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!

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. 

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!

Feb. 8 meeting

Time for another reading group update.  At this week's meeting, we discussed the second half of Swann in Love and a little bit about the last section of Swann's Way, Place-Names: The Name.  In particular, we talked about the influence of art and music on Proust, his use of synesthesia as a device, the peculiarities of Swann, the constant redefinitions and revisions of characters found throughout Swann in Love, and the painful identification with Swann that many of us felt (for better or worse).

As far as music goes, check out this blog entry about Vinteuil's sontata.  There's also this bit of information about the source of the sonata over at Temps Perdu.  Lastly, we talked about the chronology of the novel and how it does get confusing.  Have no fear as Temps Perdu also provides us with a rough chronology and some contextual thoughts.

The next meeting will be at the Strathcona Library on Wednesday, Feb. 22.  See you then!

Jan. 25 meeting

I'm pleased to report that two new members of the reading group came out for our latest meeting, expanding our numbers and bringing a wealth of insight to Proust that will assuredly be beneficial for everyone.  This week we delved further into Swann's Way, discussing in particular the significance of the "two ways" (Swann's Way and the Guermantes Way), the lesbian scene between Mlle. Vinteuil and her young friend, and the beginning of "Swann in Love," which included the introduction of Vinteuil's "little phrase" and the "little clan" surrounding the Verdurin salon.  Needless to say, there was a lot of important material introduced from our last session.

Other topics included the important of John Ruskin and Henri Bergson on Proust's intellectual development, differences in translation between all of the various versions of In Search of Lost Time that group members are reading, and the shift in narrative voice from first-person to third-person in "Swann in Love."  Am I forgetting anything else?

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, Feb. 8 in the meeting room of the Strathcona Library at 7 o'clock.  We'll still be discussing Swann's Way.  See you then!

First meeting

Thanks to everyone who came out; I think we're going to have a highly enjoyable time reading and discussing Proust together!  Not much to say just yet as our first meeting was mostly introductory with a bit of discussion on what we have read so far (which mostly revolved around the themes of the novel that have been introduced thus far, the characters, and the highly unique prose style).

We're going to keep a pace of about 10 pages a day, so for our next meeting (Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 7 o'clock in the meeting room of the Strathcona Library) everyone should be roughly 250 pages into Swann's Way.  Try to keep track of your favourite passages or topics you would like to discuss for next time.  Also keep an eye out for passages that you feel might be worded differently in the original French or in another English translation and we can compare at the next meeting.

Take care!

First meeting, Jan. 11

The first meeting of the Proust reading group is coming up next week on Wednesday, Jan. 11.  The meeting will be held in the meeting room of the Strathcona branch of the Edmonton Public Library (8331 104 Street) at 7 o'clock.  Hope to see you there!