Within a Budding Grove (vol II pp 387-88) Notes for May 2011

But before all this I had drawn back my own curtains, impatient to know what Sea it was that was playing that morning by the shore, like a Nereid. (387)

THE NEREIDES (or Nereids) were 50 Haliad Nymphs or goddesses of the sea; patrons of sailors & fishermen, who assisted men in distress; goddesses who had the sea's bounty in their care. Individually they also represented facets of the sea, i.e, salty brine, foam, sand, rocky shores, waves and currents, as well as the skills possessed by seamen. The Nereides dwelt with their elderly father Nereus in a silvery cavern at the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Thetis was their unofficial leader, and Amphitrite was the queen of the sea. Together with the Tritones they formed the retinue of Poseidon.  In ancient art, they were depicted as beautiful young maidens, sometimes running with small dolphins or fish in their hands, or riding on the back of dolphins, hippokampoi (fish-tailed horses) and other sea creatures.

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"...disclose to my wondering eyes the nymph Glauconome, whose lazy beauty, gently breathing, had the transparence of a vaporous emerald beneath whose surface I could see teeming the ponderable elements that coloured it? She made the sun join in her play, with a smile rendered languorous by an invisible haze which was nought but a space kept vacant about her translucent surface, which, thus curtailed, became more appealing, like those goddesses whom the sculptor carves in relief upon a block of marble, the rest of which he leaves unchiselled..."   

 GLAUKONOME was the Nereid of the "mastering the grey" sea. (cf. Hesiod, Apollodorus)

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"...seated beside Mme. de Villeparisis in her barouche..."  (A 4-wheel fancy carriage with a fold-up hood at the back and with two inside seats facing each other.)

Saint-Mars le Vêtu ... or Quetteholme (387): fictional towns near Balbec;   FÉTERNE. The Cambremer estate near Balbec (388).

Within a Budding Grove (vol II Pages for May 2011)

May 5: Different seas (387). Drives with Mme de Villeparisis (387). The ivy-covered church (391). Mme de Villeparisis’s con­versation (394, 408). Norman girls (396). 

May 12:  The handsome fisher-girl (402). The three trees of Hudimesnil (404; cf. I 254). The fat Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld (416).

May 19: My grandmother and I: intimations of death (419).  Robert de Saint-Loup (421). My friendship with him (430), but real happiness requires solitude (431; cf. 664).

May 26:  Saint-Loup as a work of art: the “nobleman” (432). A Jewish colony (432). Va­riety of human failings and similarity of virtues (436). Bloch’s bad manners (442). Bloch and his father (443; cf. 476).  

I said to myself: "Here I am: this is the Church of Balbec. This square, which looks as though it were conscious of its glory, is the only place in the world that possesses Balbec church. All that I have seen so far have been photographs of this church—and of these famous Apostles, this Virgin of the Porch, mere casts only. Now it is the church itself, the statue itself, they, the only ones—this is something far greater."

Within a Budding Grove (vol II Pages for April 2011)

April 7:   My grandmother’s kindness (334). The sea in the morning (341). Balbec tourists (345). 

April 14:  Bal­bec and Rivebelle (346). Mme de Villeparisis (349). M. and Mlle de Stermaria (351). An actress and three friends (352). The weekly Cambremer garden-party (355). 

April 21:  Resemblances (358). Po­etic visions of Mlle de Stermaria (364). The general manager (367). Françoise’s Grand Hotel connections (369). 

April 28:  Meeting of Mme de Villeparisis and my grandmother (371). The “sordid moment” at the end of meals (372; cf. 613). The Princesse de Luxembourg (377). Mme de Villeparisis, M. de Norpois and my father (381). The bourgeoisie and the Faubourg Saint-Ger­main (384).

Balbec is Cabourg

Map showing Paris to Cabourg; click the + to zoom in.

Balbec is the fictional name of Cabourg, a town near the sea in the Basse-Normandie region of France. Proust spent the summers of 1907 and 1914 in the Grand Hôtel at Cabourg. Random walk site.

Gare de Dives-Cabourg, Dives-sur-Mer. From Gregory Deryckère 

Train station in Balbec-Plage (right);

Proust in Cabourg (photos and audio); 


The Grand Hotel still looks like a great place for les vacances  (below)

Getting ready for Balbec

Full text of Place-Names: the Place (at the end of Swann's Way)

Departure for Balbec  according to Waggish

Place-names on the way to Bal­bec-Plage (326).

[p303] Gare Saint-Lazare : Important Parisian railway station


 ..."certain skies painted with an almost Parisian modernity by ..."Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) and Paolo Veronese (1528–88): 

(above)  Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (1626-96)  [p305]; one of her many letters (right)
[p308] "... not the enraptured traveller Ruskin speaks of..."
John Ruskin (1819–1900) was an English art critic and social thinker, also remembered as a poet and artist. His essays on art and architecture were extremely influential in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. He was also a great traveller and travel writer; see this Times article.
[p309] Chardin or Whistler 
[p310] Marcus Atilius Regulus: Roman general and consul; not sure what text his mother is quoting. 

[p311] Villa Montretout

[p314] Mme de Simiane: "Mme de Sévigné corresponded with her daughter for nearly thirty years. A clandestine edition, containing twenty-eight letters or portions of letters, was published in 1725, followed by two others the next year. Pauline de Simiane, Mme de Sévigné's granddaughter, decided to officially publish her grandmother's correspondence." (wiki)
[p322] Trocadéro museum, changed from Proust's time, now contains the Musée national des Monuments Français, which is where M. saw the casts of the statues of the church.
[p324] Quimperlé ; Pont-Aven

Place Names (v I) Pages for March 2011

3/3: Cruel memories (278). Gilberte’s strange laugh, evoked in a dream (281; cf. 217). Fewer visits to Mme Swann (283). Exchange of tender letters, progress of indifference (286). 

3/10: Exchange of tender letters and progress of indifference (286). Approach of spring: Mme Swann’s ermine and the guilder-roses in her drawing-room; nostalgia for Combray (288). Odette and the “Down-and-outs Club” (290). An intermediate social class (295).

3/17:  NEW BOOK! Part 2 PLACE-NAMES:  THE PLACE (searchable text online)

Departure for Balbec (299). Subjectiveness of love (300). Contradictory effects of habit (301). Railway stations (303). Françoise’s simple and infallible taste (309).  Alcoholic euphoria (312). Mme de Sévigné and Dostoyevski (315). Sunrise from the train (316); the milk-girl (317). Balbec church (322). “The tyranny of the Particular” (324).

3/24: Place-names on the way to Bal­bec-Plage (326). Arrival at Balbec-Plage (327). The manager of the Grand Hotel (327, 332). My room at the top of the hotel (333; cf. I 8). Attention and habit (333, 339). My grandmother’s kindness (334). 

About Roger Shattuck

Includes bibliography

Radio Proust has been updated

Have a look at the Radio Proust website at Bard.  Many updates, videos, new photographs, and links to information and courses.

Within a Budding Grove (vol II pp 241-51) Notes for February 2011

p 242 | Grebe:  a diving bird without webbed feet. Really nice photo of a French grebe is here; look at the large size to see feather details. 

p 242 | Cockade : a badge on a hat; more pictures here. 

p 243 | 1928 lithograph advertising Maitre Fleurs Naturelles, an important Parisian florist of the day. 

p 244 | LACHAUME was -- and still is -- one of the important florists in Paris. Probably as expensive as Odette said... [

p 246 | Lohengrin is an opera by Richard Wagner (wiki). Here's a synopsis of Lohengrin at the Metropolitan Opera House website.