What are you currently reading?

[SimonNZ]

That being said you really must read Swann's Way because it contains THE key to the roman fleuve, the most important incident in a way. I won't tell you what it is, you'll find out in The Sweet Cheat Gone.

Wait...what? Could you PM me which bit in Albertine Gone (I love that you give it the older title) you're thinking of?

I kind of think the most important incident is an observation almost thrown away,  blink and you'll miss it , near the start of the last volume (re: two paths).

[Florestan]

Is there mention here of the curious development of subsequent events, whereby a predominantly Mongol-Tatar formation began to encroach on the role of the new Rome?

There is a special chapter devoted to the legends created and spread following the Fall of Constantinople and the death (most probably KIA) of Constantine XI Palaiologos Dragasses, last Emperor of the Romans. It mentions some Russian tales but accords them no special treatment. Constantin died childless and unmarried, and by the end of the 15th century the colateral male line of the Palaiologi, his brothers and nephews, was documentedly extinct.

Unrelatedly, it's interesting to note some curious coincidences. The First Rome was founded by Romulus and fell during the reign of Romulus Augustulus. The Second Rome (Constantinople) was founded by Constantine, son of Helena and fell during the reign of Constantine, son of Helena. Make of that what you will.   

[foxandpeng]

Appreciated, gents. Good to know that others have trodden the path before me. Walked the long, circuitous journey. Explored the fulsome, undulating road. Travelled the extensive, meandering byways. Essayed the ongoing, upward climb.

*sounds of creaking rope*

[Florestan]

Appreciated, gents. Good to know that others have trodden the path before me. Walked the long, circuitous journey. Explored the fulsome, undulating road. Travelled the extensive, meandering byways. Essayed the ongoing, upward climb.

*sounds of creaking rope*

When I started Swann I was delighted but my initial enthusiasm dwindled every ten pages or so until it vanished completely and I never finished it. I don't even remember where I left off and I have no intention to start the whole damn stuff over again to find out. 

[ritter]

When I started Swann I was delighted but my initial enthusiasm dwindled every ten pages or so until it vanished completely and I never finished it. I don't even remember where I left off and I have no intention to start the whole damn stuff over again to find out. 

Your loss, cher Andrei.

Then you've missed one of the most beautiful paragraphs in prose I have ever read (it is halfway through À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleur, and can only really be appreciated IMHO if you've read everything that has preceded it, and probably all that follows it as well.

[Florestan]

Your loss, cher Andrei.

Probably, but there are still tons of other interesting things to fill my time so as not to really feel it. 

Then you've missed one of the most beautiful paragraphs in prose I have ever read (it is halfway through À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleur, and can only really be appreciated IMHO if you've read everything that has preceded it, and probably all that follows it as well.

That would require my record-keeping and cross-referencing all characters and events, or alternately having a prodigious memory. Not being in the habit of the former neither having the latter, I'm afraid that paragraph's significance would have escaped me anyway. 

[SimonNZ]

Your loss, cher Andrei.

Then you've missed one of the most beautiful paragraphs in prose I have ever read (it is halfway through À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleur, and can only really be appreciated IMHO if you've read everything that has preceded it, and probably all that follows it as well.

Okay. I'm going to need you to PM me which one that is as well.

I think the second volume is the most page turning and easiest to love and has at least a half dozen of the most important scenes. But I don't immediately know which one you mean.

[ritter]

... I'm afraid that paragraph's significance would have escaped me anyway. 

...but not it's (poetic) beauty...

Okay. I'm going to need you to PM me which one that is as well.

I think the second volume is the most page turning and easiest to love and has at least a half dozen of the most important scenes. But I don't immediately know which one you mean.

Since it is not a spoiler by any means, here it is:

"...Et, comme la durée moyenne de la vie — la longévité relative — est beaucoup plus grande pour les souvenirs des sensations poétiques que pour ceux des souffrances du cœur, depuis si longtemps que se sont évanouis les chagrins que j'avais alors à cause de Gilberte, il leur a survécu le plaisir que j'éprouve, chaque fois que je veux lire, en une sorte de cadran solaire, les minutes qu'il y a entre midi un quart et une heure, au mois de mai, à me revoir causant ainsi avec Mme  Swann, sous son ombrelle, comme sous le reflet d'un berceau de glycines."

"And as the average span of life, the relative longevity of our memories of poetical sensations is much greater than that of our memories of what the heart has suffered, long after the sorrows that I once felt on Gilberte's account have faded and vanished, there has survived them the pleasure that I still derive—whenever I close my eyes and read, as it were upon the face of a sundial, the minutes that are recorded between a quarter past twelve and one o'clock in the month of May—from seeing myself once again strolling and talking thus with Mme. Swann beneath her parasol, as though in the coloured shade of a wistaria bower."

[SimonNZ]

Interesting. What I remember most vividly of all - amongst many vivid scenes in the second volume - is the descriptions of Elstir's paintings.

[Mandryka]

Re Elstir, I like the bit of mashed potatoe in the Vermeer.

The key moment involves two ladies and a photo. You guys are clearly reading it for ideas, I'm reading it for the sex.

[SimonNZ]

Re Elstir, I like the bit of mashed potatoe in the Vermeer.

The key moment involves two ladies and a photo. You guys are clearly reading it for ideas, I'm reading it for the sex.

Seriously: I'm going to need you to PM what you mean by this.

[foxandpeng]

There's no doubt that Proust writes wonderfully descriptive prose. His extended observations of laggard cornflowers, primroses, forget-me-nots, strawberry-flowers and the fleecy clouds and crimson sunsets, mean that it is satisfying in the same way that Mme Bovary is satisfying, or Hardy is satisfying.

It would just be nice if something meaningful actually happened.

[Florestan]

Seriously: I'm going to need you to PM what you mean by this.

@Mandryka  probably means the barely disguised scene of lesbian sex between Vinteuil's daughter and another woman, which takes place in the presence of a portrait of Vinteuil. It's in Swann. (See, I do remember a bit...    )

[Florestan]

There's no doubt that Proust writes wonderfully descriptive prose. His extended observations of laggard cornflowers, primroses, forget-me-nots, strawberry-flowers and the fleecy clouds and crimson sunsets, mean that it is satisfying in the same way that Mme Bovary is satisfying, or Hardy is satisfying.

It would just be nice if something meaningful actually happened.

Indeed, Proust was a wonderful writer of short poetic prose and essays. He should have stuck to it. 

[ritter]

Please stop this political OT diversion AT ONCE! Thanks!

[Mandryka]

@Mandryka  probably means the barely disguised scene of lesbian sex between Vinteuil's daughter and another woman, which takes place in the presence of a portrait of Vinteuil. It's in Swann. (See, I do remember a bit...    )

I propose that you don't ever know that that happened. Read the scene in Du côté de chez Swann again carefully -- do the people in the bedroom know they're being watched from outside?Are they putting on a show or are they really engaged in  S&M foreplay? Read Gilberte's report in Albertine Disparue (Or maybe La Prisonnière) -- is she clear? Is she telling the truth? Doers Marcel believe her?

Relatedly, why did Albertine refuse Marcel's gift of Syringea?

My view is that a central theme of the book is the unkbowability of others.

[DavidW]

I've removed the off topic diversion. 

[AnotherSpin]

If Montaigne said that he was completely wrong. Freedom is the absence of fear of living, obvs.

Freedom is the absence of fear. The other question is what is the cause of the fear.

[vers la flamme]

So far The Golden Bowl has surpassed my highest expectations. James's prose is very subtle and ambiguous, much like Thomas Mann's prose although at the same time also very different. I'm roughly 1/3 through.

Old post I know but just wanted to note that I also found some similarities between James and Mann.

[vers la flamme]

Just reread:



... for the 4th or 5th time, I reckon. Still rate it among my favorite books, but I was struck this time on just how much Wilde owes to J.-K. Huysmans, whose À rebours I read last summer for the first time. Indeed, chapter 11 of Dorian Gray appears to be an homage to that book bordering on plagiarism. Doesn't bother me, however; a great writer, musician or whatever can steal as much as he wants to as far as I care.

Now, I want to read some Walter Pater and John Ruskin.