The Greek Gods and Goddesses Consider Proust
07.17.2011
“A sleeping man holds in a circle around him the sequence of the hours, the order of the years and worlds. He consults them instinctively as he wakes and reads in a second the point on the earth he occupies, the time that has elapsed before his waking; but their ranks can be mixed up, broken.”
—Part 1, Combray, “Swann’s Way,” Marcel Proust
Hestia: Proust’s home:
I am standing before the walls of his recreated bedroom.
It’s a facsimile, I know, but the walls are lined with the same material.
I have known this story for years, but it’s the thing that moves me, that opens the door to my soul.
Look at this harsh desk—lacquered black, uninviting. But the narrow brass bed with its dusky blue spread—this is where he wrote most of À La Recherche du Temps Perdu, lying down, late at night, the cork preventing the light and the sounds and dust of Boulevard Haussmann from intruding upon the unwinding of memory.
A friend of his, the writer, Countess Anna de Noailles, suggested lining the room with cork.
I search all over Paris for the café in which I can write. But what I really want is a cork-lined room, where I won’t need a fan to block out the sounds of neighbors.
Did any writer who ever lived create a better shell to protect his delicate sensitivity? Like a hermit crab.
Artemis:
Marcel Proust, whose Sun in Cancer in his natal horoscope is reflected in his deep ties to his mother, memory and nature. Has any writer ever written so many lush metaphors about flowers and trees?
“It was in the Month of Mary that I remember beginning to be fond of hawthorns. Not only were they in the church, which was so holy but which we had the right to enter, they were put up on the altar itself, inseparable from the mysteries in whose celebration they took part, their branches running out among the candles and holy vessels, attached horizontally to one another in a festive preparation and made even lovelier by the festoons of their foliage, on which were scattered in profusion, as on a bridal train, little bunches of buds of a dazzling whiteness. But, though I dared not do more than steal a glance at them, I felt that the ceremonious preparations were alive and that it was nature herself who, by carving those indentations in the leaves, by adding the supreme ornament of those white buds, had made the decorations worthy of what was at once a popular festivity and a mystical celebration. Higher up, their corollas opened here and there with a careless grace, still holding so casually, like a last and vaporous adornment, the bouquets of stamens, delicate as gossamer, which clouded them entirely, that in following, in trying to mime deep inside myself the motion of their flowering, I imagined it as the quick and thoughtless movement of the head, with coquettish glance and contracted eyes, of a young girl in white, dreamy and alive.”
—Part One, Combray, “Swann in Love”
Hermes:
I am in the midst of the great adventure of reading Proust’s À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, nearly finished with Lydia Davis’s translation of Volume One, Swann’s Way.
“What ravishes me is his metaphors,” I say to Helen.
“Ah, yes,” she says. “I returned to Proust when America invaded Iraq. An antidote. Before that, I’d never made it through more than 40 pages.”
“Same with me. Ouch!” I say as the acupuncture needle pierces my thigh. “But this time I’m finally ready for him.”
“I read ten pages a day,” she says. “And got through about 1,000 pages.” She finishes with two needles near my ankles. “What stayed with me is his definition of genius: ‘to transpose and transform.’ It sounds trivial to use this as an example, but I thought of that watching a documentary on Coco Chanel. Do you know where she got the idea of those boxy jackets with trim?”
“Let me guess. From military jackets?”
“No. From a bellboy in front of an Austrian hotel where she was staying. He wore a little Tyrolean jacket.”
“That’s it! She transposed and transformed the design.”
She leaves me to float down the river of meditation.
I think of the dinner the night before on our friends’ boat on the Seine, of the meal Jeannette created for the seven of us.
Daedalus: the craftsman:
This perspective, this genre, close first person, subjective stream of consciousness, stories in poetic prose, memories of the artist’s life: this is it for me. Memories told through the senses, things, the real.
The tug back to writing fiction, reading Proust.
Yet wanting to continue writing about the present.
How to braid the past and the present? What to call these pieces, bits, threads?
“When all of that was finished, there came a work of art composed expressly for us, but more particularly dedicated to my father who was so fond of it, a chocolate custard, the product of Francoise’s personal inspiration and attention, ephemeral and light as an occasional piece into which she put all her talent. If anyone had refused to taste it, saying: “I’m finished, I’m not hungry any more,” that person would immediately have been relegated to the rank of those barbarians who, even in a gift an artist makes them of one of his works, scrutinize its weight and its material when the only things of value in it are its intention and its signature. To leave even a single drop of it on the plate would have been to display the same impoliteness as to stand up before the end of a piece under the very nose of the composer.”
--Part One, Combray, in “Swann’s Way”
Ares: Proust’s possessions:
In Proust’s room at the Musée Carnavalet, the following furniture and objects are gathered from the three successive homes he held in Paris after the death of his parents: 102 Boulevard Haussmann (December 1906-June 1919):
8 bis, rue Laurent Pichat (July-September 1919);
44, rue Hamelin (October 1919-16 November 1922).
Lit (bed)
Bureau (desk)
Bibliothèque (library)
Chaise longue (chaise lounge)
Tapis (rug)
Portrait du docteur Adrien Proust, père de l'écrivain, par Louise Brouardel (portrait of Doctor Adrien Proust, father of the writer)
Plaque de jade, cadeau de la comtesse de Nouailles (jade plaque, gift of the countess of N.)
Glace à main (hand mirror)
Brosse avec monogramme en argent (brush with silver monogram)
Épingle de cravate, en or et corail, par Cartier (gold and coral tie pin)
Plateau en métal argenté (silver metal tray)
Canne, cadeau du marquis d’Albuféra (cane, gift of marquis d’Albuféra)
Pelisse en loutre (exposée occasionellement) (an otter fur coat (occasionally displayed))
--Don de M. Jacques Guérin, 1973
Fauteuil (chair)
Paravent (screen)
Table de chevet (bedside table)
Table de nuit à abattants (bedside table with flaps)
Lampe (lamp)
Miroir (mirror)
Essuie-plumes en laiton (brass feather duster)
Plumier en palissandre (rosewood pencil box)
Encrier (inkwell)
Montre gousset (pocket watch)
Épingle de cravate ornie d’une perle (tie pin with a pearl)
Agenda, cadeau de Mme Straus (calendar, gift of M. S.)
Brosse de toilette en ivoire (ivory clothing brush)
Brosse à chapeau en ébène (ebony hat brush)
Brosse à chapeau en palissandre (rosewood cap brush)
Chausse-pied en ivoire (ivory shoe horn)
“L’Offrande à L’Amour” groupe en porcelaine de Meissen, d’ après Fragonard
--Don de Mme Odile Gerandan, en souvenir de Céleste Albaret, sa mère
But it is not until I visit the Musée Carnavalet a second time that I see the objects that mean the most to me: a stack of notebooks on the shelves of the bedside table, medium size with lightweight cardboard covers, like the ones that Moleskin makes. They are probably facsimiles, but I instantly know that I’ll settle on this size, this kind, after all my experiments with writing notebooks.
Athena:
After his parents died, Proust withdrew more and more from the world. He was enabled to do so because of his inherited wealth, what Virginia Woolf advised writers to have: a room of one’s own and 500 pounds a year.
“What is meant by 'reality'? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable--now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech--and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Piccadilly. Sometimes, too, it seems to dwell in shapes too far away for us to discern what their nature is. But whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent. That is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates. Now the writer, as I think, has the chance to live more than other people in the presence of this reality. It is his business to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us. So at least I infer from reading LEAR or EMMA or LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU. For the reading of these books seems to perform a curious couching operation on the senses; one sees more intensely afterwards; the world seems bared of its covering and given an intenser life. Those are the enviable people who live at enmity with unreality; and those are the pitiable who are knocked on the head by the thing done without knowing or caring. So that when I ask you to earn money and have a room of your own, I am asking you to live in the presence of reality, an invigorating life, it would appear, whether one can impart it or not.”
—Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own”
Dionysus:
Proust on being possessed by erotic love:
“Swann remained there, disconsolate, embarrassed and yet happy, with this envelope which Odette had handed over to him quite fearlessly, so absolute was her confidence in his discretion, but through the transparent glazing of which was revealed to him, along with the secret of an incident which he would never have believed it possible to discover, a little of Odette’s life, as in a narrow illuminated section cut directly out of the unknown. Then his jealousy had an independent, selfish vitality, voracious for anything that would feed it, even at Swann’s own expense. Now it had something to feed on and Swann was going to be able to begin worrying each day over the visitors Odette might have received at about five o’clock, and begin trying to learn where Forcheville had been at that hour…. His jealousy, like an octopus that casts a first, then a second, then a third mooring, attached itself solidly first to that time, five o’clock in the afternoon, then to another, then to yet another.”
—Part Two, Swann in Love, “Swann’s Way”
Aphrodite:
Proust as (literary) aphrodisiac:
"Proust so titillates my own desire for expression that I can hardly set out the sentence. Oh if I could write like that! I cry. And at the moment such is the astonishing vibration and saturation that he procures--there's something sexual in it--that I feel I can write like that, and seize my pen and then I can't write like that.... How, at last, has someone solidified what has always escaped--and made it too into this beautiful and perfectly enduring substance? One has to put the book down and gasp."
--Virginia Woolf (before she wrote Mrs. Dalloway)
Demeter:
Proust, whose health was delicate most of his life. In the room at the Carnavalet, his silver metal tray is powdered white from the medicine he took for his asthma.
Apollo:
Proust, who circulated in the fashionable Paris salons of the early twentieth century, before retiring from social life to write during most of his waking hours the last fifteen years of his life.
What an unerring eye he has for the snobbery, falsities and malice of the hostesses, courtesans and aristocratic gentlemen of his social circles.
“It was after dinner at the Verdurins’. Either because Forcheville, feeling that Saniette, his brother-in-law, was not in favor in their house, wanted to use him as a whipping boy and shine in front of them at his expense, or because he had been irritated by a clumsy remark which Saniette had just made to him and which, in fact, had gone unnoticed by those present, who were not aware of the unpleasant allusion it might contain quite contrary to the intentions of the one who had uttered it without any malice, or finally because he had been looking for an opportunity to induce them to banish from the house someone who was too well acquainted with him and whom he knew to be so refined that he felt embarrassed at certain moments merely by his presence, Forcheville answered this clumsy remark of Saniette’s with such coarseness, hurling insults at him, and emboldened, as he shouted, by Saniette’s pain, his dismay, his entreaties, that the wretched man, after asking Mme. Verdurin if he ought to stay, and receiving no answer, had left the house stammering, tears in his eyes. Odette had watched this scene impassively, but when the door closed on Saniette, lowering as it were by several notches her face’s habitual expression, so as to be able to find herself, in her baseness, on an equal footing with Forcheville, she had put a sparkle in her eyes with a sly smile of congratulations for the audacity he had shown, of mockery for the man who had been its victim; she had cast him a glance of complicity in evil which was so clearly intended to say: “That finished him off, or I’m very much mistaken. Did you see how pathetic he looked? He was actually crying,” that Forcheville, when his eyes met that glance, sobering in a moment from the anger or simulation of anger which still warmed him, smiled and answered:
“He needed only to be friendly, and he would still be here. A good rebuke does a man no harm at any age.””
—Part Two, Swann in Love, “Swann’s Way”
Zeus:
Like most great geniuses, Proust had profound mystical vision. I think of William Blake, of W. B. Yeats, of Albert Einstein, who said, “We can only draw lines after Him.”
“I find the Celtic belief very reasonable, that the souls of those we have lost are held captive in some inferior creature, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, effectively lost to us until the day, which for many never comes, when we happen to pass close to the tree, come into possession of the object that is their prison. Then they quiver, they call out to us, and as soon as we have recognized them, the spell is broken. Delivered by us, they have overcome death and they return to live with us."
“It is the same with our past. It is a waste of effort for us to try to summon it, all the exertions of our intelligence are useless. The past is hidden outside the realm of our intelligence and beyond its reach, in some material object (in the sensation that this material object would give us) which we do not suspect. It depends on chance whether we encounter this object before we die, or do not encounter it.”
—Part 1, Combray, “Swann’s Way”
Hermes:
“The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
--Marcel Proust
Reader Comments (16)
Ah. Proust! I've read Beckett's amazing early study of Proust, Kaaren, probably about the time we first knew each other.... and I have a volume or two of Scott Moncrieff's translation, some having said it's even better than the French (can you believe it?!) but have only read the first pages.
Perhaps being in Paris gives you a quicksilver slide into it all, which somehow has so much of the last century still circulating about its avenues and grille work, its Arte Nouveau subway stations and secret streets with high up apartments behind blinds, that Proust still walks his circuitous prose over the cobbles and under the streetlamps and in all the finest drawing rooms.
But at the moment I'm (here in stifling Philadelphia) reading (mostly at night) the HD Book of Robert Duncan, just published. And I find it very Proustian, he's maybe our American Proust, because so much of it brings back early memories for him, either an HD poem, or something he thinks that triggers a rhapsody of words, but also his prose moves as Proust's seems to (your snippets supporting it), somehow each sentence being in itself a discovery from first to the final "point final," when it does arrive, early or late. Duncan also takes you with him as he goes.
It's quite amazing. (And again, really, as always, those photographs with your prose are a University in themselves, a very special course on whatever your eyes/hearts/minds turn to. Merci pour toujours!)
Bravo Kaaren and Richard! One hesitates after reading your post on Proust (post-Proust?), let alone Proust himself, which I am also in the midst of, to put words on paper in response. Yet I was, incidentally, comforted to read that I share that hesitation with none other than Virginia Woolf herself. Nevertheless, awed by Proust’s ability to immerse us in a word world so complex, delicate and rich, I appreciate how you and Richard have shared your own deep, and very personal, entry into that world. The expression "Bravo" must be related to the root word "brave." And even if its not, you both are! And I am especially delighted by your inclusion of the excerpt about Francoise, the family cook, and her own rich, delicate and complex “work of art,” a chocolate custard. Proust is one of the greatest “food writers” (and gastronomes) of all time, and this is not in anyway the least of his many greatnesses because, as we know, the world of nature—and some of the deepest and happiest memories of his childhood-- often arrived via his palate and nose, and food was the vehicle. (I think of Woody Allen’s horse-drawn carriage as the vehicle for taking Owen Wilson into our collective memory of Proust’s Belle Epoch) I can’t say that I understand on first reading the tie-in to all the Greek Gods and Goddesses you reference in the post, but I can tell from those that I am familiar with that they add a “timeless” dimension to the appreciation of Proust that only you, Kaaren, can deliver, and you have done it subtly and artfully. And what a brilliant idea of yours to offer haunting photographs in black, white and especially grey. For all of Proust’s evocations of nature and color, I experience his world of 'temps perdu,' and perhaps my own, in shades of grey. I hope, as you progress through the novel, and I hope to join you, that you will give us parts II-VII. --LJH
Dear Daniel,
What a statement, that Moncrieff's translation might be better than the original. We had dinner with wonderful friends last night and met a Frenchwoman who would have howled at this statement. She said, in reading Proust in the original, she couldn't imagine HOW it could be translated at all. My thought was that it takes a great fiction writer like Lydia Davis to do justice to Proust's prose. I'm just starting Volume II, with Moncrieff's translation, rather than Davis's, and am curious to see if it's as fluid.
It is strange, isn't it, how what you need to read shifts as your place on the earth shifts. Reading Henry Miller's "The Colossus of Maroussi" seemed necessary the first time I traveled through Greece. And reading his "Quiet Days in Clichy" is perfect to read in Paris.
You always inspire us, Daniel. I'm going to go buy that Robert Duncan book on H.D., since she's one of my favorite poets, truly oracular, with a perfect sense of music and of myth. She seems to me to be on a level with Sappho.
I'm laughing at your mention of Proust's sentences: "... somehow each sentence being in itself a discovery from first to the final "point final," when it does arrive, early or late." since Proust's sentences always arrive late. They might be the longest ever written, some several paragraphs long.
Life itself is an advanced university, don't you think? You simply have to look around and record it. What could be more enthralling?
Much love to you, dear friend, and thank you,
Kaaren & Richard
John,
It is pure delight for us to read your message! I feel exactly the same about saying anything in response to reading Proust. I read and re-read "Swann's Way," and combed through it for the essence of his gift, and yet, feel I've barely put my fingernails in the water. Virginia Woolf wrote many excellent literary reviews, especially of books by British writers, but she wrote little on Proust. Yet he was probably her greatest literary influence.
I'm knocked out by Proust's writing about food, so love to hear from an expert that you consider him "one of the greatest 'food writers' (and gastronomes) of all time." We'd love to hear from you about other fiction writers and poets whom you consider to be great food writers.
And isn't it sadly ironic that he who wrote so eloquently about flowers and growing things had to insulate his room from the effect of their pollen and smell, since it aggravated his asthma.
I love your comparing the vehicle of food in Proust to the horse-drawn carriage that takes the hero of "Midnight in Paris" into the Belle Epoque.
The tie-in to the Greek gods and goddesses is one that will emerge after many posts: what the Greeks saw as divinities outside themselves, appear to us, post-Freud and post-Jung as archetypes of the soul, the spiritual threads that weave together aspects of our inner and outer lives. Ancient but new, they appeared to me after years of a vision quest. But during the years of talking to interior parts of myself in my journals, I hadn't yet read Greek myth. When I did, I was astonished to find that what I'd thought were the figures in a peculiar, personal quest were mirrored so closely by these spirits of long ago. And that suggested to me that they are the "form" of the ground of our being.
Richard's photos: I love them as much in color as in black and white. But to depict memory, the black and white seem more apt. Do you dream in color? Do most of us dream in color? I think sometimes we do, sometimes we don't.
We're eager to read your next post.
And yes, there will surely be further posts about Proust. Let's exchange excerpts of the best of "In Search of Lost Time."
Love,
Kaaren
Apollinaire said that "Paris drinks the talents of the world". You two will add to it. Have you visited Proust's grave? As I recall, he and Apollinaire are not far apart. Best, Don Kunz .
Dear Don,
What a tribute! Thank you! We hadn't heard these words of Apollinaire. We've spent time in Pere Lachaise, but I can't remember seeing HIS grave. Gertrude and Alice's, yes; and Colette's. And Oscar Wilde's. And Edith Piaf's and Jim Morrison's. So I guess that means it's time to return and walk through the shady lanes of the shades a la recherche de l'espace de Proust.
A bientot,
Kaaren and Richard
Kaaren & Richard:
I'm much too busy to be mucking around on the internet, but I can't help but respond to your marvelous post, both words and pictures, about Proust. Kaaren, I can't remember if you were still in the program when I did my Residency Seminar that featured Proust. Regardless, your post will bring me back to the master's prose once again. It was also inspiring to read Virginia Woolf's almost worshipful comments. You two have created an aesthetic space to be envied, my friends. Sheyene and I wish you well and think of you often.
Steve
Dear Steve,
What a thrill to hear from you. If I'd been in the MFA program at the time you gave the Proust lecture, I'd have been in the front row. Your words mean the world to us. Your leadership (and Eloise's) of Antioch University L.A. gave us not just some writing chops, but a circle of friends who remain the deepest writing community we've known.
My primary goal in this post about Proust was to bring readers to his writing for the first, second or third time--who cares which time, it can never hurt to read Proust again.
You and Sheyene are not only dear friends, you are also the only couple we know who read classics aloud to each other. (I want to hear about it if anyone else we know does this.)
Thank you so much, and a kiss on each cheek to Sheyene and Truman,
Kaaren & Richard
Dear Kaaren & Richard,
What a beautiful reminder of the complexity and depth of Monsieur Proust! I remember being "Proust-resistant" but when I began reading the Lydia Davis translation of "Swann's Way" in grad school, I fell in love with his prose and his melancholy and his utterly surprising - and wonderful - humor. I especially loved that gorgeous passage about Celtic beliefs... it invites us to slow down and pay attention to all of the natural beings (both animate and inanimate) that surround us... to listen for the voices of our ancestors who may be near. There is such hope in his melancholy! Thank you for this beautiful post ~ including Richard's lovely photographs ~ and for drawing me back to Proust.
Miss you both!
much love,
dawna
Dear Dawna,
You, Proust-resistant? I can't imagine that. Are you as ravished by his metaphors as I am? And isn't his attention to all living things exquisite?
I keep hearing others comment on Proust's humor, and that isn't striking me as much as his depth and his insight and the sensuality of his prose. I wish you were here so we could talk more about this in person.
When I read a passage like the one quoted about Celtic beliefs, I understand how much of our spiritual vision is passed down to us by our ancestors. I perceived the spirits of those I've loved who've died, in animals (and in one case, an inanimate object) before I knew that that was a Celtic belief, and I think that's probably the case for all of us with our ancestors from various parts of the world.
Richard thanks you, and I thank you. We're grateful to have a friend like you.
Much love,
Kaaren
Dear Kaaren,
Yes, I so wish I were there to chat with you about this! :) I think my initial resistance was merely feeling intimidated. And, yes, the gorgeous metaphors and intricacies of the prose are breathtaking. In terms of humor, I think what struck me most was in the Combray section, his wit in observing his various family members and neighbors - there is always warmth and acute psychological insights in his humor.
Thanks for your wise thoughts about spiritual vision. Yes, spirits do live on. To quote a very different writer (Sherman Alexie) via one of his characters: "Nothing stops, cousin. Nothing stops."
Love you!
dawna
Dear Dawna,
Yes, just the length of Proust's sentences alone can be intimidating, not to mention the length of the work. We're not ready for Proust until we're in the mood to read something of great subtlety and depth.
Oh, that Sherman. He says the deepest things in such a light, folksy way.
Love, love,
Kaaren & Richard
Dear Kaaren and Richard,
I do love your blog – it certainly captures that ineffable je ne sait quoi of Paris, what Proust called "the grain of poetry indispensable for existence."
Thank you so much for it!
Bon, bon chance,
Nancy
Dear Nancy,
Wonderful! We love this quote of Proust's (and hadn't heard it). Thank you.
Love to you (and give Tristine a big hug next time you see her),
Kaaren & Richard
Beautiful account of your wedding on Crete; we never got all the details. We're doing our best to stay up to date with your writing and photos. All is much appreciated and something we look forward to receiving. More photos Richard, please!!!! The next best thing to being there...
Much love,
Stephen
Thank you, Steve:
We're doing our best to keep up with all of the gracious and wonderful comments. Richard is photographing most days of the week, and I'm writing as fast as I can to keep the muse and the friends of Paris Play happy.
Much love back,
Kaaren (and Richard)