“In the case of M. de Nopais, however, the most important
thing was that, through long practice of diplomacy, he had deeply inbred himself
with the spirit known as ‘government mentality’; that negative, ingrained
conservative spirit which informs not jus the mentality of all governments but
in particular, inside of all governments that of the foreign office” (7).
The Claudel
mentioned in this early section is Camille Claudel’s brother.
“ . . .
because words have a great worth and more subtle shade of meaning, for men
whose efforts over a decade to bring together two countries may amount to a
single adjective in a speech or protocol but in which unremarkable though it
may appear, they can read volumes.” (8)
- - --Like the difference between kill (taking of a life) and murder
(unlawful killing).
“Furthermore,
as with all those who are too modest, my mother’s mistake came from the fact that
she always ranked her own interests below those of others, and thus saw them as
quite separate from others” (10).
His obsession
with La Berma is like what I had when I needed to see Glenda Jackson in Lear.
Oh that was a good play.
Copenhagen
Glyptothek mentioned! Loved that museum.
Sesquipedalianism
– excessive use of long words.
“ . . . in
politics, it was a mark of superiority rather than inferiority to repeat what
everybody else thought” (31). Well, that
hasn’t changed.
“The
culture of these eminent men was of the alternating variety, usually triennial
in its cycle” (34). Every thing old is
new again. It’s what, about twenty years
or so now, right?
So Odette
married Swann after Gilberte was born, at times threatening to forbid him access
to the children. Change in laws since Dumas than right?
Jejune –
naïve
A lot of
name dropping going on. How old is he
supposed to be in this early love affair with Gilberte, who is 14 I believe.
“Of
course, Swann many well have known that magnanimity is often nothing more than
the outward appearance of a selfish impulse that we have not yet seen as such
or named” (65).
Look, a
sexual awakening in a garden. That’s
not new at all. Seriously, how old is
he? He’s not at school.
“Odette
stood for everything which had just been shamed” (94).
“ . . .
but then Swann, who had borrowed from the aristocracy Don Juan’s undying gift for fooling each of the commonplace women
into believing she is the only one he really loves” (96).
This narrator
is far to focused on what the mother of his would be girlfriend wears. “Stacy’s Mom has got it going on” indeed.
“Which
is why the artist who wishes his work to find its own way must do what Vinteuil had done, and launch it as far as
possible toward the unknown depths of the distant future. (106).
So is
everything about Bergotte really about Anatole France?
“For
genius lies in the reflective power and not in the intrinsic quality of the
scene reflected” (129).
“Peace
of mind is foreign to love, since each new fulfillment one attains is never
anything but a new starting point for the desire to go beyond it” (156).
“In
love, happiness is an abnormal state, capable of instantly conferring on the
pettiest seeming incident which can occur at any moment, a degree of gravity that in other circumstances it
would never have.” (157).
“ . . .
(that day when according to the guilty, their innocence will be established,
which is never, for some mysterious reason, the day when they are being asked
about it” (160).
“If we
are to make reality endurable, we must all nourish a fantasy or two” (167).
“Things
one may see on or about a faithful wife, which may well have some importance
for the faithful wife, are the very things that have the most importance for the courtesan. The climax of her day is not the moment when
she dresses for society, but when she undresses for a man. She has to be as elegant in a housecoat or a nightgown
as in an walking out dress. Other women
show off their jewels,; she shares her private life with her pearls. It is a type of life that demands, and
eventually gives a taste for, the enjoyment of secret luxury – that is a life
which is almost one of disinterest” (169).
Is that
really the case or is narrator trying to make himself feel better about
women? He gives his Aunt’s furniture to
some prostitutes. It sounds like it is
in one display in a brothel. I can’t
blame Gilberte for being fed up, considering how much he talks about Odette
Swann.
“ . . . I was distressed as an invalid who has finished his
vial of morphine without having another available” (185).
“Neurotics
never believe people who assure them that, if they just stay in bed, read no letters, and open no newspapers, they
will gradually calm down. They foresee
that such a regimen can only worsen the state of their nerves” (185).
Of
course, Odette prefers men to women, look who is telling the story.
On Odette’s
style, “One could sense that, for her, dressing was not just a matter of comfort
or adornment of the body: whatever she wore encompassed her like the delicate
and etherealized epitome of civilization” (195).
This is
why the young girls don’t like you Narrator, you like the moms too much.
“To be
no longer in love is to know that forgetting – or even a fading memory - cause much less pain than the unhappiness of
loving” (197).
“This
explains why every new pain that a woman inflict on us (which she often does
without meaning to) increases not only her power over us, but also the demands
we make on her. By every use of her
power to hurt, the woman constricts us more and more, shackling us with stronger
chains; but she also shows us the weakness of those that once seemed strong
enough to bind her and thus enable us to feel untroubled by her”
(200-201). Odette never did anything
unless she thought about it first, I am sure.
He has
to be young, he keeps throwing himself in the arms of his mom or grand mere.
“For
miserliness, being a vice and therefore at home in any social class, is in no
way incompatible with prestige” (242).
I am not
convinced he was in love with Gilberte.
He sounds like he just liked looking at Madame Swann.
Edition cited:
Proust, Marcel. In
the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.
Trans. James Grieve. Penguin, 2002.
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