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!

April 4 meeting

At the meeting on the 4th, we finally finished up In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.  It was a long slog, but everyone enjoyed the second volume of the novel very much; it certainly did have a lot going on.

In our wrap-up of this volume, we discussed the differences between the first and second halves of Place-Names: The Place (such as the narrator's intense attachment to his grandmother and fleeting desire for passing girls and how that shifted to his infatuation for the little band and Elstir), the use of food as metaphor and descriptors (which becomes as prevalent as or even more than flowers), the narrator's ridiculous scheming to be introduced to the little band of girls, the narrator's meeting of Elstir and Elstir as the latest creative figure that mentors or influences the narrator (adding to Vinteuil, Berma, and Bergotte), the appearance of functionaries such as waiters and valets throughout the novel, and the narrator's deliberate attempts to find beauty in the unexplored or over-looked.

The next meeting will be on Wednesday, April 18 and we will focus on the first 150 or so pages of the third volume, The Guermantes Way.

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!

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!