"For at such times desire, or love itself, would revive in him a feeling of vanity from which he was now quite free in his everyday life, although it was, no doubt, the same feeling which had originally prompted him towards a career as a man of fashion in which had had squandered his intellectual gifts upon frivolous amusements, and had made use of his erudition in matters of art only to advise society ladies what pictures to buy and how to decorate their houses; and this vanity it was which made him eager to shine, in the sight of any fair unknown who had captivated him for the moment, with a brilliance which the name of Swann by itself did not emit. And he was most eager when the fair unknown was in humble circumstances. Just as it is not by other men of intelligent that an intelligent man is afraid of being thought a fool, so it is not by the great gentleman but by boors and 'bounders' that a man of fashion is afraid of finding his social value underrated. Three-fourths of the mental ingenuity displayed, of the social falsehoods scattered broadcast ever since the world began by people whose importance they have served only to diminish, have been aimed at inferiors. And Swann, who behaved quite simply and was at his east when a duchess, would tremble, for fear of being despised, and would instantly begin to pose, were he to meet her grace's maid.
Unlike so many people, who, either from lack of energy or else from a resigned sense of the obligation laid upon them by their social grandeur to remain moored like house-boats to a certain point on the bank of the stream of life, abstain from the pleasures which are offered to them above and below that point, that degree in life in which they will remain fixed until the day of their death, and are content, in the end, to describe as pleasure, for want of any better, those mediocre distractions, that just not intolerable tedium which is enclosed there with them; Swann would endeavour not to find charm and beauty in the women with whom he must pass his time, but to pass his time with women whom he had already found to be beautiful and charming. And these were, as often as not, women whose beauty was of a distinctly 'common' type, for the physical qualities which attracted him instinctively, and without reason, were the direct opposite of those that he admired in the women painted or sculpted by his favourite masters. Depth of character, or a melancholy expression on a woman's face would freeze his senses, which would, however, immediately melt at the sight of healthy, abundant, rose flesh."
Marcel Proust, Swann's Way, pp. 202-203
We now pass on to the section in Swann's Way entitled "Swann in Love", which recounts, at sometimes excruciating length (even by Proustian standards) the painful courtship between Swann and his mistress Odette. This is our first true, in-depth, analysis of Swann, and he doesn't come across too well. He seems charming, and a bit tragic, but also a person who has wasted an extraordinary amount of time on social niceties, although, to be fair, he is also a product of a dying age.
Growing up in the hills of southern Indiana I have much less to add on the vagaries of society life, although even here I feel a touch of discomfort. Because of the generally hillbilly nature of my family (which, truthfully, now I'm pretty proud of) we were sensitive to issues of decorum in an odd way. Classically, we, through my father's hard work in going to medical school (he was the first in our family to go to college, and I was the second) we had arrived at a new social class, which I guess would be the upper middle class. To be fair, in most ways I suspect my mother was far more guilty of this than my father, who would always joke that "we're just plain folks, your mother and me." We grew up, eventually, in a large rambling monstrosity of a house, which my siblings and I still refer to as the "big house." It began its life as a simple ranch house out in the country, but then underwent two massive expansions on both sides and became pretty huge (and unwieldy). I can remember at a certain point when I new friend stopped by - he drove so I guess I must have been around 16 or 17 - and my mom asked me if I'd like to show him the house. It dawned at me on that moment that we had suddenly evolved a sense of social responsibility, which made me vaguely uncomfortable. It's not that I was dismissive of my father's efforts or my family, but rather that the house had come to represent in my mind in the corruption of both things.
In some ways I feel an immediate sense of kinship to Swann because he is always drawn to a "depth of character, or a melancholy expression on a woman's face." I have the same malady. My friends will joke of my fascination with dark European actresses with terrible secrets. Of course with Swann (and I'm hoping only with Swann) it may also just be a matter of pragmatism. I think it was Milan Kundera who proposed that the surest way to get a woman into bed was through her sadness.
A few of the dark European actresses with terrible secrets that I always love.
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| Isabella Rosselini in Blue Velvet. |
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| Juliette Binoche in Three Colours: Blue |
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| Marie Dompnier in the French series Witnesses. |
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