermantes Way on May 30.

We spent a good deal of time talking about Proust's narrative choices and his propensity to sabotage his own narrative climaxes, or what would be highpoints in other novels.  He often focuses on the mundane and completely brushes over major developments (with some exceptions).  We discussed how this is a deliberate attempt to re-calibrate how the reader thinks of narrative structure and novels in general.  One example of this is with the grandmother's death.  The first chapter of section two actually starts off with a brief summary of coming events, which is the first time that that very 19th century device pops up.  It's odd that it pops up then because it gives away the death of the grandmother, which is the sort of a plot point that might be used as a surprise in the hands of a different author.  But it's as if Proust is deliberately undermining our expectations.

Beyond that, we discussed the narrator's realization that Charlus is not who he thought he was and perhaps might be rather unhinged, as his bizarre comments regarding the Bloch family show.  We also talked about the masterful passage of the grandmother's death and what it says about social attitudes toward death.

Also, we talked about the La Pléiade edition of Proust, which is seen as the definitive version.  La Pléiade is a series published by Gallimard that seeks to compile the complete works of major figures in French literature.  The Pléiade edition of any particular work is seen to be the definitive version and often compiles annotations and criticism as well as the original texts.  So there you go!

Monday 14 May 2012

Falling behind!

I have been woefully inept at keeping this blog up to date, so my apologies!  We will be having a meeting this Wednesday, though, and should be approximately 3/4 of the way through The Guermantes Way.  I promise to post an update from this week's meeting.  Hope to see you there!