My Years With Proust - Day 520

And as if it were not enough that I should bear an exaggerated resemblance to my father, to the extent of not being satisfied like him with consulting the barometer, but becoming an animated barometer myself, as if it were not enough that I should allow myself to be ordered by my aunt Leonie to stay at home and watch the weather, from my bedroom window or even from my bed, here I was talking now to Albertine, at one moment as the child that I had been at Combray used to talk to my mother, at another as my grandmother used to talk to me.  When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child that we were and the souls of the dead from whom we sprang come and shower upon us their riches and their spells, asking to be allowed to contribute to the new emotions which we feel and in which, erasing their former image, we recast them in an original creation.  Thus my whole past from my earliest years, and, beyond these, the past of my parents and relations, blended with my impure love for Albertine the tender charm of an affection at once filial and maternal.  We have to give hospitality, at a certain stage in our lives, to all our relatives who have journeyed so far and gathered around us.

   Before Albertine obeyed and took off her shoes, I would open her chemise.  Her two little uplifted breasts were so round that they seemed not so much to be an integral part of her body as to have ripened there like fruit; and her belly (concealing the place where a man's is disfigured as though by an iron clamp left sticking in a statue that has been taken down from its niche) was closed, at the junction of her thighs, by two calves with a curve as languid, as reposeful, as cloistral as that of the horizon after the sun has set.  She would take off her shoes, and lie down by my side.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 73-74

I suppose I should have separated out these two paragraphs, because, well, the world certainly needs more witless commentary from me.  However, for some reason I found that I couldn't.  Proust starts off this section by reminding us that we are products of our parents and grandparents and family, and, well, all of our personal history really.  "When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child that we were and the souls of the dead from whom we sprang come and shower upon us their riches and their spells, asking to be allowed to contribute to the new emotions which we feel and in which, erasing their former image, we recast them in an original creation"  Marcel finds himself talking to Albertine, in this incredibly intimate moment, and "at one moment as the child that I had been at Combray used to talk to my mother, at another as my grandmother used to talk to me." The juxtaposition is jarring, which is clearly where Proust is headed: "Thus my whole past from my earliest years, and, beyond these, the past of my parents and relations, blended with my impure love for Albertine the tender charm of an affection at once filial and maternal."

I'm also intrigued by Proust's description of the nude Albertine in this particular passage.

"Her two little uplifted breasts were so round that they seemed not so much to be an integral part of her body as to have ripened there like fruit . . ."

A fairly common representation of a nature goddess - I remember seeing one in a museum in Beirut, Lebanon (I think) very similar to this one - where the breasts  are fruit.

I couldn't help thinking of this classic representation from the ancient world.  I suppose this is probably the equivalent of Artemis or a much later version of Inanna, but I think her name was different.

There's a Seinfeld episode where Jerry has a girlfriend who is nude all the time, and for some reason it bothers him so he begins to walk around with no clothes and she is horrified.  He shares the story with Elaine and she is often put off by it, and, if I remember correctly, dismisses the male body as functional but certainly not beautiful.  There's whimsy in the episode, but also some truth.  Actresses are expected to be nude in movies all the time (I remember reading an interview with the Canadian actress Katharine Isabelle, who starred in the wonderful Ginger Snaps trilogy, who said when she agreed to do Freddy vs Jason the director and producer were begging her, and eventually were practically trying to trick her into a nude scene and she simply refused - so they used a body double instead), whereas their male counterparts never are (although the Europeans are certainly more balanced on that front than we are).  Certainly, part of this is an expression of the ruling patriarchy, but it also gives us a little glimpse into aesthetic norms (although, obviously, that's also shaped by patriarchal beliefs).

" . . and her belly (concealing the place where a man's is disfigured as though by an iron clamp left sticking in a statue that has been taken down from its niche) was closed, at the junction of her thighs, by two calves with a curve as languid, as reposeful, as cloistral as that of the horizon after the sun has set."

The reason why I bring up the aesthetic point is that one might expect Proust, a homosexual, to be a little more forgiving in his representation of nudes.  Instead, reading the lines above made me think of these two paintings.

Another one of those appropriately shocking paintings from Gustave "show me an angel and I will paint it" Courbet, this one called The Sleepers.  Obviously, there are other reasons to associate this painting with Albertine.

And one of those jarring nudes from Lucien Freud, who always painted the head last because it was just another piece of flesh.

Proust, when writing about homosexuals in Remembrance of Things Past, referred to them as Inverts, and, while not cruel, and usually sensitive and understanding, did clearly draw a line between his own beliefs and those of the Inverts (although there are a few moments when he slips in hints of something more).  Are his physical descriptions here another way to distancing himself from his own desires?

Having said, that, is it even more subtle and profound than simply Proust's uneasy peace with his own sexuality (not that that isn't at the heart of it)?  He talks about his "impure love for Albertine," which counterbalances with the purity of the memory of his mother and grandmother.  So much of Remembrance of Things Past is, in addition to a search for the past, also a search for beauty, and here it seems that the dissonance between dream and reality is profound.

And finally (today's post is a lot longer than I thought it would end of being) who knew that the word "cloistral" could be used so effectively in a sexual context?  I've proposed repeatedly that Albertine is as much metaphor as woman, and she certainly represents something Marcel can't have - or at least can't have in a way that would make the two of them happy.  She's hiding something within her that he needs - or at least that he imagines that he needs - and which he, even when he keeps her captive, can't possess.  And whether cloistral is emotional or vaginal in this sense, it works to maintain the metaphor.

My Years With Proust - Day 519

   When it was Albertine's turn to bed me good-night, kissing me on either side of my neck, her hair caressed me like a wing of softly bristling feathers.  Incomparable as were those two kisses of peace, Albertine slipped into my mouth, in making me the gift of her tongue, as it were a gift of the Holy Ghost, conveyed to me a viaticum, left me with a provision of tranquillity almost as precious as when my mother in the evening at Combray used to lay her lips upon my forehead.

   "Are you coming with us to-morrow, old crosspatch?" she would ask before leaving me.

   "Where are you going?"

   "That will depend on the weather and on you.  But have you written anything to-day, my little darling?  No? Then it was hardly worth your while not coming with us. Tell me, by the way, when I came in this evening, you knew my step, you guessed at once who it was?"

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 72

Here we have a very short passage, but one, appropriately Proustian, stocked full of subtle significance.  Once again we have the conflating of personal and religious significance in something as seemingly simple as the kisses that Albertine gives him before leaving him for the night.  The viaticum is the Eucharist associated with those dying.  I was making the point, yesterday, I think, that we always have to keep Proust's failing health and concomitant shrinking physical and social worlds, in mind as we read Remembrance of Things Past.  I think it shapes his relationship with Albertine and his, at least to us anyway, unseemly desire to control her and keep her as a captive.  I argued that she represented life, and his inability to control his own health and vitality.  The very fact that he would use a term like viaticum in this context, tied to all the other religious symbolism throughout the novel, speaks to the presence of death.

And again he makes reference to Albertine offering him her tongue, "as it were a gift of the Holy Ghost."  As we discussed above, I completely get the religious metaphor.  That said, he's mentioned her sliding him the tongue repeatedly.  Seriously, don't they ever French kiss when they're having sex?  I mean, well, they are French after all . . .

As I've noted before, the deeper I get into the novel I, naturally I suppose, become more fascinated with Albertine, and also frustrated that Proust doesn't reveal more about her, which may just be a testimony to his utter and all-encompassing self-absorption.  Still, we get little glimpses, and she strikes me as having more power than she might convey on the surface. She's clearly operating within the limiting societal gender constraints of her age, which leaves her trapped into kicking back in a more passive-aggressive fashion (not that Proust himself isn't guilty of this in abundance).  Her seemingly innocuous statement isn't so innocuous: "That will depend on the weather and on you.  But have you written anything to-day, my little darling?  No?  Then it was hardly worth your while not coming with us."  Proust has clearly refused to come along with them, while reserving the right to be jealous about her time alone, while staying home and doing nothing.  Considering how often he treats her like a child her use of the phrase "my little darling" is also clever.  Albertine then immediately slides on to another topic, leaving the wound to remain undressed.

My Years With Proust - Day 518

  For all that I might, before Albertine returned, have doubted her, have imagined her in the room at Montjouvain, once she was in her dressing-gown and seated facing my chair or (if, as was more frequent, I had remained in bed) at the foot of my bed, I would deposit my doubts in her, hand them over for her to relieve me of them, with the abnegation of a worshipper uttering a prayer. All through the evening she might have been there, curled up in a mischievous ball on my bed, playing with me like a cat; her little pink nose, the tip of which she made even tinier with a coquettish glance which gave it a daintiness characteristic of certain women who are inclined to be plump, might have given her an inflamed and provocative air; she might have allowed a tress of her long, dark hair to fall over her pale-pink waxen cheek and, half shutting her eyes, unfolding her arms, have seemed to be saying to me: "Do what you like with me" - but when the time came for her to leave me, and she drew close to me to say good-night, it was a softness that had become almost familial that I kissed on either side of her sturdy neck which then never seemed to me brown or freckled enough, as though these solid qualities were associated with a certain frank good nature in Albertine.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 71-72

I made the point the other day that Albertine is a concept much more than an actual woman.  Part of this relates to the age, certainly, and the role that patriarchy plays in it.  All too often she is yielding if not inert: "Do what you like with me".   Certainly Proust's homosexuality play a role in his description of Albertine: "a coquettish glance . . . might have given her an inflamed and provocative air." In describing Albertine, just in this paragraph, we get words like mischievous, plump, familial, sturdy, solid and frank.  What I always come back to is that while Proust was writing Remembrance of Things Past he was dying, albeit slowly, but in poor and degrading health, in and out of sanatoriums, and facing a shrinking physical and temporal world.  I think that Albertine represented beauty and youth and health and vitality and the life force itself.  It may be that Proust was tired and jealous of life itself, and thus his conflicted reaction to Albertine.  Proust shares, " . . once she was in her dressing-gown and seated facing my chair or (if, as was more frequent, I had remained in bed) at the foot of my bed, I would deposit my doubts in her, hand them over for her to relieve me of them, with the abnegation of a worshipper uttering a prayer."

My Years With Proust - Day 517

   On other evenings, I undressed and went to bed, and, with Albertine perched on the side of the bed, we would resume our game or our conversation interrupted by kisses; and in the physical desire that alone makes us take an interest in the existence and character of another person, we remain so true to our own nature (even if, on the other hand, we abandon successively the different persons whom we have loved in turn) that on one occasion, catching sight of myself in the mirror at the moment when I was kissing Albertine and calling her "my little girl," the sorrowful, passionate expression on my own face, similar to the expression it would have worn long ago with Gilberte whom I no longer remembered, and would perhaps assume one day with another if I were ever to forget Albertine, made me think that, over and above any personal considerations (instinct requiring that we consider the person of the moment as the only real one), I was performing the duties of an ardent and painful devotion dedicated as an oblation to the young and beauty of Woman.  And yet with this desire by which I was honouring youth with a votive offering, with my memories too of Balbec, there was blended, in my need to keep Albertine thus every evening by my side, something that had hitherto been foreign to my amorous existence at least if it was not entirely new in my life.  It was a soothing power the like of which I had not experienced since the evening at Combray long ago when my mother, stooping over my bed, brought me repose in a kiss.  To be sure, I should have been greatly astonished at that time had anyone told me that I was not extremely kind and especially that I would have known myself very imperfectly then, for my pleasure in having Albertine to live with me was much less a positive pleasure than the pleasure of having withdrawn from the world, where everyone was free to enjoy her in turn, the blossoming girl who, if she did not bring me any great joy, was at least withholding joy from others.  Ambition and fame would have left me unmoved.  Even more was I incapable of feeling hatred.  And yet to love carnally was none the less, for me, to enjoy a triumph over countless rivals.  I can never repeat it often enough: it was more than anything else an appeasement.

Marcel Proust, The Captive. pp. 70-71

OK, first off the unpleasantries, even though I will throw in the usual codicles that this was written a century ago and that Proust deserves credit for being honest: "To be sure, I should have been greatly astonished at that time had anyone told me that I was not extremely kind and especially that I would have known myself very imperfectly then, for my pleasure in having Albertine to live with me was much less a positive pleasure than the pleasure of having withdrawn from the world, where everyone was free to enjoy her in turn, the blossoming girl who, if she did not bring me any great joy, was at least withholding joy from others.  Ambition and fame would have left me unmoved.  Even more was I incapable of feeling hatred.  And yet to love carnally was none the less, for me, to enjoy a triumph over countless rivals.  I can never repeat it often enough: it was more than anything else an appeasement." We are drawing to the end of a lengthy section where Proust reflects upon his nightly routine with Albertine.  Once again he discusses his rationale for keeping Albertine "captive."  It's so clearly less about his mad love for her, but rather his need to control her.  It's enough that he denies her - and that he has the power to deny her - than it is a celebration of what they give each other.  Despite my earlier comments about  the need to keep in mind that this was written a hundred years ago, I think it's also distressingly necessary to point out that maybe things haven't changed that much in the years since Proust penned these words.  Is the GOP so insistent on limiting what a woman can do with her own body because they really care about unborn and unformed children, or because through this act they can control women, and it's a self-generating and self-justifying sickness as much as Proust's?  Aren't all women "captive" every bit as much as Albertine?  What's most distressing is the way that women, again and Albertine is a fitting example, often play a role in their own suppression.  Is it the Stockholm syndrome or the recognition of a woman's limited social universe, and the desire to operate as best they can within that universe?

So, what is Proust trying to control?  Is it simply Albertine, or, more generally, women?  I think I would argue that he's trying to control the past.  Once again, he brings us back the image that he began the novel with - him sitting in his room hoping against hope that his mother would steal time away from the endless dinner parties to kiss him goodnight.  Proust writes, " It was a soothing power the like of which I had not experienced since the evening at Combray long ago when my mother, stooping over my bed, brought me repose in a kiss." He could never impose his control over his mother and thus his own happiness and contentment, but he can control Albertine.  And, as we've discussed, this was written in the high point of Freud's influence.

As part of his persistent striving to regain the past, or as he is wont to say, Time, I think I would propose that he's trying to regain beauty.  Proust reflects, " . . I was performing the duties of an ardent and painful devotion dedicated as an oblation to the young and beauty of Woman.  And yet with this desire by which I was honouring youth with a votive offering, with my memories too of Balbec, there was blended, in my need to keep Albertine thus every evening by my side . . " Albertine is the manifestation of beauty and youth, and by controlling her he controls beauty and youth, and thus conquers his own dwindling energy and looming mortality.

My Years With Proust - Day 516

   Then she would find her tongue and say: "My ______" or "My darling ______" followed by my Christian name, which, if we give the narrator the same name as the author of this book, would be "My Marcel," or "My darling Marcel." After this I would never allow a member of my family, by calling me "darling," to rob of their precious uniqueness the delicious words that Albertine uttered to me.  As she uttered them, she pursed her lips in a little pour which she spontaneously transformed into a kiss.  As quickly as she had earlier fallen asleep, she had awoken.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 69

For five-hundred-sixteen posts I've been referring to the protagonist of Remembrance of Things Past as Marcel, and here, only two-thousand three-hundred pages in we've learned that his name is Marcel, sort of. From the very beginning of this process I've been sloppy, sort of, in my methodology by using the names Proust and Marcel interchangeably, which they are, sort of. It gets right to the heart of Remembrance of Things Past because as you read you continually ask yourself: is the essentially unnamed protagonist, now named as Marcel (or maybe earlier, we're talking thousands of pages), a fictional character or is this "merely" an autobiography?  And, of course, the answer is yes and no, sort of.  As we've discussed repeatedly, and harvesting material from Cynthia Freeland's Portraits and Persons, the hero of your autobiography is a fictional character, which Proust would mainly agree with because, as he points out repeatedly, each person is actually many different people, and it's a struggle to regain time, and it is memory that forms the basis of human identity.  So, is Marcel Marcel?  Sure, sort of.

Truthfully, Marcel Proust is actually a great name, and it's probably a good thing that I had not started Remembrance of Things Past back in my twenties or my son would have ended up wish some variation of it.  One of the nice people I've met online through this process goes by the name of Marcelita Swann, although, truthfully, I'm not certain whether that's her real name or her literary nom de guerre.  If she loves Proust, which she does, then it's a great choice, but if her parents gave her that name then I guess she had no other choice but to love Proust (unless she hated Proust because of it; although it's way too cool of a name to hate). With one of the world's bad names - Gary is always a loser character, usually the virginal friend of Rick, the cool kid - and Scudder is such a harsh sounding last name - having Evans, as reasonably gentle name for a middle name is the only thing that makes it OK, but even that is tainted by the fact that I couldn't fall back and use it as a replacement for Gary - I have name envy.  If only my parents had thought of the advantages of calling me Max Power.  As is well documented I am a complete Charles Dickens nut, so if I were to write something I'd doubtless fall into the trap of either ripping of Dickens or, like him, choosing names that somehow spoke to the character's, well, character: Ebenezer Scrooge, Uriah Heep, Miss Havisham, Wilkins Micawber, Samuel Pickwick, Fagin, Quilp, Estella, Artful Dodger, Pip, Esther Summerson, Sydney Carton, Peggotty, Avel Magwitch, James Steerforth, Fezziwig, Bob Cratchit, Edward Murdstone, Betsy Trotwood, Alfred Jingle, Compeyson, Jacob Marley, Tiny Tim, Jerry Cruncher, etc etc etc. I know I've probably made this point before, but it seems that one of the biggest differences between Proust and Dickens is that with Dickens the single least interest character in every novel is the main character (with the exception, obviously, of David Copperfield), whereas all the side characters have more life and vitality, whereas with Proust there aren't really any other characters except as props for him to brood over.

My Years With Proust - Day 515

   Sometimes it afforded me a pleasure that was less pure.  For this I had no need to make any movement, but allowed my leg to dangle against hers, like an oar which one trails in the water, imparting to now and again a gentle oscillation like the intermittent wing-beat of a bird asleep in the air.  I chose, in gazing at her. the aspect of her face which one never saw and which was so beautiful.  It is I suppose comprehensible that the letters which we receive from a person should be more or less similar to one another and combine to trace an image of the writer sufficiently different from the person we know to constitute a second personality. But how much stranger is it that a woman should be conjoined, like Rosita with Doodica, with another woman whose different beauty makes us infer another character, and that in order to see them we must look at one of them in profile and the other in full face.  The sound of her breathing, which had grown louder, might have given the illusion of the panting of sexual pleasure, and when mine was at its climax, I could kiss her without having interrupted her sleep.  I felt at such moment that I had possessed her more completely, like an unconscious and unresisting object of dumb nature. I was not troubled by the words that she murmured from time to time in her sleep; their meaning was closed to me, and besides, whoever the unknown person to whom they referred, it was upon my hand, upon my cheek that her hand, stirred by an occasional faint tremor, stiffened for an instant.  I savoured her sleep with a disinterested, soothing love, just as I would remain for hours listening to the unfurling of the waves.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 66-67

Here is the famous/infamous section where Marcel orgasms on, although I'm assuming not in, Albertine while she sleeps; or, as one of the more politically unstable members of the community proposed, "I think he just had a wank."  This section rests, so to speak, in the middle of a lengthy discussion where Marcel watches his mistress sleeps and reflects on her beauty and their relationship and her infidelity and her innocence and their love.  In this particular paragraph he leaves the more ethereal behind, proposing that sometimes "it afforded me a pleasure that was less pure."  It's difficult to read the following sentence without assuming that Marcel gently ("a gentle oscillation like the intermittent wing-beat of a bird asleep in the air")  masturbated while she slept: "The sound of her breathing, which had grown louder, might have given the illusion of the panting of sexual pleasure, and when mine was at its climax, I could kiss her without having interrupted her sleep."  Now, of course, the obvious, and not entirely prurient, question would be: what was he thinking about?  I'm not trying to be indelicate, but Proust himself admitted that in this case pleasure was "less pure."  It's odd that he mentions Rosita and Doodica, two famous conjoined twins, at that particular moment.  Clearly, he's thinking about Albertine in bed with another woman, and I'm trying to determine whether I think he's finding the thought of two women odd, or it's actually something that's turning him on - or some perverse combination of the two.  The problem I'm also seeing here is that as Proust is getting more honest, is he also getting more unlikable?  Clearly he's been emotionally abusing Albertine, and thus the title of this volume as The Captive is terribly appropriate.  Has he at this point crossed the line into physical abuse?  Marcel admits, "I felt at such moment that I had possessed her more completely, like an unconscious and unresisting object of dumb nature."

And here's the commentary from my friend Kathy Seiler, who is one of the twenty or so intrepid souls who actually drop in daily to read my ill-considered and poorly written reflections on Proust.  We were discussing a passage the other day, mainly her righteous anger at Marcel referring to Albertine as a plant as he watched her sleep.  This led to a decision, reached after a series of high level meetings, or the exchange of two emails, to contribute on a passage or two (or hopefully more).  Truthfully, I like her commentary a lot more than mine.  I think we agreed on many points, although in some ways I think that at this point Marcel is not viewing Albertine even as a physical body, but rather as a concept, which is why he feels so close to her at that point. Despite his often crippling jealousy, he also says that he doesn't care what she is murmuring in her sleep at that point, and notes, "I savoured her sleep with a disinterested, soothing love, just as I would remain for hours listening to the unfurling of the waves."

I think you'll find her commentary far more on point than my usual rambling and confused half-ideas.  It must be the scientist in her.

As this is my first attempt at any sort of literature analysis I’ll just put a disclaimer up front. I’m a scientist and have been trained to actually NOT read into things. Data are data. Funny how words in books of literature don’t really work that way though. And I’ll thank Scudder for picking the passage with totally inappropriate behavior in it. He claims its random but I don’t believe it.

In this passage, the plant-like Albertine is STILL asleep and Marcel is still watching her sleep, but now in not so pure and loving a way. “Sometimes it afforded me a pleasure that was less pure.” And by that, I believe at the time there might have been some tale about that less pure thing making one go blind. But wait… let’s describe it a little more:

“ …allowed my leg to dangle against hers, like an oar which one trails in the water, imparting to it now and again a gentle oscillation…” Seems benign enough, until later: “The sound of her breathing, which had grown louder, might have given the illusion of the panting of sexual pleasure, and when mine was at its climax, I could kiss her without having interrupted her sleep.” Not really leaving much to the imagination with that one.

First of all, Albertine is clearly a pretty hard sleeper. But he’s making no bones about it, he’s having a wank while she’s sleeping, and using her as eye candy to facilitate. While this is not the worst thing he could do, it does have a little teeny bit of “creepy” feel about it. What is indicative of the time, and most disturbing to me personally, is the next sentence. “I felt at such moments that I had possessed her more completely, like an unconscious and unresisting object of dumb nature.” Proust already induced my rage and ire with his previous comparison of her to a plant while sleeping, but this really takes the cake. It’s about possession, not love, not respect, not anything resembling what one might call a relationship. It’s about the fact that he’s gotten his rocks off without having to endure anything about her as a sentient being and he likes that just fine, thank you very much. Maybe what disturbs me most is when I begin to wonder how much things have not really changed – how many people view their partner as nothing more than a possession, at their best and most favored when functionally deaf and mute. Is this how we prefer our partners? 

My Years With Proust - Day 514

   I, who was acquainted with many Albertines in one person, seemed now to see many more again reposing by my side.  Her eyebrows, arched as I had never noticed them, encircled the globes of her eyelids like a Halcyon's downy nest.  Races, atavisms, vices reposed upon her face.  Whenever she moved her head, she created a different woman, often one whose existence I had never suspected.  I seemed to possess not one but countless girls.  Her breathing, as it became gradually deeper, made her breast rise and fall in a regular rhythm, and above it her folded hands and her pearls, displaced in a different way by the same movement, like boats and anchor chains set swaying by the movement of the tide.  Then, feeling that the tide of her sleep was full, that I should not run aground on reefs of consciousness covered now by the high water of profound slumber, I would climb deliberately and noiselessly on to the bed, lie down by her side, clasp her waist in one arm, and place my lips upon her cheek and my free hand on he heart and then on every part of her body in turn, so that it took was raised, like the pearls, by the breathing of the sleeping girl; I myself was gently rocked by its regular motion: I had embarked upon the tide of Albertine's sleep.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 66

I suppose I should start off by apologizing for getting around to writing this post so late today.  And then I guess I should also apologize for how abysmal it promises to be.  And, finally, I throw in an apology for writing it at all.  That said, when I started this mad mission I promised that I would write every day on Remembrance of Things Past until I finished it, and, oddly I do consider myself a man of my word. The problem is that I found out a couple hours ago that a great friend of mine passed away, which they seem to be doing with greater and greater urgency lately.  Rula Quawas, from the University of Jordan, who I'd known for a dozen years or more - and who was the first international professor who understood what I was trying to accomplish with my Global Modules project, and who thus brought in UJ as a dedicated partner - apparently passed away unexpectedly.  She was very important to me, and doubtless I'll include one or two posts just reflecting upon what she meant to me (and to so many others) and to celebrate her life.

So what do I want to say about Proust today?  First off, I don't think that Rula would be appalled that I'm writing, because she was an academic and she especially loved literature.  One of my favorite classes I ever taught at Champlain was an Arab Women Writers course that she had designed during her Fulbright year here; when the plans for her to stay a second year fell through I was asked to take over the class, and I was more than happy to follow her lead on the books she chose and the syllabus she constructed.  So, she'd be happy that anyone, and especially her friend, was reading and talking about Proust.

This section sets up tomorrow's section, which I think is more interesting, so, truthfully, I wasn't planning on talking about this one in that great a depth anyway.  What I'm coming back to is the opening line: "I, who was acquainted with many Albertines in one person, seemed now to see many more again reposing by my side."  Feeling more than a little blue I had walked down to my friend Mike's house, knowing that I would be greeted with a friendly bear hug and a couple beers; plus, I wanted to tell him about Rula because he knew her as well.  While talking things through Mike's wife Jamie told me that I should try and fly to Amman for the funeral.  I found myself saying that it was a great idea, but that I didn't know much about it, and that truthfully I didn't know if she was Christian or a Muslim, which related to the plans because if she was a Muslim she'd be buried almost immediately, whereas if she were Christian the funeral might not be for a couple days.  Essentially, what I was admitting was that I didn't know something this simple about a person who I called my friend. Part of that can be explained by the fact that I'm an American, and conversations about faith are often fraught with societal landmines, but also because I wasn't really a person of faith myself until recently so I'm sure I didn't broach the subject with her for the classic "reason" that secular folks are often less likely to ask questions like that than people of faith.  But then I began to think, in the end, the question of her faith described only one of the "many [Rulas] in one person." I knew her as a passionate teacher and a devoted friend and a supportive colleague and an outspoken feminist in a part of the world that doesn't often celebrate that viewpoint and as a published scholar, and these were all Rulas that I knew and loved and respected, but there were also many other Rulas that I wish I had taken the time to discover.

My Years With Proust - Day 513

   Moreover, it was not only the sea at the close of day that existed for me in Albertine, but at times the drowsy murmur of the sea upon the shore on moonlit nights.  For sometimes, when I got up to fetch a book from my father's study, my mistress, having asked my permission to lie down while I was out of the room, was so tired after her long outing in the morning and afternoon in the open air that, even if I had been away for a moment only, when I returned I found her asleep and did not wake her.  Stretched out at full length on my bed, in an  attitude so natural that no art could have devised it, she reminded me of a long blossoming stem that had been laid there; and so in a sense she was: the faculty of dreaming, which I possessed only in her absence, I recovered at such moments in her presence, as though by falling asleep she had become a plant.  In this way, her sleep realised to a certain extent the possibility of love: alone, I could think of her, but I missed her, I did not possess her; when she was present, I spoke to her, but was too absent from myself to be able to think of her; when she was asleep, I no longer had to talk, I knew that I was no longer observed by her, I no longer needed to live on the surface of myself.

   By shutting her eyes, by losing consciousness, Albertine had stripped off, one after another, the different human personalities with which she had deceived me ever since the day when I had first made her acquaintance.  She was animated now only by the unconscious life of plants. of trees, a life more different from my own, more alien, and yet one that belonged more to me.  Her personality was no constantly escaping, as when we talked, by the outlets of her unacknowledged thoughts and of her eyes. She had called back into herself everything of her that lay outside, had withdrawn, enclosed, reabsorbed herself into her body.  In keeping it in front of my eyes, in hands, I had an impression of possessing her entirely which I never had when she was awake.  Her life was submitted to me, exhaled towards me its gentle breath.

   I listened to this murmuring, mysterious emanation, soft as a sea breeze, magical as a gleam of moonlight, that was her sleep.  So long as it lasted, I was free to dream about her and yet at the same time to look at her, and, when that sleep grew deeper, to touch, to kiss her.  What I felt then as a love as pure, as immaterial, as mysterious, as if I had been in the presence of those inanimate creatures which are the beauties of nature.  And indeed, as soon as her sleep became at all deep, she ceased to be merely the plant that she had been; her sleep, on the margin of which I remained musing, with a fresh delight of which I never tired, which I could have gone on enjoying indefinitely, was to me a whole landscape.  Her sleep brought within my reach something as serene, as sensually delicious as those nights of full moon on the bay of Balbec, calm as a lake over which the branches barely stir, where, stretched out upon the sand, one could listen for hours on end to the surf breaking and receding.

   On entering the room, I would remain standing in the doorway, not venturing to make a sound, and hearing none but that of her breath rising to expire upon her lips at regular intervals, like the reflux of the sea, but drowsier and softer.  And at the moment when my ear absorbed that divine sound, I felt that there was condensed in it the whole person, the whole life of the charming captive outstretched before my eyes. . . .

   I spend many a charming evening talking and playing with Albertine, but none so delicious as when I was watching her sleep. . .

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 63-65

I suppose every one of us has at one time or another been so much in love that we would stay awake solely to watch our lover sleep.  When I was with the LBG we both eventually had to admit that we were both guilty of doing it (including, of course, the classic early romance standard of whispering in their ear that you love them - it must have taken, we almost got married).  In the section above Proust devotes a goodly amount of time, although not by Proustian standards, discussing watching Albertine sleep.  "In this way, her sleep realised to a certain extent the possibility of love: alone, I could think of her, but I missed her, I did not possess her; when she was present, I spoke to her, but was too absent from myself to be able to think of her; when she was asleep, I no longer had to talk, I knew that I was no longer observed by her, I no longer needed to live on the surface of myself."  Like all lovers Proust feels very closed to his beloved at that moment, although more because he feels that she's not lying to him.  Once again, we see the passivity of Albertine, as she asks for his permission to stretch out on his bed, and, for that matter, even his description of her refers to her as a plant.  However, he is also referring to his beauty: "What I felt then as a love as pure, as immaterial, as mysterious, as if I had been in the presence of those inanimate creatures which are the beauties of nature."  I guess I would argue that Proust, and, well, hell, all of us probably, watch our sleeping lovers because we at that time able to be both close to them but also continue to create in our minds an imaginary personality for them.

My Years With Proust - Day 512

   On the evenings when the latter did not read aloud to e, she would play me some music or begin a game of draughts, or a conversation, which I would interrupt with kisses.  Our relations had a simplicity that made them soothing.  The very emptiness of her life gave Albertine a sort of eagerness to comply with the few demands I made on her.  Behind this girl, as behind the purple light that used to filter beneath the curtains of my room at Balbec, while outside the concert blared, there shone the blue-green undulations of the sea.  Was she not, after all (she in whose being there now existed an idea of me so habitual and familiar that, next to her aunt, I was perhaps the person whom she distinguished least from herself), the girl whom I had seen the first time at Balbec, beneath her flat cap, with her insistent laughing eyes, a stranger still, slender as a silhouette projecting against the waves? These effigies preserved intact in our memory astonish us, when we recall them, by their dissimilarity from the person we know, and we realise what a task of remodelling is performed every day by habit.  In the charm that Albertine had in Paris, by my fireside, there still survived the desire that had been aroused in me by that insolent and blossoming cortege along the beach, and just as Rachel retained in Saint-Loup's eyes, even after he mad her abandon it, the glamour of her stage life, so in this Albertine cloistered in my house, far from Balbec whence I had hurried her away, there persisted the excitement, the social confusion, the hollow restlessness, the roving desires of seaside life. She was so effectively caged that on certain evenings I did not even ask her to leave her room for mine, she whom at one time all the world pursued, whom I had found it so hard to overtake as she sped part on her bicycle, whom the liftboy himself was unable to bring back to me, leaving me with little hope of her coming, although I sat up waiting for her all night.  Had not Albertine been - out there in front of the hotel - like a great actress of the blazing beach, speaking to no one, jostling the habitues, dominating her friends?  And was not this so greatly coveted actress the same who, withdrawn by me from the stage, shut up in my house, was now here, shielded from the desires of all those who might henceforth seek for her in vain, sitting now in my room, now in her own, engaged in some work of design or engraving?

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 61-62

Have there been many books with a more appropriate title than The Captive?  In this one paragraph Proust uses descriptors such as "caged" and "cloistered" and "withdrawn" and "shut up" and "shielded." And why does Marcel cage Albertine other than his desire to control her?  His professed claim to protect her from her vices and other women, obviously, ring pretty hollow.  All Marcel is managing to do is break her spirit.  Proust recounted, "The very emptiness of her life gave Albertine a sort of eagerness to comply with the few demands I made on her."  I've pointed out the number of parallel lives and parallel relationships that run through Remembrance of Things Past, and the more I think about it I would argue it also relates to Marcel and Albertine in a way.  Marcel/Proust increasingly leads a life cut off from the rest of the world and controlled by factors such a declining health, whereas Albertine also leads a "captive" life, partially imposed by societal constraints but arguably even more by Marcel.

Oh, and more appropriately entitled books than The Captive?  Hmm, that's a tough one, although, as we'll soon see, The Fugitive jumps to mind.  I hope Time Regained delivers what the title promises.  Beyond that, I've set myself the challenge of coming up with titles as equally appropriate.    I'll revisit this question, although The Unbearable Lightness of Being springs to mind as a starter.

OK, I did mention The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but clearly I'm just posting this picture because, well, hell, it's Juliette Binoche, and one doesn't need a more valid reason to celebrate the most beautiful woman in the world.

My Years With Proust - Day 511

   She was not, moreover, frivolous, read a great deal when she was alone, and read aloud to me when we were together.  She had become extremely intelligent.  She would say, quite falsely in fact: "I'm appalled when I think that but for you I should still be quite ignorant.  Don't contradict.  You have opened up a world of ideas to me which I never suspected, and whatever I may have become I owe entirely to you."

   It will be remembered that she had spoken in similar terms of my influence over Andree.  Had either of them a real feeling for me?  And, in themselves, what were Albertine and Andree? To know the answer, I should have to immobilise you, to cease to live in that perpetual state of expectancy ending always in a different presentment of you, I should have to cease to love you in order to fix your image, cease to be conscious of your interminable and always disconcerting arrival, O girls, O successive rays of the swirling vortex wherein we throb with emotion in seeing you reappear while barely recognising you, in the dizzy velocity of light.  We might perhaps remains unaware of that velocity, and everything would seem to us motionless, did not a sexual attraction set us in pursuit of you, O drops of gold, always dissimilar and always surpassing our expectation! Each time, a girl so little resembles what she was the time before (shattering, as soon as we catch sight of her, the memory that we had retained of her and the desire that we had proposed to gratify), that the stability of nature which we ascribe to her is purely fictitious and a convention of speech.  We have been told that some pretty girl is tender, loving, full of the most delicate feelings.  Our imagination accepts this assurance, and when we behold for the first time, beneath the woven girdle of her golden hair, the rosy disc of her face, we are almost afraid that this too virtuous sister, cooling our ardour by her very virtue, can never be to us the lover for whom we have been longing.  What secrets, however, we confide to her from the first moment, on the strength of that nobility of heart, what plans we make together!  But a few days later, we regret that we were so confiding, for the rosy-cheeked girl, at our second meeting, addresses us in the language of a lascivious Fury.  As for the successive facts which after pulsating for some days the roseate light, now eclipsed, presents to us, it is not even certain that a momentum external to these girls has not modified their aspect, and might well have happened with my band of girls at Balbec. People extol to us the gentleness, the purity of a virgin.  But afterwards they feel that something more spicy would please us better, and recommend her to show more boldness.  In herself was she one more than the other? Perhaps not, but capable of yielding to any number of different possibilities in the headlong current of life.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 58-59

Proust asks a seemingly simple question, which has far broader implications.  He wants to know if either Andree or Albertine actually had true feelings for him, and he attempts to answer it scientifically:  "To know the answer, I should have to immobilise you, to cease to live in that perpetual state of expectancy ending always in a different presentment of you, I should have to cease to love you in order to fix your image . . "  If he's going to place the girls under a microscope he needs a clean sample, which is difficult because, beyond the obvious fact that life is distressingly dirty, and more importantly for him, he needs a static, pure, unchanging, essential sample.  And how does we acquire this sample for analysis when each of us changes so dramatically day to day. Proust continues, "Each time, a girl so little resembles what she was the time before (shattering, as soon as we catch sight of her, the memory that we had retained of her and the desire that we had proposed to gratify), that the stability of nature which we ascribe to her is purely fictitious and a convention of speech." While reading this passage I kept thinking about Heraclitus proposing, or at least Plato remembering that Heraclitus proposed, that you can never step in the same stream twice.  The only constant is change.  Think of the women in your life: "People extol to us the gentleness, the purity of a virgin.  But afterwards they feel that something more spicy would please us better, and recommend her to show more boldness.  In herself was she one more than the other? Perhaps not, but capable of yielding to any number of different possibilities in the headlong current of life."  How could Proust answer the question of whether Albertine or Andree truly felt anything for him when they were a different person on the morrow?  And to the core of everything, how can anyone love anyone else if neither of you will actually exist tomorrow?  Maybe the problem is trying to decipher something as ineffable as love scientifically.  Maybe Sherwood Anderson was right in Winesburg, Ohio when he noted that love was the divine accident of life.

Mad Men

Students will sometimes ask, "What do you do in the summer?"  Partially this relates to the fact that they mainly think that we only exist in our classrooms, trapped in a spectral form like Chinese hungry ghosts, but also because I don't think we do much of anything even in the school year.  Social media is breaking down that barrier as we're in more constant, albeit virtual, contact.  For instance, last night I was trying to watch a French film (and crushing over Marie Dompnier) but had to balance out answering competing Tweets from Jo Ames, Meg Kelting and Max Bell, who were hanging out, as they tried to convince me to let Jo into my fall semester Islam class.  At one point I stopped the film and went upstairs to my laptop to get online to check the status of the class.  When Jo discovered that there was one opening left she wanted me to put her in the class, which led to this response: "I'm not your secretary, you pixie prima donna."  Actually, despite my protestations to the contrary, I like being in contact with my students (even marginal ones such as Ames, Kelting and Bell), even on social media, and I think my colleagues do a better job drawing that line.Why?  It may be that I really love teaching or I'm so active on this blog and on Twitter that it seems dishonest to create a barrier that I clearly don't have with the rest of the world or it could also just be that as I see the end of my career creeping a little closer day by day it's increasingly clear to me that soon, soon, all too soon this will all be over and there will be no students to care about what I think.

But back to the original question: What do we do in the summer?  Normally I teach, but, as has been noted, this is the first summer in thirty-two years that I'm not teaching.  There are dumb chores, which, if it would ever stop raining here in Vermont, I'd get around to tackling, but everyone has those.  For some of us we try and take the opportunity to get around to some research and writing, which is tough to do if you teach a 4/4 load (especially if you're, like me, not that bright to begin with).  I'm devoting a lot more time to working on the epics project, especially the Ramayana right now, and trying to finish Proust, the novel will be finished this weekend but the commentary will take months and whatever I turn it into, doubtless, years.  In addition professors take the summer to devote themselves to much needed professional development, which might mean conferences or CIEE seminars or it could just be getting together with other professors to read and discuss interesting topics and works.  A couple months back Chuck Bashaw approached David Kite and me and asked if we wanted to get together over the summer to discuss Sufi mysticism.  Like all right thinking individuals, I immediately said yes.  We get together every couple weeks to discuss the poetry of Rumi or the 18th surah from the Quran or The Bezels of Wisdom by al-Arabi. We've now dragged Eric Ronis into the group.  This should all be something that you'd admit with shame, but, hell, we're professors, and it's the summer.

Bashaw and Kite, the Mad Men of Champlain College.

My Years With Proust - Day 510

   Love, I used to say to myself at Balbec, is what we feel for a person; our jealousy seems rather to be directed towards that person's actions; we feel that if she were to tell us everything, we might perhaps easily be cure of our love.  However skillfully jealousy is concealed by him who suffers from it, it is very soon detected by her who has inspired it, and who applies equal skill in her turn.  She seeks to put us off the scent of what might make us unhappy, and easily succeeds, for, to the man who is not forewarned, how should a casual remark reveal the falsehoods that lie beneath it?  We do not distinguish this remark from the rest; spoken apprehensively, it is received unheedingly. Later on, when we are alone, we shall return to this remark, which will seem to us not altogether consistent with the facts of the case.  But do we remember it correctly?  There seems to arise spontaneously in us, with regard to it and to the accuracy of our memory, a doubt of the sort which, in certain nervous conditions, prevents us from remembering whether we have bolted the door, no less after the fiftieth time than after the first; it would seem that we can repeat the action indefinitely without its every being accompanied by a precise and liberating memory.  But at least we can shut the door again for the fifty-first time.  Whereas the disturbing remark exists in the past, in an imperfect hearing of it which it is not within our power to re-enact.  Then we concentrate our attention upon other remarks which conceal nothing, and the sole remedy, which we do not want, is to be ignorant of everything in order not to have any desire for further knowledge.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 55

"Love, I used to say to myself at Balbec, is what we feel for a person; our jealousy seems rather to be directed towards that person's actions . . ." Proust draws an interesting distinction between love and jealousy, associating love with the person and jealousy with the person's actions.  You could argue that this is an artificial distinction, although I suspect that, as with most things, he's on to something.  I've fallen for women before I ever knew anything about their actions, and their innate being never made me jealous, whereas it was something they did, consciously or unconsciously, that made me jealous.  The problem is that this worldview re-enforced Marcel's desire to keep Albertine as a captive; if he could control her actions he could control his jealousy, and thus stabilize their relationship.  However, while not every action is an expression of our essential nature - and I'm not simply talking about lying and cheating because lying and cheating can be part of our essential nature - I would argue that most actions are an expression of us as a person.  The actions are just the expression of who we are.  If we're not doing anything then it's easier for the person to impose their perception of us onto us, and thus it is only through our actions that we express our true selves.   And this in turn would bring us back to Marcel's desire to control Albertine because in the end his love is only about himself anyway. [This is what happens when you get involved in a summer reading group with David Kite and Chuck Bashaw to discuss Sufi mysticism]

And obviously we've made this point before, but it's rather amazing how much time and effort we spend destroying the same relationships that we pray to have.  My current SO would rather have her fingernails pulled out by pliers than talk about our relationship.  When I was dating LBG we fell into the trap of talking about our relationship so much that it was exhausting, and at a certain point I said to her, "I think we need to spend less talk talking about our relationship, and more time living it.," which she understood and we struck a more happy balance.  Oddly, for a person who dissected and analyzed everything down to the atomic level, I don't think Marcel actually spent much time talking to Albertine about their relationship.  Rather, I think he mainly lectured her, or, more accurately, hectored her, about his understanding of the nature of their relationship and her failure to follow the guidelines that he had reached in isolation.  If I were Marcel's friend, after giving him a friendly dope slap to the back of the head, I would have quoted Marcus Aurelius (because, well, it always come back to Marcus) "All men are made one for another; either then teach them better or bear with them."  Doubtless, he'd then say that he was trying to teach her, leading me to dope slap him again, and say, "OK, let's try this approach," and I'd quote the Brain from Pinky & the Brain, "Focus Pinky!  Stop thinking so much and live your damn life and be thankful she's in it, idiot."  I mean, it would be in French so it wouldn't sound so harsh. Of course, I'd have to learn French first, but you get the idea.

And, seriously, spellchecker, you don't know how to spell "unheedingly?"  What has happened to the English language?  We've become intellectually rachitic. Wait, stupid spellchecker, you don't recognize rachitic?  I fear this is going to turn into an eternally recurring loop.

Life or My Little Corner of It

In our Concepts of the Self class here at Champlain every first year student is required to create a self-portrait, along with, naturally enough, a final paper that explores the themes raised in the art.  As I've discussed here, and elsewhere, I'm a big believer in the project, and I always tell the students that they should create a new self-portrait every five years, even if they don't show it to anybody and just hide it away in the back of their closet.  I'm a big believer in modeling assignments, especially for first and second year students, so I create a new self-portrait every fall so that I can share the experience with them.  It's never too early or too late for self-reflection.  Self-portraits can be systematically planned, but sometimes they can be fairly organic.  This picture might make a good self-portrait, or at least the beginning of a discussion of a self-portrait, and it definitely represents the latter approach. I'm sitting at my desk writing this morning and turned to my left, and realized that this one little corner of my desk at home represented so much of what dominates my life at the moment, and, what is more key, what is important to me at this moment: one of my favorite pictures of my son (he's 3 or 4 and we'd just climbed to the top of Stone Mountain); a little globe turned appropriately towards Zanzibar; three of the seven volumes that comprise the Ramayana; and my open copy of one of my Proust volumes, captured mid-blog post, before I turned back to writing on the Ramayana.  That's not a bad little snapshot, literally and figuratively, on where I am right now, July 2017.  Now, I could have fudged it by sticking in a copy of the Quran, since I tend to devote a lot of time to Islam or issues related to Islam and the broader Islamic world, but I like the organic nature of this picture - and, well, I'm a historian and there's an integrity to artifacts that would have been contaminated by posing the picture.

Now, the one problem with this as a self-portrait is that it is pretty reactive and surface level in that it shows what is influencing me, and what I love or find interesting, which is not completely the same as saying who I am.  As I always point out to my students, we are much more than simply of our likes/dislikes and experiences.  Now, I would tie this all together in my supporting paper, naturally, but I should also find a way to express it visually.  However, that also moves us away from the notion of an organic piece of art.  Consequently, maybe this works better as the equivalent of one of those pictures that someone took of you unawares which really expresses your air than as a self-portrait.  This is clearly fodder for a class discussion in the fall.

Mamboz's Again

I've spoken about the excellence of Mamboz's Corner BBQ before on this blog, so it's not particularly surprising that Steve and I visited it again on our trip in May.  In fact, most of the planning for the early stage of the trip centered around making sure that we made it to Mamboz's.  It's located in downtown Dar Es Salaam, about ten minutes from our traditional landing spot of the Heritage Motel, which leaves it pretty close to the port.  We landed in Dar around 9:00 at night, and our hope was to bust through customs, grab a taxi, drop off our suitcases at the Heritage (essentially, "For the love of God, man, here's my passport, we've got to get to get to Mamboz's!"), and then run to the restaurant.  Happily, we made it in time and were rewarded with their amazing food, all while sitting out on the sidewalk soaking up the environment.  We were going to bracket the trip by stopping at Mamboz's on the way out of town, but it was Ramadan and consequently the restaurant opened later and we couldn't make the logistics work.  Still, we'll be back there again in January, nineteen students in tow.

Seriously, how can you not be happy, it's Mamboz's BBQ.  It's definitely spicy, especially for those living in the spice-averse yankee hellhole that is Vermont, but if you've lived in the South, like I have, or grew up in Buffalo, like Steve did, spice is not a problem.

This is the general consensus.  You can just see the iconic Mamboz's Corner BBQ sign in the background. The food is cooked on big grills right out on the sidewalk next to where you're eating, so you're salivating before your plate arrives.

This is the combo platter.  Highly recommended.

My Years With Proust - Day 509

   Our engagement was assuming the aspect of a criminal trial, and gave her the timorousness of a guilty party.  Now she changed the conversation whenever it turned on people, men or women, who were not of mature years.  It was when she had not yet suspected that I was jealous of her that I should have asked her to tell me what I wanted to know.  One ought always to take advantage of that period.  It is then that one's mistress tells one about her pleasures and even the means by which she conceals them from other people.  She would no longer have admitted to me now as she had admitted at Balbec, partly because it was true, partly by way of apology for not making her affection for me more evident, for I had already begun to weary her even then, and she had gathered from my kindness to her that she need not show as much affection to me as to others in order to obtain more from me than from them - she would no longer have admitted to me now as she had admitted then: "I think it stupid to let people see who one loves.  I'm just the opposite: as soon as a person attracts me, I pretend not to take to take any notice.  In that way, nobody knows anything about it."

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 51-52

In this passage Proust is reflecting on how miserable he's making Albertine, and one can only recognize, once again, how apt it is that this volume is entitled The Captive.  What gets me is the deliberate, sustained, almost systemic jealousy-based cruelty of their relationship (if would be as if Kafka wrote Relationships for Dummies and Emotional Sadists).  To be fair, it's not as if Albertine is completely innocent in their twisted relationships, both in her actions but also, as we've discussed and will again shortly, her comments (essentially, she says things to wind Marcel up that I can't believe are merely accidental).  It's just amazing the amount of time and effort we devote to making each other miserable.  Theoretically, relationships shouldn't be that difficult: some fairly consistent affection, both physical and emotional; a modicum of attention, often always at the level of "How was your day?" or "And what are you reading?", it doesn't always have to be at the level of "No, seriously, why was she your best childhood friend?" or "Let's talk about your view of God in more depth, and could you include citations."; the occasional mind-altering orgasm, with the partner's appropriate hard work and theatrics, counter-balanced with the more routine, dependable, serviceable orgasms, etc. Instead, we treat most relationships like small boys pulling wings off flies.

But the other side of this is that Marcel does love Albertine, and he does have some sense of the life they could have if they would just get out of each other's way emotionally.  Check out this passage from two inches further down the page:

   As I listened to Albertine's footsteps with the consoling pleasure of thinking that she would not be going out again that evening, I marvelled at the thought that, for this girl whom at one time I had supposed that I could never possibly succeed in knowing, returning home every day actually meant returning to my home.  The fugitive and fragmentary pleasure compounded of mystery and sensuality, which I had felt at Balbec, on the night when she had come to sleep at the hotel had been completed and stabilised, filling my hitherto empty dwelling with a permanent store of domestic, almost conjugal bliss that radiated even into the passages and upon which all my senses, either actively or, when I was alone, in imagination as I awaited her return, peacefully fed. (52-53)

Again, it's no literary accident that this volume and the next are entitled The Captive and The Fugitive, respectively.

My Years With Proust - Day 508

   On the days when I did not go down to Mme de Guermantes, so that time should not hang too heavy for me during the hour that preceded Albertine's return, I would take up an album of Elstir's work, one of Bergotte's books, or Vinteuil's sonata.  Then, just as those works of art which seem to address themselves to the eye or ear alone require that, if we are to appreciate them our awakened intelligence shall collaborate closely with those organs, I would unconsciously summon up from within me the dreams that Albertine had inspired in me long ago before I knew her and that had been quenched by the routine of everyday life.  I would cast them into the composer's phrase or the painter's image as into a crucible, or them to enrich the book that I was reading.  And no doubt the latter appeared all the more vivid in consequence.  But Albertine herself gained just as much by being thus transported from one into the other of the two worlds to which we have access and in which we can place alternately the same object, by escaping thus from the crushing weight of matter to play freely in the fluid spaces of the mind.  I found myself suddenly and for an instant capable of passionate feelings for this wearisome girl.  She had at that moment the appearance of a work by Elstir or Bergotte, I felt a momentary ardour for her, seeing her in the perspective of imagination and art.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 49-50

So much of Remembrance of Things Past is taken up by the love affair between Marcel and Albertine, but in some ways I feel as perplexed by it than the first day he saw her.  It seems to be more about jealousy and/or possession and/or power and/or recapturing his mother's love and/or recapturing his grandmother's memory than about some pristine love (not that either of us would ever know).  In this passage Proust introduces another factor: the relationship between Albertine and art, or at least the relationship between Proust's perception of art and his perception of Albertine. "She had at that moment the appearance of a work by Elstir or Bergotte, I felt a momentary ardour for her, seeing her in the perspective of imagination and art."  I suppose we're all reminded of a lover by songs or paintings.  I know I've talked about songs I associate with women before: Neil Young's Winterlong and Cinnamon Girl and Cowgirl in the Sand; Kathleen Edwards's Summerlong and Empty Threat; the Cranberries' Linger; Ryan Adams's Please Do Not Let Me Go; Lucinda Williams's Minneapolis and Those Three Days and Right in Time, etc (I'll leave out the names of the women I associate with the memories to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent; you know who you are).  It seems I associate less paintings clearly with women, but I suspect that it because music is more ethereal and thus subjective. That said, there are several, of which I'll include these two paintings from Matisse and the Sargent I love so much.

Proust builds upon this notion, however, and discusses how we see our lovers in works of art, and how we bring those works of art into how we see our lovers. "I would unconsciously summon up from within me the dreams that Albertine had inspired in me long ago . . . [and I] would cast them into the composer's phrase or the painter's image as into a crucible, or them to enrich the book that I was reading.  And no doubt the latter appeared all the more vivid in consequence." What is more, "Albertine herself gained just as much by being thus transported from one into the other of the two worlds to which we have access . . ."  Either way, our relationship to art and our relationship to our lovers is based on our perception and memory of imaginary creations.

My Years With Proust - Day 507

   I shall set apart from the other days on which I lingered at Mme de Guermantes's one that was marked by a trivial incident the cruel significance of which entirely escaped me and was not brought home to me until long afterwards.  On this particular evening, Mme de Guermantes had givfen me, knowing that I was fond of them, some branches of syringa which had been sent to her from the South.  When I left her and went upstairs to our flat, Albertine had already returned, and on the staircase I ran into Andree, who seemed to be distressed by the powerful smell of the flowers that I was bringing home.

   "What, are you back already?" I said.

   "Only a moment ago, but Albertine had some letters to write, so she sent me away."

   "You don't think she's up to any mischief?"

   "Not at all, she's writing to her aunt, I think.  But you know how she disliked strong scents, she won't be particularly thrilled by your syringa."

   "How stupid of me! I shall tell Francoise to put them out on the service stairs."

   "Do you imagine that Albertine won't notice the scent of them on you?  Next to tuberoses they've the strongest scent of any flower, I always think.  Anyhow, I believe Francoise has gone out shopping."

   "But in that case, as I haven't got my latchkey, how am I to get in?"

   "Oh, you've only got to ring the bell.  Albertine you let you in.  Besides, Francoise may have come back by this time."

   I said good-bye to Andree.  I had no sooner pressed the bell than Albertine came to open the door, which she had some difficulty in doing since, in the absence of Francoise, she did not know where to turn on the light.  At last she managed to let me in, but the scent of the syringa put her to flight.  I took them to the kitchen, so that meanwhile my mistress, leaving her letter unfinished (I had no idea why), had time to go to my room, from which she called me, and to lie down on my bed.  Once again, at the actual moment I saw nothing in all this that was not perfectly natural, at the most a little confused, but in any case unimportant.*

   *She had nearly been caught with Andree and had snatched a brief respite for herself by turning out all the lights, going to my room so that I should not see the disordered state of her bed, and pretending to be busy writing a letter.  But we shall see all this later on, a situation the truth of which I never ascertained.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 49

This is an odd little section, and not simply because for one of the few times in Remembrance of Things Past that Proust includes a footnote commenting on his own writing.  He will come back to this section in greater detail later on so I don't want to say too much about it now.  Essentially, what has happened is that Marcel is returning from a soiree and runs into Andree, who is supposed to be helping to keep tabs and keep Albertine out of "mischief," who tells him that her friend is writing a letter to her aunt.  Clearly there is a lot more to the story, which Marcel will find out in the fullness of time, but which I'm surprised he didn't sense at the time (especially considering how naturally jealous he is).  I'm really amused by the linguistic game within a game that Proust is playing in this section, while also freely admitting that I'm perpetually guilty of reading too much into literature.  That said . . .

Proust could have picked any plant to have Marcel bring home with him, but he chose a syringa, scientific name syringa vulgaris.  Here in the US we normally just refer to it as lilac.  I believe syringa is derived from the Greek and means something like tube, so syringa vulgaris could be translated as "common tube."  Consequently, I can't believe that Proust wasn't winking at his reader when he has Andree tell Marcel that Albertine "won't be particularly thrilled by your syringa" - essentially Albertine "won't be particularly thrilled by your tube" or Albertine "won't be particularly thrilled by your common tube" or, even better, Albertine "won't be particularly thrilled by your vulgar tube" -  especially after Marcel's arrival had interrupted a stolen moment between the two women. Plus, the syringa, like many plants I suppose, is bisexual.  Like I said, I'm all too often guilty of reading way too much into literary passages.

But still . . .

We'll revisit this scene later in Remembrance of Things Past and discuss it in greater detail.

My Years With Proust - Day 506

There was, moreover, a brief period during which, without his admitting it to himself precisely, this marriage appeared to him to be necessary.  Morel was suffering at the time from violent cramp in the hand, and found himself obliged to contemplate the possibility of having to give up the violin.  Since, in everything but his art, he was astonishingly lazy, he was faced with the necessity of finding someone to keep him; and he preferred that it should be Jupien's niece rather than M. de Charlus, this arrangement offering him greater freedom and also a wide choice of different kinds of women, ranging from the apprentices, perpetually changing, whom he would persuade Jupien's niece to procure for him, to the rich and beautiful ladies to whom he would prostitute her.  That his future wife might refuse to lend herself to these ploys, that she could be to such a degree, perverse, never entered Morel's calculations for a moment.  However, his cramp having ceased, they receded into the background and were replaced by pure love.  His violin would suffice, together with his allowance from M. de Charlus, whose demands upon him would certainly be reduced once he, Morel, was married to the girl.  This marriage was the urgent thing, because of his love, and in the interest of his freedom.  He asked Jupien for his niece's hand, and Jupien consulted her.  This was wholly unnecessary.  The girl's passion for the violinist streamed around her, like her hair when she let it down, as did the joy in her beaming eyes.  In Morel, almost everything that was agreeable or advantageous to him awakened moral emotions and words to correspond, sometimes even melting him  to tears.  It was therefore sincerely - if such a word can be applied to him - that he addressed to Jupien's niece speeches so steeped in sentimentality (sentimental too are the speeches of so many young noblemen who look forward to a life of idleness address to some charming daughter of a bourgeois plutocrat) as the theories he had expounded to M. de Charlus about the seduction and deflowering of virgins had been steeped in unmitigated vileness. However, there was another side to this virtuous enthusiasm for a person who afforded him pleasure and to the solemn promises that he made to her.  As soon as the person ceased to cause him pleasure, or indeed, for example, the obligation to fulfill the promises that he had mad caused him displeasure, she at once became the object of antipathy which he sought to justify in his own eyes and which, after some neurasthenic disturbance, enabled him to prove to himself, as soon as the balance of his nervous system was restored, that, even looking at the matter from a purely virtuous point of view, he was released from any obligation.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 45-46

Morel is one of those actors who has been actively performing in the background throughout so much of Remembrance of Things Past, but he's only now taking on a more prominent role - and thus coming into clearer focus.  Mainly up to this point he's been an object of desire for M. de Charlus, and the engine for some tragicomic scenes.  Apparently, as we've seen, as we see, and as we'll see, everyone wants to sleep with him, and he seems pretty democratic in his willingness to assist their desires.  At first blush, and I think at every preceding blush, Morel seems to be a fairly reprehensible character, although an oddly sentimental one.  Proust notes, "In Morel, almost everything that was agreeable or advantageous to him awakened moral emotions and words to correspond, sometimes even melting him  to tears."  He wants to marry Jupien's niece because marriage meant freedom, although, at least allegedly, later his more mercenary goals were "replaced by pure love."  To be fair, I suppose his worldview is really not that different from the female characters in the novel who are positioning themselves for an advantageous marriage, so maybe by heaping more scorn on him we're revealing our own sexism; although I wouldn't go too far down that road because I still think he's a morally bankrupt (at least morally ambiguous) character.  However, as I've noted, he's hardly the only character like this in the novel.  There are normally one or two characters, although less sexually adventurous, in every Dickens novel, but they are outnumbered by the more morally upright characters, usually, appropriately, from a lower social class.  So why are there so many rapacious characters in Remembrance of Things Past?  Well, following the Dickens example I just gave, the focus here in much more on the upper classes, and even Proust, a few posts ago, apologized for making it seem that everyone from the upper classes was depraved. [Trigger Warning: rant from unrepentant socialist coming] My theory is that it's more than possessing piles of money.  Rather, I think it relates to general usefulness to society.  None of these characters appear to have done anything other than leech off of society.  They're all whores, with the only distinction  being subtle differences in their clientele.  If you do nothing but sponge off others then it would seem to me that your main concern would be about survival, and finding the next appropriate host.  But enough about the Trump junta . . .

Oh, and just for future reference, this morning, in real time, I finished reading The Fugitive and started on Time Regained.  I'm having mixed emotions about starting the last volume of Remembrance of Things Past.

Ali G Revisited

I've discussed the excellence of Ali G before, but I wanted to post a couple pictures anyway.  He's a waiter - well, I think we can all agree that he's the greatest waiter in the world - who works at the African House Hotel in Zanzibar.  We met him for the first time on our March 2016 trip.  He provided an amazing breakfast for Emma and me after her adventure at the doctor's office, and he was so nice I wanted to introduce him to Steve.  And I don't think there's been a day that we've been in Stone Town since that we haven't spent time with the inestimable Ali G. In an all too often bitter, sullen world, there are few happier simple pleasures like walking into the African House and being greeted by Ali G with a cold Kilamanjaro and his signature "kila kitu sawa?" - "why not?"

We love Ali G!  There's an off-chance that someday soon we're going to lead a group of Trustees or Alumni to Zanzibar, and I think Steve is most excited about the prospect of walking into the African House and seeing the truly excellent Ali G.

Here's Ali G explaining, patiently, his latest complicated fist bump routine.