My Years With Proust - Day 489

   Physically, too, she had changed.  Her blue, almond-shaped eyes - now even more elongated - had altered in appearance, they were indeed of the same color, but seemed to have passed into a liquid state.  So much so that, when she closed them, it was as though a pair of curtains had been drawn to shut out a view of the sea.  It was no doubt this aspect of her person that I remembered most vividly each night on leaving her.  For, quite contrarily, every morning the ripple of her hair, for instance, continued to give me the same surprise, as though it were some novelty that I had never seen before.  And yet, above the smiling eyes of a girl, what could be more beautiful than that clustering coronet of black violets?  The smile offers greater friendship; but the little gleaming coils of blossoming hair, more akin to the flesh of which they seem to be a transposition into tiny wavelets, are more provocative of desire.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 10-11

"And yet, above the smiling eyes of a girl, what could be more beautiful than that clustering coronet of black violets?  The smile offers greater friendship; but the little gleaming coils of blossoming hair, more akin to the flesh of which they seem to be a transposition into tiny wavelets, are more provocative of desire." In a novel that is dominated so much by love and desire, or at least the memory of failed love and clumsy desire, there are not really that many passages in Remembrance of Things Past which capture the carnal aspects of either.  I love this entire passage, but especially the concluding sentence.

My Years With Proust - Day 488

   The rule that she must not enter my room until I had rung amused her greatly.  As she had adopted our family habit of quotation, and in following it drew upon the plays in which she had acted at her convent and for which I had expressed a liking, she always compared me to Assuerus:

          And death is the reward of whoso dares
          To venture in his presence unawares . . . .
          None if exempt; nor is there any whom
          Or rank of sex can save from such a doom;
          Even I myself . . .
          Like all the rest, I by this law am bound;
         And, to address him, I must first be found
         By him, or he must call me to his side.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 10

As I've proposed several times, there's always more to Albertine than meets the eye, and I hope that Proust reveals more in this book and the next.  Here she is quoting from the Racine play Esther. While there is some debate about the actual identity of Assuerus (some have argued that he's Xerxes, although that seems unlikely) it is told in the Old Testament that he is a Persian king.  Esther ensnares and manipulates him, and in the process saves the life of her father Mordecai and, by extension, the Jewish population living within the Persian empire.  By calling Marcel Assuerus, Albertine is not too subtly, although apparently gently, accusing him of being a bit of a tyrant. And if she's quoting Racine she clearly is brighter than Marcel proposes.  It reminds me of when my ex-wife changed my name in her phone to Don Draper, which I don't think was a commentary on my business acumen.

My Years With Proust - Day 487

   By this time, I would hear my mistress leaving or returning to her room.  I would ring the bell, for it was time now for Andree to arrive with the chauffeur, Morel's friend, lent me by the Verdurins, to take Albertine out.  I had spoken to the latter of the remote possibility of our marriage; but I had never made her any formal promise; she herself, from discretion, when I said to her: "I don't know, but it might perhaps be possible," had shaken her head with a melancholy smile, as much as to say "Oh, no it won't," which meant: "I'm too poor." And so, while I continued to say: "Nothing could be less certain" when speaking of plans for the future, for the present I did everything in my power to amuse her, to make her life agreeable, with perhaps the unconscious design of thereby making her wish to marry me.  She herself laughed at my lavish generosity.  "Andree's mother would pull a bit of a face if she saw me turn into a rich lady like herself, what she calls a lady who has her own 'horses, carriages, pictures,' What? Did I never tell you that she says that.  Oh, she's quite a type! What surprises me is that she raises pictures to the same dignity as horses and carriages."

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 9

I'm beginning to think that Marcel and Albertine may have the most passive-aggressive relationship in history.  Here they are sort of talking about potentially and theoretically entering into a dialogue about the possibility of getting married.  This, doubtless, reflects my own generational sexism, but I always thought of women as being more likely to be passive-aggressive, not because they are genetically designed to obfuscate and prevaricate, but rather because of the structural power dynamics of a misogynistic society; essentially, you find, or construct, your power where you can find it.  However, as I've reached my dotage I'm pretty certain that men are equally at fault on that front.  I have been, and continue to be, in relationships with women who are world class purveyors of the passive-aggressive doctrine.  However, as I've admitted several times, my great crime in relationships is just to fade chameleon-like into the background until I finally disappear, which is really just its own version of being passive-aggressive.

Once again class rears its ugly head - and once again Marx is correct, it's always about class and economic conditions.  However, even here in one of Albertine's most class-defined states - "Andree's mother would pull a bit of a face if she saw me turn into a rich lady like herself, what she calls a lady who has her own 'horses, carriages, pictures'" - she is attempting to play Marcel. "Drown me! Roast me! Hang me! Do whatever you please," said Brer Rabbit, "Only please, Brer Fox, please don't throw me into the briar patch."

My Years With Proust - Day 486

Snobbery is a grave disease, but it is localised and so does not utterly corrupt the soul.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 6

Yes, just as Proust actually sometimes wrote short sentences, I sometimes actually choose short sections. So much of Remembrance of Things Past is defined by snobbery, and Proust's often subtle critique of it, it's a bit jarring to see him add this disclaimer.  If the seven deadly sins of pride, envy, lust, greed, gluttony, wrath and sloth, and it could be argued that snobbery contains at least a couple of these sins, then snobbery should at least be within walking distance of corrupting the soul.  I think I've talked before about the moment when I realized that I was a snob, or at least a propagandist for my family's self-promoted aspirations.  Whenever I would have new visitors to our house in Lawrenceburg I was expected to give them a tour of the "big house" and it wasn't until years later that I realized what I was doing and it sickened me.  Now, that was pride and envy and greed and gluttony, etc.  Having said that, and quoting Tracy Samantha Lord from The Philadelphia Story, I'm the worst kind of snob, an intellectual snob. And I'm an unrepentant snob on that front.  I was just tweeting this morning about my very sincere belief that a big part of the long game played by the 1% in its takeover of the US has been the discrediting of intellectuals.  Granted, it's not solely an American phenomenon, as one of the famous idiotic statements from the Brexit debate in the UK was that they had heard enough from experts.  Still, we've raised it to an art form, and the roots go way back as Richard Hofstadter argued in his brilliant Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.  It's clearly why I have my students read works like the Ramayana or the Shahnameh or Journey to the West or the Quran while so many of my colleagues are assigning graphic novels. So, yes, I recognize my snobbery on that front. Now, going back to Proust's comment, I guess I need to ask myself if it's corrupting my soul.  It certainly keeps me from listening to some folks as readily as I should, although I'm better than many of my peers.  On Twitter I avoid the temptation to disparage Trump's followers as illiterate or in-bred, which many folks, I think foolishly, do (and not simply because it enflames their sense of marginalization and victimhood).  

My Years With Proust - Day 485

   I would ring for Francoise.  I would open the Figaro.  I would scan its columns and ascertain that it did not contain an article, or so-called article, which I had sent to the editor, and which was no more than a slightly revised version of the page that had recently come to light, written long ago in Dr Percepied's carriage, as I gazed at the spires of Martinville.  Then I would read Mamma's letter.  She found it odd, if not shocking, that a girl should be living alone with me.  On the first day, at the moment of leaving Balbec, when she saw how wretched I was and was worried about leaving me by myself, my mother had perhaps been glad when she heard that Albertine was travelling with us and saw that, side by side with our own boxes (those boxes among which I had spent the night in tears in the hotel at Balbec) Albertine's too - narrow and black, having for me the appearance of coffins, and as to which I did not know whether they would bring life or death to our house - had been loaded on to the "twister." But I had never even asked myself the question, being all over joyed, in the radiant morning, after the fear of having to remain at Balbec, that I was taking Albertine with me.  But if at the start my mother had not been hostile to this proposal (speaking kindly to my friend like a mother whose son has been seriously wounded and who is grateful to the young mistress who is nursing him with loving care), she had become so now that it had been all too completely realised and the girl was prolonging her sojourn in our house, moreover in the absence of my parents.  I cannot, however, say that my mother ever openly manifested this hostility to me.  As in the past, when she had ceased to dare to reproach me with my nervous instability and my laziness, now she had qualms - which perhaps I did not altogether perceive or did not wish to perceive at the time - about running the risk, by offering any criticism of the girl to whom I had told her that I intended to make an offer of marriage, of casting a shadow over my life, making me in time to come less devoted to my wife, of sowing perhaps, for a season when she herself would no longer be there, the seeds of remorse by having grieved her by marrying Albertine.  Mamma preferred to seem to be approving a choice which she felt herself powerless to make me reconsider.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 4-5

Proust continues his discussion of Marcel's morning routine, which allows him to bring in a few observations about his mother's response to Albertine moving into the apartment.  His mother clearly doesn't approve of Albertine, but she's stuck in that delicate position of whether to say something or not.  However, when mother's (and for that matter all women) say nothing they are screaming.  Proust continues to presage doom, as with is description of Albertine's luggage as "narrow and black, having for me the appearance of coffins."  This may be the most ill-considered and doom-laden idea until the GOP began pushing the ADHA.

I liked Marcel referring to his article, the one night appearing in the Figaro, as his "so-called article."  I've taken to referring to my epics books as my epics manuscript.  I think book implies that it's already under contract or will definitely to be published, as in you have a long history of publishing books and finishing it is just the transitional stage to it being published.  With that in mind I've just started referring to it as a manuscript because I have so little confidence in being published, although I think it's a promising idea.  Truthfully, while I love research, from envisioning a theme through reading the required texts and following others down respective rabbit roles, but writing is a tedious chore for me.  The other day I was discussing my frustrations with my friend Kathy and she asked me what my biggest problems with writing were; I replied, "I think it's subject/verb agreement."  Granted, while the public schools in Lawrenceburg, Indiana didn't do me any favors, I think I have bigger issues than that.  I'm probably the classic example of Charles Fourier's butterfly passion (from his The Social Destiny of Man) in that I tend to flutter around intellectually to ideas, whereas I would be better served to focus much clearly on one topic. It's not necessarily a completely bad thing because it allows me to bring in a number of different ideas.  For example, last week, while pursuing completely different interests, I found great material for my chapter on the Persian epic the Shahnameh while reading Attar's Sufi masterpiece The Conference of the Birds and the detailed commentary in Nasr's The Study Quran.  Still, if I would flit around less I would be a lot more productive.  I think I'm also held back by a lack of confidence, and I certainly am insecure about my lack of intellectual chops, especially on the publishing front.  Soon, soon, all too soon I'll start referring to it as my epics project, which adds the appropriate additional level of uncertainty.

My Years With Proust - Day 484

   On other mornings, I would remain in bed, drowsing for as long as I chose, for others had been given that no one was to enter my room until I had run the bell, an act which, owing to the awkward position in which the electric push had been hung above my bed, took such a time that often, tired of feeling for it and glad to be left alone, I would lie back for some moments and almost fall asleep again.  It was not that I was wholly indifferent to Albertine's presence in the house.  Her separation from her girl friends had succeeded in sparing my heart any fresh anguish.  It kept it in a state of repose, in a semi-immobility which would help it to recover.  But this calm which my mistress procured for me was an assuagement of suffering rather than a positive joy.  Not that it did not enable me to taste my many from which the intensity of my anguish had debarred me, but, far from my owing them to Albertine who in any case I no longer found very pretty and with whom I was bored, with whom I was indeed clearly conscious that I was not in love, I tasted those joys on the contrary when Albertine was not with me.  And so, to begin the morning, I did not send for her at once, especially if it was a fine day.  For some moments, knowing that it would make me happier than Albertine, I remained closeted with the little person inside me, the melodious hymner of the rising sun, of whom I have already spoken.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 3-4

Marcel's start to his relationship with Albertine isn't going particularly well.  He points out that he was not "wholly indifferent to Albertine's presence in the house," although his joy, if that is even the word, seems mainly related to her having less of an opportunity to spend time with her friends.  For some reason I am reflecting back on the French leader Georges Clemenceau's observation that "America is the only nation in history that, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization." Similarly, it seems that Marcel's relationship with Albertine went from barbarism to degeneration, except in this instance emotional rather than cultural, without the usual interval of happiness.  Could be a flaw in Albertine or a flaw in the nature of their relationship or a flaw in Marcel - or is he just one of those creatures who, I suspect like Proust himself, and, well, probably me, who are simply happier alone.  Proust reports, "And so, to begin the morning, I did not send for her at once, especially if it was a fine day.  For some moments, knowing that it would make me happier than Albertine, I remained closeted with the little person inside me, the melodious hymner of the rising sun, of whom I have already spoken."  It reminds me of the famous line from Scipio Africanus: "I am never less lonely than when I am by myself."  When thinking of Albertine Marcel shares that "I no longer found [her] very pretty and with whom I was bored." Is it her who isn't very pretty and who is boring or is it the world outside of himself?

Oh, and I don't know why this bothers me, but why does my spell checker suggest that assuagement is misspelled?  Granted, Proust was a wordsmith and would often use words that are not a part of the normal rotation, but the fact that assuagement was tagged somehow in my addled brain represents the dimming of the American mind.  It may just be a mood.  The other night I was killing time in between pickups and drop-offs and ended up at a FYE record shop (well, for a long time it wasn't really a record shop, but albums, at least as an audiophile or at least a vanity purchase, are coming back so they can technically be called a record shop) and I was browsing through their Jazz section which was just pathetic.  As I've often pointed out, and which all right thinking individuals acknowledge, America has produce two things of genius, baseball and jazz, and to have such a paltry selection just screams cultural decline.  I've often tried to get the hashtag #NationOfIdiots to trend on Twitter but so far have been unsuccessful.

My Years With Proust - Day 483

The windows of our respective bathrooms, so that their occupants might not be visible from without, were not smooth and transparent but crinkled with an artificial and old-fashioned hoar-frost.  All of a sudden, the sun, would colour this muslin glass, gild it, and gently disclosing in my person an earlier young man whom habit had long concealed, would intoxicate me with memories, as thought I were in the heart of the country amidst golden foliage in which even a bird was not lacking.  For I could hear Albertine ceaselessly humming:

          For melancholy
          It but folly,
          And he who heeds it is a fool.

   I was too fond of her not to be able to spare a smile for her bad taste in music.  This song had, as it happened, during the past summer, delighted Mme Bontemps, who presently heard people say that it was silly, with the result that, instead of asking Albertine to sing it when she had company, she would substitute:

          A song of farewell rises from troubled springs,

which in its turn became "an old jingle of Massenet's the child is always dinning into our ears."

   A cloud passed, blotting out the sun; I saw the prudish, leafy screen of glass grow dim and revert to a grey monochrome.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 2-3

Proust, using the metaphor of dawn, continues to explore the new life of Marcel and Albertine as they co-exist in his Paris apartment.  As with all relationships the two of them share, but also don't share.  Proust describes their bathrooms: "The windows of our respective bathrooms, so that their occupants might not be visible from without, were not smooth and transparent but crinkled with an artificial and old-fashioned hoar-frost."  All of us construct windows "not smooth and transparent but crinkled with an artificial and old-fashioned hoar-frost" with our partners in which we sort of share everything but also deliberately keep part of ourselves from view.  It's why we never want to share out phone with our girlfriend/fiancee/wife: who knows what's on there?  Even if you're madly in love with your partner you still put up the leaded glass, although it could simply be unintentional because you don't know yourself well enough to share everything.

The relationship between Marcel and Albertine seems that it's off to a solid start.  They're enjoying that blissful, stupid domesticity that happy couples enjoy.  Marcel even smiles at Albertine's bad taste in music.  As I've often opined, you start off loving her in spite of her idiosyncrasies and end up loving her because of them.  When I think back on my happiest moments with women they're almost all associated with the quiet, sleepy domesticity of morning: getting her coffee, reading the paper, discussing new stuff I've learned about the world (I'm inevitably the first one up), thoughts on literature or films (I'm considered exhausting in the morning) or simply slipping back into bed for whatever endues. I guess it just represents a very quiet, unaffected intimacy which couples have, and it's sadly one of the first things to go when the relationship starts to die.  Even here in this lovely scene between Marcel and Albertine you can see the signs of decay: "A cloud passed, blotting out the sun; I saw the prudish, leafy screen of glass grow dim and revert to a grey monochrome."

My Years With Proust - Day 482

   When I reflect now that, on our return from Balbec, Albertine had come to live in Paris under the same roof as myself, that she had abandoned the idea of going on a cruise, that she was installed in a bedroom within twenty paces of my own, at the end of the corridor, in my father's tapestried study, and that late every night, before leaving me, she used to slide her tongue between my lips like a portion of daily bread, a nourishing food that had the almost sacred character of all flesh upon which the sufferings that we have endured on its account have come in time to confer a sort of spiritual grace, what I at once call to mind in comparison is not the nights that Captain de Borodino allowed me to spend in barracks, favour which cured what was after all only a passing distemper, but the night on which my father sent Mamma to sleep in the little bed beside mine.  Life, when it chooses to deliver us once more, against all expectation, from sufferings that seemed inescapable, does so in different, at times diametrically opposed conditions, so much so that it seems almost sacrilegious to note the identical nature of the consolations vouchsafed!

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 2

OK, first off, although my friends would doubtless disagree, I didn't choose this section simply because Proust used the word "vouchsafed."  As my friends will lament, I have the peculiar habit of, in showing my support of proposed soirees, that writing, "I vouchsafe this as an event of excellence," which usually happens after I've used the used the word "plenipotentiaries" in the greeting.  Why, who knows?  I'm sure it began as some self-deprecating, utterly Hoosier-worthy, dig at my own vanity and utterly failed aspirations at culture.

More importantly, Proust continues to wake up, adjust to his new surroundings, and introduce us to his new world, a world he's sharing with Albertine.  She is staying "at the end of the corridor, in my father's tapestried study," which seems appropriate since Marcel had as much trouble connecting with his father as he does with Albertine.  Several times I've noted Proust's use of religious metaphors, which certainly would have been more natural a century ago than they are now (when they seem more forced in our increasingly secular and sadly illiterate age).  This passage is no exception.  Proust shares that every night "she used to slide her tongue between my lips like a portion of daily bread, a nourishing food that had the almost sacred character of all flesh upon which the sufferings that we have endured on its account have come in time to confer a sort of spiritual grace . . ."  As we'll see, he also manages to use the word "sacrilegious" to re-enforce the religious symbolism.  In the end we're brought back to the extraordinary opening scene from the beginning of the novel where he waits in his little room for his mother to steal away from her social obligations and see him, and he reflects again upon the night when "my father sent Mamma to sleep in the little bed beside mine."  Joseph Campbell talked about the goal, so prevalent in mythology, of recapturing the oneness with the mother figure, to recreate that serenity that was lost at birth and never regained in this life.

At this point it seems that Marcel is actually happy.  He reports: "Life, when it chooses to deliver us once more, against all expectation, from sufferings that seemed inescapable, does so in different, at times diametrically opposed conditions, so much so that it seems almost sacrilegious to note the identical nature of the consolations vouchsafed!" Sadly, I don't think this happiness will last too long.

My Years With Proust - Day 481

   At daybreak, my face still turned to the wall, and before I had seen above the big window-curtains what tone the first streaks of light assumed, I could already tell what the weather was like.  The first sounds from the street had told me, according to whether they came to my ears deadened and distorted by the moisture of the atmosphere or quivering like arrows in the resonant, empty expanses of a spacious, frosty, pure morning; as soon as I heard the rumble of the first tramcar, I could tell whether it was sodden with rain or setting forth into the blue.  And perhaps these sounds had themselves been forestalled by some swifter and more pervasive emanation which, stealing into my sleep, diffused in it a melancholy that seems to presage snow or gave utterance (through the lips of a little person who occasionally reappeared there) to so many hymns to the glory of the sun that, having first of all begun to smile in my sleep, having prepared my eyes, behind their shut lids, to be dazzled, I would awake finally amid deafening strains of music.  It was, in fact, principally from my bedroom that I took in the life of the outer world during this period.  I know that Bloch reported that, when he called to see me in the evenings, he could heard the sound of conversation; as my mother was at Combray and he never found anybody in my room, he concluded that I was talking to myself.  When, much later, he learned that Albertine had been staying with me at the time, and realised that I had concealed her presence from my friends, he declared that he saw at last the reason why, during that phase of my life, I had always refused to go out of doors.  He was wrong.  His mistake was, however, perfectly excusable, for the truth, even if it is logically necessary, is not always foreseeable as a whole.  People who learn some correct detail about another person's life at once draw conclusions from it which are not accurate, and see in the newly discovered fact an explanation of things that have no connexion with it whatsoever.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 1-2

And so we've finally begun The Captive, and Marcel has begun his new life with Albertine.  I don't think that any of us expect it to be a happy one.  Proust begins with a lovely description of the break of day, which fits naturally into the dawn of a new volume, but also ties us back to the heartbreaking section at the end of Cites of the Plain where Marcel reflects upon the brutally sorrowful morning. "At daybreak, my face still turned to the wall, and before I had seen above the big window-curtains what tone the first streaks of light assumed, I could already tell what the weather was like."  Marcel may be able to predict the weather from scant evidence, but he doesn't show the same prescience in regards to his relationship with Albertine (and he has much more evidence to work with).

As I've proposed before, it's very difficult to read certain sections of Proust without thinking about his solitary existence in Paris as he was rushing to finish Remembrance of Things Past, such as the line: "It was, in fact, principally from my bedroom that I took in the life of the outer world during this period."  It all seems like such a metaphor for Proust's life.  He was a person who was such an extraordinary and intricate student of humanity, and it seemed to be a humanity that he seldom if ever joined. He tells us that Bloch, not knowing that Albertine had moved in thought that Marcel had started talking to himself.  Proust reflects, "His mistake was, however, perfectly excusable, for the truth, even if it is logically necessary, is not always foreseeable as a whole.  People who learn some correct detail about another person's life at once draw conclusions from it which are not accurate, and see in the newly discovered fact an explanation of things that have no connexion with it whatsoever."  What's amazing is that Proust himself, even in his isolation, was able to foresee the truth even if he was cut off from the whole.

My Years With Proust - Day 480

   "I came," she said, "because while I was asleep I thought I heard someone crying.  It awakened me.  But how is it that you aren't in bed?  And your eyes are filled with tears.  What's the matter?"

   I took her head in my arms: "Mamma, listen, I'm afraid you'll think me very changeable.  But first of all, yesterday I spoke to you not at all nicely about Albertine; what I said was unfair." . . .

   . . . "But come," my mother was saying, "you said nothing unpleasant about her, you told me that she bored you a little, that you were glad you had given up the idea of marrying her.  That's no reason for you to cry like that.  Remember that your Mamma is going away to-day and couldn't bear to hear her big pet in such a state.  Especially, my poor child, as I haven't time to comfort you.  Even if my things are packed, one never has any time on the morning of a journey."

   "It's not that."

   And then, calculating the future, weighing up my desires, realising that such an affection on Albertine's part for Mlle Vingeuil's friend, and one of such long standing, could not have been innocent, that Albertine had been initiated, and, as every one of her instinctive actions made plain to me, had moreover been born with a predisposition towards that vice which my anxiety had all too often sensed in her, in which she must never have ceased to indulge (in which she was indulging perhaps at that moment, taking advantage of an instant in which was not present), I said to my mother, knowing the pain that I was causing her, which she did not reveal and which betrayed itself only by that air of serious preoccupation which she wore when she was comparing the gravity of making me unhappy or making me ill, that air which she had worn at Combray for the first time when she had resigned herself to spending the night in my room, that air which at this moment was extraordinarily like my grandmother's when she had allowed me to drink brandy, I said to my mother: "I know how unhappy I'm going to make you.  First of all, instead of remaining here as you wished, I want to leave at the same time at you.  But that too is nothing.  I don't feel well here, I'd rather go home.  But listen to me, don't be too distressed.  This is what I want to say.  I was deceiving myself, I deceived you in good faith yesterday, I've been thinking it over all night.  I absolutely must - and let's settle the matter at once, because I'm quite clear about it now, because I won't change my mind again, because I couldn't live without it - I absolutely must marry Albertine."

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1167-1169

And with Marcel's declaration that "I absolutely must marry Albertine," which most of us could have seen coming, even if we didn't have some partial osmotic knowledge of Remembrance of Things Past, we've reached the end of Cities of the Plain.  That was exhausting, and that's not simply Ramadan speaking.  I should probably go back and compare posts by volume because I have a sinking suspicion that I wrote more on Cities of the Plain than the previous three volumes.  Why?  I'm not certain.  I still think I enjoyed Swann's Way most of all, but I may change my mind someday when I re-read the entire novel and am not tasked with taking notes.  I think I devoted so much time to unpacking Cities of the Plain because it was the volume which dealt with sex the most extensively.  While I'm sure you could construct a compelling argument to the contrary, but I don't think this is true  because I'm a perv, but rather because his observations seem remarkably "human" and "modern."  Whatever one thinks of Marcel proposing, "And then, calculating the future, weighing up my desires, realising that such an affection on Albertine's part for Mlle Vingeuil's friend, and one of such long standing, could not have been innocent, that Albertine had been initiated, and, as every one of her instinctive actions made plain to me, had moreover been born with a predisposition towards that vice which my anxiety had all too often sensed in her . . ." Proust is still trying to delve more deeply into the subject matter and not just rejecting it out of hand as a sin (cue Lady Gaga).  Even if Proust makes statements which seem a tad clunky about sexuality now and then, it's rather amazing, and more than a bit sobering (especially during this age of perpetual GOP war on the LGBT community), that he was talking so openly about the subject.

My Years With Proust - Day 479

I heard myself weeping.  But at that moment, to my astonishment, the door opened and, with a throbbing heart, I seemed to see my grandmother standing before me, as in one of those apparitions that had already visited me, but only in my sleep.  Was it all only a dream, then?  Alas, I was wide awake.  "You see a likeness to your poor grandmother," said Mamma, for it was she, speaking gently as thought to calm my fear, acknowledging however the resemblance, with a beautiful smile of modest pride which had always been innocent of coquetry. Her dishevelled hair, whose grey tresses were not hidden and strayed about her troubled eyes, her ageing cheeks, my grandmother's own dressing-gown which she was wearing, all these had for a moment prevented me from recognising her and she made me uncertain whether I was still asleep or my grandmother had come back to life.  For a long time past my mother had resembled my grandmother far more than the young and smiling Mamma of my childhood.  But I had ceased to think of this resemblance.  So it is, when one has been sitting reading for a long time, one's mind absorbed, not noticing how the sun was passing, that suddenly one sees round about one the sun that shone yesterday at the same hour call up the same harmonies, the same effects of colour that precede a sunset.  It was with a smile that my mother drew my attention to my error, for it was pleasing to her that she should bear so strong a resemblance of her mother.

   "I came," she said, "because while I was asleep I thought I heard someone crying.  It awakened me.  But how is it that you aren't in bed?  And your eyes are filled with tears.  What's the matter?"

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1166-1167

Once again the generations, and for that matter the past, flow past Marcel: his grandmother, his mother, and Albertine.  His crying over the sunset wakes up his mother, and when she walks into his room he sees her as his grandmother.  It's a mistake that actually pleases his mother: "It was with a smile that my mother drew my attention to my error, for it was pleasing to her that she should bear so strong a resemblance of her mother."  I think as we grow older we are either proud or horrified by our similarity, physical and emotional, to our parents, and it's clear that at this point in her life Marcel's mother is pleased with the similarity.  I keep coming to the reason why Marcel is so fixated on Albertine, and we've certainly discussed a number of theories.  In the end I wonder if he is simply because of his growing sense of his role in this generational parade, in that you fall in love or you get married (and sometimes actually both) because it's your turn to do so, not because you are naturally driven to do either.

My Years With Proust - Day 478

   I had ceased for a moment to hear these words ringing in my ear while Albertine had been with me just now.  While kissing her, as I used to kiss my mother at Combray, to calm my anguish, I believed almost in Albertine's innocence, or at least did not think continuously of the discovery that I had made of her vice.  But now that I was alone the words rang out afresh like those noises inside the ear which one hears as soon as someone stops talking to one.  Her vice now seemed o me to be beyond any doubt.  The light of approaching sunrise, by modifying the appearance of things around me, made me once again, as if for a moment I were shifting my position in relation to it, even more bitterly aware of my suffering.  I had never seen the dawn of so beautiful or so sorrowful a morning.  And thinking of all the indifferent landscapes which were about to be lit up and which, only yesterday, would have filled me simply with the desire to visit them, I could not repress a sob when, with a gesture of oblation mechanically performed and symbolising, in my eyes, the bloody sacrifice which I was about to have to make of all joy, every morning, until the end of my life a solemn renewal, celebrated as every day dawned, or my daily grief and of the blood from my wound, the golden egg of the sun, as though propelled by the rupture of equilibrium brought about at the moment of coagulation by a change of density, barbed with tongues of flame as in a painting, burst through the curtain behind which one had sensed it quivering for a moment, ready to appear on the scene and to spring forward, and whose mysterious frozen purple it annihilated in a flood of light.  I heard myself weeping.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 1166

You know, it's easy to tweak Proust for producing overly florid prose, but few people have ever written so beautifully.  Most of us would be staring at the sunrise, feeling blue and trying to sort out our feelings for our pretend girlfriend.  For Proust, however: "I had never seen the dawn of so beautiful or so sorrowful a morning.  And thinking of all the indifferent landscapes which were about to be lit up and which, only yesterday, would have filled me simply with the desire to visit them, I could not repress a sob when, with a gesture of oblation mechanically performed and symbolising, in my eyes, the bloody sacrifice which I was about to have to make of all joy, every morning, until the end of my life a solemn renewal, celebrated as every day dawned, or my daily grief and of the blood from my wound . . ."  For me, beyond being blown away again by Proust's craft, what I'm trying to sort out is the nature of Marcel's "bloody sacrifice"?  Is the sacrifice cutting Albertine, his great love, loose or is it marrying her?  Does Marcel have such a messianic sense of his self, and of his own suffering, that he would marry Albertine solely to keep her from pursuing her own sapphic proclivities?  I don't use the word messianic light here.  How can you read this torrent of "blood" and "wound" and "sacrifice" and "oblation" without going there.

I'm also taken by his description of "so beautiful or so sorrowful a morning."  Can sorrow be beautiful? Certainly, it can in the realm of art.  You can't listen to Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony, the "Pathetique", without understanding the beauty of sorrow.  Or the famous plastic bag scene, with the Thomas Newman score, from American Beauty. But, again, this is art.  What about real life itself?  If there is beauty in perfection, then would not perfect sorrow be beautiful?  Hmm, I need to brood over this.

My Own Personal Doctor Zhivago

For a person who has the reputation of brutalizing his students, to inculcating "an environment of intimidation" (to quote an infamous yearly review, I sure spend a lot of time with my students. That usually takes the form of endless impromptu discussions around campus or scheduled coffee chats (with me usually paying for the coffee).  However, this year it's also taken on the form of me being drafted for more student projects.  I appeared in a play, two student films, and did the voice over for a video game.  In all of these I was painfully inept, but they keep asking anyway.  My theory, at least my current theory, is that they just do this so that they can say that they talked me into it - or maybe they just like to turn the tables and get to boss me around for once.  One of the films was written and directed by my student Katie Lawrence, who was one of the students that I led to Spain and Portugal last November.  It was an interesting idea, and I might even include the dialogue if I can locate the script. The biggest problem was that we filmed it on a pretty bitter day right down on the lake, with the wind howling in off the water.  Katie envisioned the exchange between the characters, an optimistic young blind woman (spoiler alert) and a disillusioned older man (I won't tell you who I played) happening in warm weather and she clung to it like grim death (almost that of the actors) despite a spring storm.  It was a lot of fun, despite me falling twice on the ice and at the end starting to forget my lines because of creeping hypothermia.  I've now sworn off all student films, at least until the next one.

This scene and the words windbreaker should never go together.

The crew, who, unlike the actors, wore winter coats and wrapped themselves in blankets.

In one of the odder, and crueler, moments, my good friend Kelly Thomas had a walk-on (giving money to a homeless man, which she, a naturally good soul, would do in real life) was allowed to wear a coat.  I love the look on her face.

Prepping for the shoot, and the lead actress was very good.

Katie, the mad director.  My secret theory is that she didn't actually film anything and concocted this entire scenery to prank me (or maybe kill me).

My Years With Proust - Day 477

   What a deceptive sense sight is! A human body, even a beloved one, as Albertine's was, seems to us, from a few yards, from a few inches away, remote from us.  And similarly with the soul that inhabits it. But if something brings about a violent change in the position of that soul in relation to us, shows us that it is in love with others and not with us, then by the beating of our shattered heart we feel that it is not a few feet away from us but within us that the beloved creature was.  Within us, in regions more or less superficial.  But the words: "That friend is Mlle Vinteuil" had been the Open sesame, which I should have been incapable of discovering by myself, that had made Albertine penetrate to the depths of my lacerated heart.  And I might search for a hundred years without discovering how the open the door that had closed behind her.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1165-1166

Marcel is getting closer to figuring out his relationship with Albertine, although he's still focusing more on effect than cause. At the very least it's now clear to him that it's not her, but rather the specter of not having her which is driving him crazy.  Proust proposes that the two of them, or I guess any two people who are "supposed" to be in love are separate creatures, but are only united when jealousy rears its ugly head. "But if something brings about a violent change in the position of that soul in relation to us, shows us that it is in love with others and not with us, then by the beating of our shattered heart we feel that it is not a few feet away from us but within us that the beloved creature was."  Again, this brings us back to one of the central themes of our discussion of Remembrance of Things Past: is love just about possession, which means that it's a question of power?

My Years With Proust - Day 476

   Two or three times it occurred to me, for a moment, that the world in which this room and these bookshelves were situated, and in which Albertine counted for so little, was perhaps an intellectual world, which was the sole reality, and my grief something like what we feel when we read a novel, a thing of which only a madman would make a lasting and permanent grief that prolonged itself through his life; that a tiny flicker of my will would suffice, perhaps, to attain to this real world, to re-enter it by breaking through my grief as one breaks through a paper hoop, and to think no more about what Albertine had done than we think about the actions of the imaginary heroine of a novel after we have finished reading it.  For that matter, the mistresses whom I have loved most passionately have never coincided with my love for them.  That love was genuine, since I subordinated everything else to seeing them, keeping them for myself alone, and would weep aloud if, one evening, I had waited for them in vain.  But it was more because they had the faculty of arousing that love, of raising it to a paroxysm, than because they were its image.  When I saw them, when I heard their voices, I could find nothing in them which resembled my love and could account for it.  And yet my sole joy lay in seeing them, my sole anxiety in waiting for them to come.  It was as though a virtue that had no connexion with them had been artificially attached to them by nature, and that this virtue, this quasi-electric power, had the effect upon me of exciting my love, that is to say of controlling all my actions and causing all my sufferings.  But from this, the beauty, or the intelligence, or the kindness of these women was entirely distinct.  As by an electric current that gives us a shock, I have been shaken by my loves, I have lived them, I have felt them: never have I succeeded in seeing or thinking them.  Indeed I am inclined to believe that in these relationships (I leave out of account the physical pleasure which is their habitual accompaniment but is not enough in itself to constitute them), beneath the outward appearance of the woman, it is to those invisible forces with which she is incidentally accompanied that we address ourselves as to obscure deities.  It is they whose good will is necessary to us, with whom we seek to establish contact without finding any positive pleasure in it.  The woman herself, during our assignation with her, does little more than put us in touch with these goddesses.  We have, by way of oblation, promised jewels and travels, uttered incantations which mean that we adore and, at the same time, contrary incantations which mean that we indifferent.  We have used all our power to obtain a fresh assignation, but one that is accorded to us without constraint.  Would we in fact go to so much trouble for the woman herself, if she were not complemented by these occult forces, considering that, once she has left us, we are unable to say how she was dressed and realise that we never even looked at her?

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1164-1165

As my most excellent friend Mike Kelly would opine, Proust just laid some truth on us.  Proust is reflecting upon why Marcel loves Albertine - and, for that matter, why any of us love the women in our lives.  This is especially vexing because "once she has left us, we are unable to say how she was dressed and realise that we never even looked at her?"  This is a tough question, and one that we can seldom figure out, and I suspect that Proust would have argued that it is beyond rational analysis.  He points out, "I have been shaken by my loves, I have lived them, I have felt them: never have I succeeded in seeing or thinking them." If love is not something we can see or think about - or to think of it another way, physically quantify or rationally conceive - then is it truly something beyond the confines of this tangible world?  For the present Proust leaves out the sexual realm: "the physical pleasure which is their habitual accompaniment but is not enough in itself to constitute them."  Instead, he notes, "Indeed I am inclined to believe that in these relationships . . . beneath the outward appearance of the woman, it is to those invisible forces with which she is incidentally accompanied that we address ourselves as to obscure deities.  It is they whose good will is necessary to us, with whom we seek to establish contact without finding any positive pleasure in it.  The woman herself, during our assignation with her, does little more than put us in touch with these goddesses."  It is to these invisible forces, these goddesses, that we offer jewels and travels as oblations. Now, do we believe this? And if we believe it do we instinctually know that we believe it?  And if we instinctually know this does it consciously impact our pursuit of women?  I don't know if any of these questions can be answered in the affirmative, and, truthfully, Proust may just be speaking metaphorically.  That said, when we're lying in bed with the woman we love and are sated with post-coital endorphin tsunami, aren't we as close to a profound oneness with the mystic as we'll ever be?  Maybe that the true difference between lust and love.  With lust your chasing down that moment of orgasmic release, and with love your focused on the half-hour after orgasmic release.

My Years With Proust - Day 475

I had not got there yet.  I had to face only the despairing entreaties of the manager.  I ushered him out of the room, for I was afraid that, although he kept his voice low, he would end by disturbing Mamma.  I remained alone in my room, that room with the too lofty ceiling in which I had been so wretched on my first arrival, in which I had thought with such longing of Mlle de Stermaria, had watched for the appearance of Albertine and her friends, like migratory birds alighting upon the beach, in which I had possessed her with such indifference that I had sent the lift-boy to fetch her, in which I had experienced my grandmother's kindness, then realised that she was dead; those shutters, beneath which shone the early morning light, I had opened the first time to look out upon the first ramparts of the sea (those shutters which Albertine made me close in case anybody should see us kissing).  I became aware of my own transformations by contracting them with the unchangingness of my surroundings.  One grows accustomed to these as to people, and when, all of a sudden, one recalls the different meanings that they used to convey to one and then, after they had lost all meaning, the events, very different from those of to-day, which they enshrined, the diversity of the acts performed beneath the same ceiling, between the same glazed bookshelves, the change in one's heart and in one's life which that diversity implies, seem to be increased still further by the unalterable permanence of the setting, reinforced by the unity of the scene.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1163-1164

"I became aware of my own transformations by contracting them with the unchangingness of my surroundings." Marcel is leaving Balbec for a return to Paris and suddenly an incredible flood of memories, most, not surprisingly, related to love and loss and longing: "I had thought with such longing of Mlle de Stermaria, had watched for the appearance of Albertine and her friends, like migratory birds alighting upon the beach, in which I had possessed her with such indifference that I had sent the lift-boy to fetch her, in which I had experienced my grandmother's kindness, then realised that she was dead . . ." He is made more melancholy by the realization of the utter transience of life, the unbearable lightness of being, is only re-enforced by the "unchangingness" of the room itself: "One grows accustomed to these as to people, and when, all of a sudden, one recalls the different meanings that they used to convey to one and then, after they had lost all meaning, the events, very different from those of to-day, which they enshrined, the diversity of the acts performed beneath the same ceiling, between the same glazed bookshelves, the change in one's heart and in one's life which that diversity implies, seem to be increased still further by the unalterable permanence of the setting, reinforced by the unity of the scene." As the Sufi Junayd reminds us, "Whosoever is between the two vanishings is now vanishing." I think of places, whether they are apartments or hotel rooms or busy street corners or tropical beaches or well-worn sylvan paths where I had similar realizations, and the more romantic side of my nature thinks that they are still populated by our ghosts.  I wonder if we return to these spots to recapture memories or to free the ghosts, ours certainly, but also those of the friends and lovers trapped there?

My Years With Proust - Day 474

   Albertine's neck, which emerged in its entirety from her nightdress, was strongly built, bronzed, grainy in texture.  I kissed it as purely as if I had been kissing my mother to calm a childish grief which I did not believe that I would ever be able to eradicate from my heart.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 1162

Marcel continues to try and convince Albertine to come live with him in Paris.  The next couple posts will be longer and deal with more substantive issues, but I felt inclined to include this very brief snippet, only two lines long, because I think it hints at something profound.  I cannot read his description of Albertine neck, which "was strongly built, bronzed, grainy in texture," which brings us back to the question of Proust's own sexuality.  Granted, Albertine and her friends were "sporty", but the physical description isn't what one would associate with female beauty, especially from a certain class, at that age.  Marcel kisses her neck "purely as if I had been kissing my mother."  For a person who has fits of passionate jealousy, he never seems to be particularly passionate about Albertine; that is, she seems more of an ideal than a woman. It bring me back again to that famous opening sequence where Proust talks about waiting in his room for his mother to, hopefully, spirit herself away from her social duties and come see him.  I know this sounds terribly Freudian, but is all of this about his quest for his mother's love?  I don't know if I'll be like Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer who famously immediately re-read Remembrance of Things Past after finishing it, but I definitely want to go back and explore the first section of Swann's Way again. Oh, and since I mentioned Breyer, it reminds me of his observation that literature was essential for any democracy.  Remember when we had public officials who were painfully literate?  And while I'm thinking about it, here's a section of Breyer's comments about Proust:

"It's all there in Proust - all mankind! Not only all the different character types, but also every emotion, every imaginable situation.  Proust is a universal author: he can touch anyone, for different reasons; each of us can find some piece of himself in Proust, at different ages . . . What is most extraordinary about Proust is his ability to capture the subtlest nuances of human emotions, the slightest variations of the mind and the soul. To me, Proust is the Shakespeare of the inner world."

Oh, and Breyer read Proust in French so that he could work on his own French language skills.  Astonishing.

What It Means

Considering how much music has dominated the last year of this blog (it's not just about Proust) it seems like this should be a post about the wonderful Driver-By Truckers album American Band.  We're taking a brief break from our Discography discussion so that everyone can recharge their batteries and listen to new music before kicking off again in September.  Instead, I want to take a few moments to talk about something that's increasingly important to me, although also something that I don't talk about very much: faith.  This is not an attempt to tell people what to believe, because if I know anything at all it's that I don't know much of anything at all.  Faith is obviously a deeply personal experience, and I can assure you that I don't know anything more than anyone else about this particular subject.  Rather, I want to record some of my thoughts for later reflection (see, Proust has impacted me).

I'm in the middle of my second Ramadan.  In the popular imagination Ramadan is mainly a time of fasting and feasting. In regards to the latter, my feasting mainly consists of heating up in the microwave what everybody else here at Bleak House ate three hours earlier.  The fasting is easier than I thought it would be, and some of that relates to the fact that I did it last year and simply knowing that I was able to do it made it immeasurably easier this year. Truthfully, I could also be more diligent in my fasting.  I fast every day, but technically I'm supposed to start before morning prayers, which in this yankee hellhole is around 3:30 a.m.  Instead I usually start my fast by 5:30 a.m. and then break it at 8:30 p.m., which is still a long slog, although, again, not quite as long as it is supposed to be. Essentially, I'm supposed to be fasting around seventeen hours a day and instead I fast for fifteen hours.  Anyone who knows me can tell you with complete certainty that I don't like rules, and maybe this plays a role in my decision to not start fasting at 3:30.  I mean, it would be difficult, but fasting from 5:30 on is already a challenge and I'm sure I could make 3:30 work.  No matter my faith, I'd be that guy in the back of the church/mosque/synagogue/temple turning to the poor soul next to him and saying, "You know that's just a metaphor, right?"  This doesn't mean that I'm not serious and sincere in my faith because I am, and I battle with my own skepticism and inherent rebellious nature all the time.  One of the things that I'm always cognizant of is the great temptation to exist only on the surface level, which happens way too often in religion.  Sure, you're supposed to fast during Ramadan, but you're also supposed to spend hours every day praying, meditating and reading the Quran, and, to me anyway, that is far more important than the fasting.  Still, I do both, and the hours that I spend every day working through Nasr's Study Quran is probably what inspired this post.

This last semester one of my friends who knew about my faith, and, again, I don't share things like this very easily, asked me to come talk to her class.  I grudgingly agreed, mainly due to the fact that it was a request from a close friend.  One of the first things we discussed was why Islam?  You could certainly ask that question about any faith, obviously, but in today's world, and especially in today's U.S., it may seem like an odd (and not particularly well-considered) choice.  Well, first off, it wasn't about any great concern about the next world.  Truthfully, I never worry about things like that, and not because I'm oblivious, but rather because I think that if you lead a good life in this world then things will take care of themselves in the next.  And with that in mind, what led me in my mid-50s to make this decision was the sincere desire to be a better man.  I felt that I needed to be a better father and boyfriend and titular step-father and friend and son and brother and uncle and nephew (I'm sure I'm forgetting a category, and a category at which I routinely failed).  OK, so why Islam?  Part of it was doubtless all the time I've spent in the Middle East and the broader Islamic world.  Simply put, it's been my experience that Muslims much more routinely walk the walk and not just talk the talk.  Having said that, I think there are a thousand paths of God (no matter how you define God, he/she/it/they).  There are certain specific aspects of the faith I can identify that drew me to it.  For example, I've always identified with the Islamic view of Jesus, who is a remarkably well-respected and beloved prophet (arguably the second most important prophet in the faith) but who is not considered the son of God, not because there's something wrong with him but rather because Muslims don't believe that anyone is the son of God.  There also is much less hierarchy in Islam and a much less powerful and intrusive priesthood; mainly it's just you and God, and a structure wherein you stop and pray five times a day, meditating upon the transcendent.  There are other aspects of the faith that I can't really quantify as easily.  In my trips around the world I've spent time in churches and synagogues and Hindu temples and Buddhist temples and Jain temples, and it's only in mosques that I've felt a true sense of serenity.  Why?  Who knows?  Nevertheless I've always felt that.  So, for reasons both specific and more ethereal I was drawn to Islam.

Finally (I need to get back to my other more official writing), what do I think the faith means? If I spend hours every day during Ramadan praying and meditating and reading the Quran, what have I learned?  As I said earlier, one of the reasons why I wanted to include this post is to create a time capsule that I can revisit in the future as my faith continues to evolve.  It's not as if I haven't read the Quran before, because I have several times, but I also think that with every reading my views crystallize.  My views will doubtless be different next year, and maybe someday I'll figure this all out, although I suspect no one ever truly figures out the answer when you're talking about faith.  If you think you've figured it all out then it means you've probably failed at your quest.  As I've been re-reading the Quran it really struck me how many times, when discussing those who are going to Paradise, they are described as those "who believe and perform righteous deeds."  I've even started counting them, and I'll have a final, although probably incorrect, number soon; at this point suffice it to say that it is repeated dozens of times.  For example, when I spoke in my friend Kelly's class one of the question was would I be willing to share a specific surah from the Quran, and I identified surah 103, sometimes called "The Declining Day." As the Quran progresses the surahs (chapters) get shorter and shorter, and surah 103 in its entirety is: "By the declining day, truly mankind is in loss, save those who believe, perform righteous deeds, exhort one another to truth, and exhort one another to patience."  I like this surah because when I think about living my life I can definitely focus on those four aspects. Although the specific language varies, it comes back again and again to the notion of faith and righteous deeds.  The other days I was swapping emails with my friend Kathy and she she pointed out, "yeah, but the problem is what constitutes a righteous deed, and everyone has a different answer."  Which, of course, is the key point, and I told her (and you indirectly) that I can only give my own personal answer.  I think righteous deeds happen a hundred times a day, or at least the opportunity for a righteous deed presents itself a hundred times a day.  In Islam we're taught that good deeds are weightier, more powerful, more substantive than evil deeds; essentially, they're not equal.  Good is more powerful than evil, which is why good deeds are worth more, attain more merit, than evil deeds.  In surah 41 it says, "The good deed and the evil deed are not equal.  Repel by that which is better; then behold, the one between whom and thee there is enmity shall be as if he were a loyal, protecting friend." Or, in surah 23, "Repel evil by that which is better."  Muslims, although we are enjoined to stand up for what is right and to fight oppression, do not believe in an eye for an eye.  So, this is how I think about it: a hundred times a day you come into contact with someone, a loved one or a friend or some anonymous character.  How do you interact with them?  Do you "repel by that which is better"?  Do you treat them better than they treated you, even by a small amount?  Do you try and be of service?  Do you try and make their lives better, even for that one second that you're in contact?  Islam is a complex and fascinating religion, and you only need to read Nasr provide two pages of small print commentary on one sentence to understand that, but I think how we interact with each other is a much simpler matter.  When push comes to shove (and hopefully there won't be a push or a shove) I would argue that all religions have a similar message - and, for that matter, this brings me back to certain aspects of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - and if we all could just master this one simple principle life would be a lot easier. This is where I am right now, and I'm sure I'll have a more sophisticated answer next year, although maybe not a truer one.

OK, now back to pontificating on music or Proust or foreign travel.

My Years With Proust - Day 473

  "But you must be mad.  Anybody would be delighted to live with you, just look how people run after you.  They're always talking about you at Mme Verdurin's, and in high society too, I'm told.  She can't have been at all nice to you, that lady, to make you lose confidence like that.  I can see what she is, she's a sicked woman, I detest her.  Ah, if I were in her shoes!"

   "Not at all, she is very kind, far too kind.  As for the Verdurins and all the rest, I don't care a hang.  Apart from the woman I love, whom in any case I've given up, I care only for my little Albertine; she is the only person in the world who, by letting me see a great deal of her - that is, during the first few days," I added, in order not to alarm her and to be able to ask anything of her during those days, " - can bring me a little consolation."

   I made only a vague allusion to the possibility of marriage, adding that it was quite impracticable since our characters were too different.  Being, in spite of myself, still pursued in my jealousy by the memory of Saint-Loup's relations with "Rachel when from the Lord" and of Swann's with Odette, I was too inclined to believe that, once I was in love, I could not be loved in return, and that pecuniary interest alone could attach a woman to me.  No doubt it was foolish to judge Albertine by Odette and Rachel.  But it was afraid of, it was myself; it was the feelings that I was capable of inspiring that my jealousy made me underestimate.  And from this judgment, possibly erroneous, sprang no doubt many of the calamities that were to befall us.

   "Then you decline my invitation to come to Paris?"

   "My aunt wouldn't like me to leave just a present.  Besides, even if I can come later on, wouldn't it look rather odd, my descending on you like that? In Paris everybody will know that I'm not your cousin."

   "Very well, then.  We can say that we're more or less engaged.  It can't make any difference, since you know that it isn't true."

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1161-1162

Marcel continues to try, almost against his own will, to convince Albertine to come live with him in Paris.  Over the months that I've been reading and commenting on Proust I've often seen my friends in the actions of Marcel or Swann, but I'm going to have to take ownership of some of Marcel's comments in this particular passage.  Marcel reflects, "I was too inclined to believe that, once I was in love, I could not be loved in return, and that pecuniary interest alone could attach a woman to me."  Sadly, I've often felt this way, and in many ways still feel this way.  I know I've shared that when I was separated from my first wife I took advantage of my six free visits to a therapist, and generally I was amused/appalled by the fact that often she seemed more impressed by what I said than I was impressed by what she said (although, also, to be fair, it was a remarkably positive experience and it helped a lot at a very low point in my life) with one very obvious exception.  At one point in a discussion she pointed out that she thought I was starved for affection, and I remember being stunned by the truth of the observation.  Now, the question is: how does one live one's life - or what has happened in one's life - wherein you end up starved for affection?  How have you accepted a life wherein you are starved for affection?  Maybe you reach that point because you are convinced that "pecuniary interest alone" would lead a woman to adhere to you.  I'm sure this speaks to some profound level of self-loathing, but that's an observation not an explanation.  Stupid Proust; time for more self-reflection.

My Years With Proust - Day 472

   "Ah! that wouldn't be possible just at present," Albertine replied.  "Besides, why should you need to go back to Paris so soon, if the lady has gone?"

   "Because I shall feel calmer in a place where I knew her than at Balbec, which she has never seen and which I've begun to loathe."

   Did Albertine realise later on that this other woman had never existed, and that if, that night, I had really longed for death, it was because she had thoughtlessly revealed to me that she had been on intimate terms with Mlle Vinteuil's friend?  It is possible.  There are moment when it appears to me probable.  At any rate, that morning, she believed in the existence of the other woman.

   "But you ought to marry this lady," she said to me, "it would make you happy, my sweet, and I'm sure it would make her happy as well."

   I replied that the thought that I might make this woman happy had almost made me decide to marry her; when, not long since, I had inherited a fortune which would enable me to provide my wife with ample luxury and pleasures, I had been on the point of accepting the sacrifice of the woman I loved. . . . I was not guilty of the impudence (if such it was) that I should have committed in Gilberte's time, of telling her that it was she, Albertine, whom I loved.

  "You see, I came very near to marrying her. But I didn't date do it, after all, for I wouldn't have wanted to make a young woman live with anyone so sickly and troublesome as myself."

   "But you must be mad.  Anybody would be delighted to live with you, just look how people run after you.  They're always talking about you at Mme Verdruin's, and in high society too, I'm told.  She can't have been at all nice to you, that lady, to make you lose confidence like that.  I can see what she is, she's a sicked woman, I detest her.  Ah, if I were in her shoes!"

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1160-1161

Proust assures us that, "At any rate, that morning, she believed in the existence of the other woman."  That is, that the fictitious woman that Marcel had created as part of his attempted clumsy deception of Albertine had completely taken in the young woman.  However, I'm just not buying it.  Clearly, Albertine can see through Marcel's childish attempts at subterfuge.  This whole scene feels like an unholy mixture of Jane Austen and David Mamet, where you're not quite certain who is messing with whom.  When Albertine says, "She can't have been at all nice to you, that lady, to make you lose confidence like that.  I can see what she is, she's a sicked woman, I detest her.  Ah, if I were in her shoes!" I'm convinced that she messing with Marcel.  Now, is she just drawing him closer so that she can finally, officially snare him because she truly loves him or is she just messing with him and giving him a little of his own medicine?

My Years With Proust - Day 471

It was no longer as of a delightful place where the people were pensive, the sunsets golden, the church bells melancholy, that I thought now of Trieste, but as an accursed city which I should have liked to see instantaneously burned down and eliminated from the real world.  That city was embedded in my heart as a fixed and permanent point.  The thought of letting Albertine leave presently for Cherbourg and Trieste filled me with horror; as did even that of remaining at Balbec. For now that the revelation of her intimacy with Mlle Vinteuil had become almost a certainty, it seemed to me that at every moment when Albertine was not with me (and there were whole days on which, because of her aunt, I was unable to see her), she was giving herself to Bloch's sister and cousin, possibly to other girls as well.  The thought that very evening she might see the Bloch girls drove me mad.  And so, when she told me that for the next few days she would stay with me all the time, I replied: ''But the fact is, I want to go back to Paris.  Won't you come with me?  And wouldn't you like to come and live with us for a while in Paris?"

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1158-1159

Proust reveals more jealous anguish associated with Albertine's sexuality and, at least in Marcel's mind, promiscuity: "For now that the revelation of her intimacy with Mlle Vinteuil had become almost a certainty, it seemed to me that at every moment when Albertine was not with me (and there were whole days on which, because of her aunt, I was unable to see her), she was giving herself to Bloch's sister and cousin, possibly to other girls as well."  If you're suffering that horribly there really only seems to be one logical answer: invite her to move in with you.  Truthfully, what could possibly go wrong?  That said, and to be fair, we've all done exactly the same thing in one form or another.  There comes a time in any relationship (and I suppose you could treat that as a relationship with a person or a relationship with a faith) where you're either all in or all out.  Is the sorrow caused not by the person but rather by your limited relationship with the person?  Can you really just be that much more unhappy by being with them all the time?  Well, yes, of course you can, but you're still better off knowing that.  A few pages earlier Marcel referred to Albertine as both his "sickness" and his "remedy."  Following that logic I suppose there's a point when you also need an inoculation, even if its a dead version of the relationship.

My Years With Proust - Day 470

Just as, long ago, when I was anxious to go to Balbec, what had urged me to set off was the longing for a Persian church, for a stormy sea at daybreak, so what was now rending my heart as I thought that Albertine might perhaps be going to Trieste, was that she would be spending Christmas night there with Mlle Vinteuil's friend: for the imagination, when it changes its nature and turns into sensibility, does not thereby acquire control of a larger number of simultaneous images.  Had anyone told me that she was not at that moment either at Cherbourg or at Trieste, that there was no possibility of her seeing Albertine, how I should have wept for joy! How my whole life and its future would have been changed! And yet I knew quite well that this localisation of my jealousy was arbitrary, that if Albertine had these tastes, she would gratify them with others. And perhaps even these same girls, if they could have been elsewhere, would not have tortured my heart so acutely.  It was Trieste, it was that unknown world in which I could feel that Albertine took a delight, in which were her memories, her friendships, her childhood loves, that exhaled that hostile, inexplicable atmosphere, like that atmosphere that used to float up to my bedroom at Combray, from dining-room in which I could hear, talking and laughing with strangers amid the clatter of knives and forks, Mamma who would not b e coming upstairs to say good-night to me; like the atmosphere that, for Swann, had filled the houses to which Odette went at night in search of inconceivable joys.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 1158

Marcel continues to reflect upon his mad jealousy of Albertine, but maybe we're getting a clearer sense of its causes - and perhaps Marcel is as well.  He has become fixated on Trieste because he associates it with Albertine, and with her lesbian desires.  However, he has to admit that "this localisation of my jealousy was arbitrary, that if Albertine had these tastes, she would gratify them with others."  What I'm beginning to think is that his jealousy (and, well, maybe all jealousy) is based on what he can't control, or at the very least he can't understand.  Marcel refers to Marcel as "that unknown world," and maybe in his mind Albertine's sexuality, whether she be a lesbian or a bi-sexual, or maybe, more accurately, his perception of her sexuality, is another "unknown world."  Furthermore, it is a world just maddeningly beyond his touch, which is why I think his reflection on his mother, taking us back to the beginning of the novel, is so key: "like that atmosphere that used to float up to my bedroom at Combray, from dining-room in which I could hear, talking and laughing with strangers amid the clatter of knives and forks, Mamma who would not b e coming upstairs to say good-night to me . . ." So, is all of this just a search for his mother's "unknown world"?  I was involved with a woman once who was not particularly jealous (in fact, I wished that she would be a little more jealousy, because I tended to come and go without her notice), but she had one strange stab of jealousy.  I was always completely honest with her in regards to the women I had been with, which she chronicled (I assumed for potential future use) but didn't seem particularly concerned about any of them.  One time, during a conversation wherein I made the point that to me age is just a number, and in response to a direct question from her, I told her about a woman in her mid-40s that I'd had a brief fling with my senior year in college (she was a hairdresser, and, well, you know, those salons in small town in Indiana get boring - I feel that everything keeps coming back to Morrissey lately).  Anyway, she told me that the thought it actually made her really jealous, which led me to promise that I would never go back in time and have an affair with a hairdresser twenty years older than me (which I don't think made the situation any better).  Anyway, it was an odd response, partially because she was in her mid-40s (so there might have been some projection going on there) but also because she was completely ignoring a, at the time, fairly recent relationship that I'd had with a woman twenty years younger than me, which should have served as a much greater source of jealousy.  Maybe the reason why she was so bothered by my memory was that it was so completely outside of her lived experience, her worldview, that it formed her own "unknown world"?

My Years With Proust - Day 469

   And I let the tears which my fiction rendered flow freely.

   "My poor boy, if I had only known, I should have spent the night beside you," cried Albertine, the idea that I might perhaps marry this woman, and that her chance of making a "good marriage" was thus vanishing, never even crossing her mind, so sincerely was she moved by a grief the cause of which I was able to conceal from her, but not its reality and strength. "As a matter of fact," she said to me, "last night, throughout the entire journey from la Raspeliere, I could see that you were nervous and unhappy, and I was afraid there must be something wrong." In reality my grief had begun only at Parville, and my nervous irritability, which was very different but which fortunately Albertine identified with it, arose from the tedium of having to spend a few more days in my company.  She added: "I shan't leave you any more, I'm going to spend all my time here." She was offering me, if fact - and she alone could offer me - the sole remedy for the poison that was consuming me, a remedy homogeneous with it indeed, for although one was sweet and the other bitter, both alike derived from Albertine.  At that moment Albertine - my sickness - ceasing to cause me to suffer, left me - she, Albertine the remedy - as weak as a convalescent. But I reflected that she would presently be leaving Balbec for Cherbourg, and from there going to Trieste.  Her old habits would be reviving. . . The mysterious passion with which I had once thought of Austria because it was the country from which Albertine came (her uncle had been a counsellor at the Embassy there), because I could study its geographical peculiarities, its scenery, in Albertine's smile and in her ways, as in an atlas for an album of photographs - this mysterious passion I still felt but, for an inversion of symbols, in the domain of horror.  Yes, it was from there that Albertine came.  It was there that, in every house, she could be sure of finding, if not Mlle Vinteuil's friend, others of her kind. The habits of her childhood would revive, they would be meeting in three months' time for Christmas, then for the New Year, dates which were already painful to me in themselves, owing to an unconscious memory of the misery that I had felt on those days when, long ago, they separated me, for the whole of the Christmas holidays, from Gilberte.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1156-1157

Marcel continues to try and sort out the "mysterious passion: he feels for Albertine. I don't know if there is a sentence in Remembrance of Things Past that expresses the confusion as clearly as, "At that moment Albertine - my sickness - ceasing to cause me to suffer, left me - she, Albertine the remedy - as weak as a convalescent." He will celebrate her kindness - "the idea that I might perhaps marry this woman, and that her chance of making a 'good marriage' was thus vanishing, never even crossing her mind" - but then immediately slide back into jealousy and paranoia, "a poison that was consuming me."  It could be that her reference to Gilberte, who we haven't heard mentioned in a wile, provides valuable evidence. Marcel reflects upon the holidays (and their position at the end of the year is doubtless significant as well), "which were already painful to me in themselves, owing to an unconscious memory of the misery that I had felt on those days when, long ago, they separated me, for the whole of the Christmas holidays, from Gilberte."  In the end is Marcel just terrified at the thought of being abandoned, and the identity of the person doing the abandoning is insignificant?  That said, there does seem to be something even more powerful in his love for Albertine, his "sickness" and his "remedy", than the other women who have passed through his life.  Maybe the great love of your life is both your "sickness" and your "remedy"; I would argue that mine has been.

Competition to the Death in Lisbon

One of the things that my great friend Cinse points out is that she loves the ridiculous traditions that I create, which in turn often relate to a competition of some sort.  It tends to work well when we're overseas because it distracts the students.  Last fall when we led students to Spain and Portugal over Thanksgiving break I challenged everyone to find the best example of the tile (the Portuguese are justifiably famous for their tile work).  Instead of telling me to buzz off they all got very excited about the challenge.  I'm sure there's some more that I haven't located yet, in which case I'll add them later.

Cara

Elijah

Kelly

Lenny

Jo

Alysha

Evie

Meg

Mike

Mikhaila

Scudder

Well, clearly I won, but I'll disqualify myself because I had visited Lisbon before and had an unfair advantage.  I guess I'll have to give the award to Cara for managing to squeeze several different types of tile in the same picture, with honorable (dishonorable?) mention to Jo for general goofiness.