Avenue des Champs-Elysées

Jean Béraud: "La Modiste Sur Les Champs Elysees"

View towards the Place de la Concorde

Promenade, with wooden benches (free)
See Wiki info in English and new video

Pages for May

Pages: (Enright/Davis)

Week 31: May 6

The whole past shattered stone by stone (cf. 529/385). Bellini’s Mahomet II (505/368). An anonymous letter (506/369). Les Filles de Marbre (512/373). Beuzeville-Bréauté (513/374). Odette and women (513/374). 

Week 32: May 13  (Finishing Swann in Love)

Impossibility of ever possessing another person (517/374). On the Ile du Bois, by moonlight (519/379). A new circle of hell (522/381). The terrible re-creative power of memory (523/381). Odette & procuresses (525/383). Had she been lunching with Forcheville at the Maison Dorée on the day of the Paris-Murcie festival? (526/384; cf. 319/234). She was with Forcheville, and not at the Maison Dorée, on the night when Swann had searched for her in Provost’s (527/384; cf. 327/237). Odette’s suspect effusions (529/386). “Charming conversation” in a brothel (530/386). Odette goes on a cruise with the “faithful” (531/387). Mme Cottard assures Swann that Odette adores him (534/389). Swann’s love fades; he no longer suffers on learning that Forcheville has been Odette’s lover (538/392). Return of his jealousy in a nightmare (539/392). Departure for Combray, where he will see the young Mme de Cambremer whose charm had struck him at Mme de Saint-Euverte’s (541/394). The first image of Odette seen again in his dream: he had wanted to die for a woman “who wasn’t his type” (543/396).

Week 33: May 20  (Beginning Part 3 PLACE-NAMES - THE NAME)
Dreams of place-names. Rooms at Combray (545). Room in the Grand Hotel at Balbec (545; cf. 8). The real Balbec and the Balbec of dream (545). The 1.22 train (548). Dreams of spring in Florence (549; cf. 554). Words and names (550). Names of Norman towns (551). Abortive plan to visit Florence and Venice (554). The doctor forbids me to travel or to go to the theater to see Berma (559); he advises walks in the Champs-Elysées under Françoise’s surveillance (560).

Week 34: May 27
In the Champs-Elysées. A little girl with red hair; the name Gilberte (560). Games of prisoner’s base (562). What will the weather be like? (563). Snow in the Champs-Elysées (564). The reader of the Débats (Mme Blatin) (565; cf. 587). Marks of friendship: the agate marble, the Bergotte booklet, “You may call me Gilberte” (573); why they fail to bring me the expected happiness (574).

Week 34: June 3 (Finishing PLACE-NAMES - THE NAME)
A spring day in winter: joy and disappointment (575). The Swann of Combray has become a different person: Gilberte’s father (578). Gilberte tells me with cruel delight that she will not be returning to the Champs-Elysées before the New Year (580). “In my friendship with Gilberte, it was I alone who loved” (585). The name Swann (586; cf. 202). Swann meets my mother in the Trois Quartiers (588). Pilgrimage with Françoise to the Swanns’ house near the Bois (591). The Bois, Garden of Woman. Mme Swann in the Bois (594). A walk through the Bois one late autumn morning in 1913 (598). Memory and reality (606).

Swann's Way (vol I p 134 ff). Swann in Love: Notes May 2010

p 134 |Portrait of Mahomet II by Bellini (also used in describing Bloch): 

And Swann felt a very cordial sympathy with that Mahomet II whose portrait by Bellini he admired, who, on finding that he had fallen madly in love with one of his wives, stabbed her, in order, as his Venetian biographer artlessly relates, to recover his spiritual freedom. Then he would be ashamed of thinking thus only of himself, and his own sufferings would seem to deserve no pity now that he himself was disposing so cheaply of Odette's very life.

La maison dorée restaurant around 1860. Wikipedia has a history and this page shows the evolution of the building on the corner. (p. 526/384)

• Les Filles de marbre (1853), a play by Théodore Barrière (1823–77)
• Beuzeville-Bréauté 

Possible letter-writers:

1. Basin, Duc de GUERMANTES, as Prince des Laumes: (brother of Charlus & husband of Oriane). Consistently unfaithful: 481. Swann suspects he wrote the anonymous letter: 506-10.
2. Palamède, Baron de CHARLUS (nicknamed Mémé; brother of Basin). At Combray, rumored lover of Mme Swann; 45, 137. Go-between with Odette: 442, 449, 456. Swann suspects he wrote the anonymous letter: 506-7.
3. M. d'ORSAN (Swann’s friend..."they held the same views about everything", though was said to have indelicate relations with a certain wealthy woman).  Swann suspects he wrote the anonymous letter: 506-8.

A procuress is a female pimp. Interestingly enough, this subject was popular among Dutch artists, including Swann's Vermeer! Here is a discussion of his painting The Procuress (1656); click on the title to see the whole image.  Two other paintings on the same subject are here and here.

Notes from April

Monocles, lorgnettes, and antique spectacles. More than you could have imagined. Right here.

Painting of a footman sleeping: 1871, by Charles Bargue (French)  

Party-goers:

Marquise de GALLARDON, née Courvoisier. Obsessed with Guermantes family; speaks with her cousin the Princesse des Laumes (Oriane); snide remarks about Swann’s Jewishness: 467-77
The “witty Guermantes set” as represented by the Princesse des Laumes.  Oriane, Duchesse de GUERMANTES (formerly Princess des Laumes; wife of Basin, her cousin). Marcel asks Legrandin if he knows her: 178. In Combray Church: 245-51. Friends with Swann: 383, 396. At Mme de Saint-Euverte’s, snubs Mme de Gallardon; speaks with Froberville & Swann: 470-88. 

Marquis de CAMBREMER: Married Legrandin’s sister: I 92, 174.
Marquise Renée de CAMBREMER (Legrandin’s sister; wife of the above). Lives near Balbec: I 92. Legrandin avoids giving Marcel’s family a letter of introduction to her: I 182-85. A Wagnerian, she despises Chopin: 472. The candle incident: 478. Admired by Froberville: 479. Swann & Oriane discuss her name: 485. Swann introduces her to Froberville: 488-89. Swann follows her to Combray: 541-42. 
LEGRANDIN (in Combray, engineer & man of letters; Mme de Cambremer’s brother). Character & appearance; tirades against nobility; flowery speech: I 92-93. Strange behavior to Marcel’s father: 166-67. His snobbery; his wink: 174-82. Lyrical descriptions of Balbec; refuses to introduce his sister, Mme de Cambremer: 182-86 (see also 547-48). 

Pages for April

Pages: (Enright/Davis)

Week 26:  April 1   (1/2 year!)
Return of anguish--pain returns (426/311). The Bayreuth project (427/312). Love and death and the mystery of personality (438/320).

Week 27: April 8
Charles Swann and “young Swann” (440/321). Swann, Odette, Charlus and Uncle Adolphe (442/323). Longing for death (451/329).

Week 28: April 15
An evening at the Marquise de Saint-Euverte’s. Detached from social life by his love and his jealousy, Swann can observe it as it is in itself (458/335): the footmen (459/336); the monocles (463/338); the Marquise de Cambremer and the Vicomtesse de Franquetot lis­tening to Liszt’s “St. Francis” (466/340)

Week 29: April 22
Mme de Gallardon, a de­spised cousin of the Guermantes (467/341). Arrival of the Princesse des Laumes (469342); their conversation with Swann (483/353). Swann introduces the young Mme de Cambremer (Mlle Legrandin) to General de Froberville (489/357).

Week 30: April 29
Vinteuil’s little phrase poignantly reminds Swann of the days when Odette loved him (490/358). The language of music (495/364). Swann realizes that Odette’s love for him will never revive (502/366).

Translators, Biographers, Scholars

Charles Kenneth Scott-Moncrieff, 1889-1930 

Scottish translator, born in Stirlingshire, educated at the University of Edinburgh. Best known for his inspired translations from the French, beginning with The Song of Roland (1919, Chanson de Roland), his letters, collected in C. K. Scott-Moncrieff: Memories and Letters (1931, edited by J. M. Scott-Moncrieff and L. W. Lunn), reveal his own accomplishment as a writer.

After working as a private secretary to Lord Northcliffe, and writing for The Times, he began his famous translations of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past (A la recherche du temps perdu): Swann's Way (1922), Within a Budding Grove (1924), The Guermantes Way (1925), Cities of the Plain (1927), The Captive (1929), and The Sweet Cheat Gone (1930). He died before completing the work (later revised by Terence Kilmartin), but Scott-Moncrieff's great translation is generally recognized as itself a masterpiece of the art, some reviewers declaring it even superior to the original. He also translated Stendhal, including The Red and the Black (Le rouge et le noir, 1926), Pirandello, and Beowulf, and edited Marcel Proust: An English Tribute (1923).  Portrait by Edward Stanley Mercer in the National Galleries of Scotland.    More at Wikipedia.

 ~~~~

Stephen Hudson was a pseudonym of the British novelist Sydney Schiff (1868–1944). He was the host at a party in Paris on May 18, 1922, when Marcel Proust met James Joyce. He and his wife Violet were friends of Proust, and donated their letters from him to the British Museum 

 ~~~~

Frederick Blossom :  Hudson's version [of The Past Recaptured / Time Regained] did not satisfy U. S. publishers A. & C. Boni, who chose Frederick A. Blossom, Ph. D., ex-professor at Johns Hopkins, to make the U. S. translation — careful, sober, with occasional Ph. D. irruptions into footnotes. (Time magazine, 8/29/32)

 ~~~~

Terence Kilmartin was the literary editor of The Observer from 1951-1985.

Translating Proust (partial)

His poem on Proust

Clive James' on Proust essay

 ~~~~

D. J. Enright

Once written, twice deflowered: In search of lost time (Enright review)
D. J. Enright, poet & scholar

                                                                                                      ~~~~

Lydia Davis

Translating Proust

A Passage about Bergotte (partial)

Interview with Lydia Davis
Lydia Davis cooks a duck

• Swann's Ways by Wyatt Mason
• Comparing translations using madeleines
• Additional discussion by Dan Ford
• Scott-Moncrieff's Way: Proust in Translation by Jerry Farber

• George Painter, Proust biographer & incunabula librarian at the British Museum  
• Ronald Hayman, Proust biographer: British critic, dramatist, and writer
• Jean-Yves Tadié, Proust biographer and scholar 
• William C. Carter, Proust biographer and scholar

• Roger Shattuck : Proust's Way: A Field Guide to "In Search of Lost Time"  (Chapter 1)
• Epstein, Joseph. "Monsieur Proust's masterwork" The Free Library 01 April 1998.
• Literary Translation texts: Kirk McElhearn's list of books on the subject. (He's translating Proust on his website.)
• Review of Prendergast series at Times Higher Education

Swann in Love (vol I): Pining & Whining & Dining; Notes from week 25

Bal des Incohérents ::  definition  and Wikification

Ludwig II, King of Bavaria :: The Incoherents and Ludwig's death in 1886 gives us more clues to the time frame of Swann & Odette.  

Bayreuth, the city (Wiki)
Bayreuth in the News:  Wolfgang Wagner, longtime Bayreuth director, dies (3/22/10)
Book about the history of the festival

p 428 | Louis A. Clapisson, violinist turned comic-opera composer. Popular, but Berlioz, Bizet, and Debussy were not impressed. By comparing him to Bach, art-snob Swann was again trashing Odette's taste.

Pages for March

 Week 22:  March 4

The little phrase (374). Swann’s jealousy: one night, dis­missed by Odette at midnight, he returns to her house and knocks at the wrong window (387).

 Week 23:  March 11
 Forcheville’s cowardly attack on Saniette, and Odette’s smile of complicity (393). Odette’s door remains closed to Swann one afternoon; her lying explana­tion (394). Signs of distress that accompany Odette’s lying (398).

 Week 24:  March 18
The Verdurins organize an excursion to Chatou without Swann (403/L294). His indignation with them (406/L296). Swann’s exclusion (410/L300). 

 Week 25:  March 25
 Should he go to Dreux or Pierrefonds to find Odette? (415/L303). Waiting through the night (419/L306). Peaceful evenings at Odette’s with Forcheville (424/L309). 

Week 26:  April 1   (1/2 year!)
Return of anguish--pain returns (426/311). The Bayreuth project (427/312). Love and death and the mystery of personality (438/320). 

Swann in Love (vol I, p 408) Notes on Week 24: Social Changes

The French, as soon as they invented photography and hot-air balloons, went up in the balloons and took pictures of Paris. Scroll down to #10 to see the lakes of the bois de Boulogne.

Genius photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue took this famous photo of a fashionable woman walking her dogs.

"End of century" woman by fashion illustrator Félix Fournery ==>>

From Paris from the Earliest 
Period to the Present Day; Volume 1,
by William Walton, courtesy of Gutenberg.org.

p 403 |A description of Chatou 

Renoir's 1881  painting

Vlaminck's Chatou bridge.

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata: 

A moment later she added, inarticulate with rage: "No, but, really, you see, the filthy creature..." using unconsciously, and perhaps responding to the same obscure need to justify herself -- like Françoise at Combray when the chicken refused to die -- the very words which the last twitches of an inoffensive animal in its death throes wring from the peasant who is taking its life.    ... Madame Verdurin revealed (p. 405).

p 408 | Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (September 27, 1627 – April 12, 1704) was a French  bishop  and theologian, renowned for his sermons and other addresses. He has been considered by many to be one of the most brilliant orators of all time and a masterly French stylist. Court preacher to Louis XIV of France, Bossuet was a strong advocate of political absolutism  and the divine right of kings. He argued that government was divine and that kings received their power from God. He was also an important courtier and politician. (Wiki)

p 408 | Dante's Nine Circles of Hell ::  And who's in the last circle, where Swann puts the Verdurins? (Remember their name is a homophone of "ver du rein" or "kidney worm".  He says: "What a name! ... they are perfect specimens of their disgusting kind!")

p 411 | Victor Massé, French composer, 1822-84.  NYTimes review. The Opéra-Comique de Paris. 

Odette figures: Although the meaning of his tirade was beyond her, she grasped that it was to be included among the scenes of reproach or supplication, scenes which her familiarity with the ways of men enabled her, without paying any heed to the words that were uttered, to conclude that men would not make unless they were in love; that, from the moment when they were in love, it was superfluous to obey them, since they would only be more in love later on.

Tombs at Dreux

<<==  Chateau at Pierrefonds

"... take them to Beauvais or Saint-Loup-de-Naud.." 

Eugène Viollett-le-Duc (1814-79), French architect.  

Another group's thoughts on Swann.

Notes from week 23: Botticelli

 She reminded him, even more than was usual, of the faces of some of the women created by the painter of  the Primavera. She had, at that moment, their downcast, heartbroken expression, which seems ready to succumb beneath the burden of a grief too heavy to be borne, when they are merely allowing the Infant Jesus to play with a pomegranate, or watching Moses pour water into a trough. He had seen the same sorrow once before on her face, but when, he could no longer say.

La Primavera (Botticelli)

Madonna della Melagrana (Botticelli)

Trials of Moses (Botticelli)