My Years With Proust - Day 582

I could, if I chose, take Albertine on my knee, hold her head in my hands, I could caress her, run my hands slowly over her, but, just as if I been handling a stone which encloses the salt of immemorial oceans or the light of a star, I felt that I was touching no more than the sealed envelope of a person who inwardly reached to infinity.  How I suffered from the position to which we are reduced by the obliviousness of nature which, when instituting the division of bodies, never thought of making possible the interpenetration of souls! And I realised that Albertine was not even for me (for if her body was in the power of mine, her thoughts eluded the grasp of my thoughts) the marvellous captive with whom I had thought to enrich my home, while concealing her presence there as completely, even from the friends who came to see me and never suspected that she was at the end of the corridor, in the room next to my own, as did that man of whom nobody knew that he kept the Princess of China sealed in a bottle; urging me with cruel and fruitless insistence in quest of the past, she resembled, in anything, a mighty goddess of Time. And if I had to waste years of my life and much of my fortune for her sake - and provided that I can tell myself, which is by no means certain, alas, that she herself lost nothing - I have nothing to regret.  No doubt solitude would have been better, more fruitful, less painful.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 393

Why is it that we are so forgiving of some characters, either in the real world or in the realms of literature or film?  Granted, there are times when Marcel is annoying, either because he's being sexist or hypocritical or self-pitying, but in the end we forgive him.  I mean, I finished all 3304 pages of Remembrance of Things Past and never threw my hands up in disgust or frustration.  Is it because we feel that he is speaking an essential truth?  Is it because the beauty of Proust's words overwhelm anything else?  Or is it because that even if at times he's more than a tad whiny we feel his almost existential pain and we connect to it?  Proust tells us, "No doubt solitude would have been better, more fruitful, less painful." Nevertheless, Marcel doesn't choose solitude, and spends years pursuing Albertine, although it's clear that, even when she is his "captive" he never truly possesses her.  In almost tangible despair, Proust shares: "I could, if I chose, take Albertine on my knee, hold her head in my hands, I could caress her, run my hands slowly over her, but, just as if I been handling a stone which encloses the salt of immemorial oceans or the light of a star, I felt that I was touching no more than the sealed envelope of a person who inwardly reached to infinity." A couple days we talked about Proust focusing on the surface level of Albertine and being unable to delve deeper.  All of us have found ourselves in that position.  Is it because we didn't try and delve deeper or the other person never let us in, or we weren't really supposed to be together in the first place? 

"How I suffered from the position to which we are reduced by the obliviousness of nature which, when instituting the division of bodies, never thought of making possible the interpenetration of souls!"

Ownership

The other day I gave a presentation in our George "Honey Boy" Evans Symposium here at Champlain.  Mainly I wanted to talk about the important and complex nature of Sita in the Ramayana, which meant talking about her relationship with Rama and Ravana.  Not surprisingly, I had to give some background on an immensely complicated epic, without letting that foundational information dominate the entire talk.  While providing that background I talked a little bit about our guides for the trip, which in turn inspired me post some long-overdue pictures.  The trip was way too short for such our madly ambitious goal of following that path of Rama, and thus of the Ramayana itself.  That said, it held together better than any trip I've ever planned.  One of the many, many interesting aspects of the trip was the role that our guides played in the nature of that exploration.  While the trip was organized by the estimable Inder Singh, he made use of Vivek Pathak, a Hindu, in India, and Sudarshana Parera, a Buddhist, in Sri Lanka.  What I knew, and what, of course, I didn't tell the students, was that the two men had two very different versions of the Ramayana, which appropriately represented the contested narrative between India and Sri Lanka.  On two separate occasions, once on the bus and once in the midst of a throng of Indians in the ancient city of Nashek, he told the story of the Ramayana.  What was lovely - and what could not have been planned better - was that there were subtle differences in the story, which reflected the continued oral evolution of the epic, even one that was allegedly fossilized in a written form millennia ago.  At one point we asked him to identify his favorite written version of the Ramayana.  He admitted that he had never read it, but instead told us, "I learned the story from my grandmother, and my mother is teaching my son the story."  Talk about your teachable moment.  Once we crossed over to Sri Lanka the story became very different because view Rama as the initiator of the war and Ravana the hero, and that, in fact, Rama never defeated Ravana because no one could have done that (instead,he was figuratively, and literally, stabbed in the back by his own brother, and fellow rakshasa, Vibhishana).  We were in a Sita temple one day and finally Surdarshana said to the students, although in a very friendly way, "I've heard your professor telling you the story of the Ramayana, but let me tell you the real story."  At that point you spun a very different tale.  One of the students, incredulous, turned to me and said, "Wait, did you know this?"  And I had to respond, "Well, duh."  The power was in them hearing it at that point, not me telling them in a classroom in Burlington, Vermont.  Both guides have since been included, if sadly certainly not immortalized, in my epics book. 

The path of the Ramayana.  We picked up the trail at Nashek, which is a couple hours east of Mumbai, or, on this particular map, at that jag right next to Pancarvati.

Vivek Pathak, our guide and friend in India.

Sudarshana Parera, our guide and friend in Sri Lanka.

And unfazed by the battle for control of the Ramayana was the most excellent Inder Singh, the head of Tiger Paws Adventures (an organization of which I cannot say enough good things).  The students adored him and he reached a sort of mythic level with them.  As he waving goodbye to us in the Mumbai Airport they all started chanting "Inder! Inder! Inder!!!" much, much too loudly.

It was an amazingly culturally and religious diverse trip, which meant that it perfectly mirrored India and Sri Lanka.  It's wonderful, and funny, to think that the trip was essentially led by a Sikh, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, and a Jewish Atheist.  I don't know what the Pentecostals were doing that week because they clearly missed out.

Discography Year Two - Week 4

First off, I have to apologize for getting this week's post up and running late this week. As I'll discuss, clumsily, later, I decided at the last moment to change my submission (again), and that threw everything off.  Amazingly we're already a month of the way into the second year of our Discography music discussion. There are a lot of great songs this week, and, per usual, several completely new songs and bands (although, as we know, given my level of profound musical illiteracy this is to be expected).  A few days ago the esteemed Gary Beatrice asked if the first thematic week topic had been revealed.  The answer is, sort of, unofficially, at least to a couple members.  Last year we ran our first thematic week in Week 9, and I was planning on taking the same approach, although, truthfully, I don't know why.  We can run it at anytime, so all I need is your thoughts on it and two weeks notice.

Gary Beatrice

Steely Dan, Your Gold Teeth

"Your Gold Teeth" is another song that simply hits my soul for reasons I can't detect. The lyrics are meaningless, standard early period Steely Dan lyrics that sound like your listening in on a secret multi-layered mystery, with its reference to a women we must know from history or something (Kathy Bavaria). But, on closer examination the lyrics don't mean anything. They are just a tool to help propel the music, the overall sound. And I don't mind that the lyrics don't mean a thing because the overall sound is just fantastic. I particularly enjoy the long piano/keyboard/guitar instrumental break that is the centerpiece of "Your Gold Teeth".

Steely Dan was my favorite band the first three years of high school, at least until Dave Wallace and Scott Stauber made me sit down and really listen to Born To Run and Darkness On the Edge of Town (and later Some Girls). I don't apologize because Steely Dan actually was a very good band through the seventies. I am a bit embarrassed that I also believed and argued that they were also the best rock band ever...but, hey, high school.

And they were most certainly an odd band. By their second album the band was Donald Fagan and the late Walter Becker. Fagan sang virtually every song and wrote most of them, while Becker did , uhhh, actually I don't know what he did. As Becker himself admitted, he often didn't even play on many Steely Dan songs. Instead the music was provided by guests and session musicians. And until they went all soft jazz on us (Hey Nineteen), the crazy approach frequently worked. An interesting and odd tidbit from rock 'n roll history.

Dave Wallace

The Eagles - Already Gone

It's fashionable to bash the Eagles these days, and I get it.  They often epitomized the worst of the "California sound" that produced a lot of crappy music in the '70s.  Plus, their two leaders, Glenn Frey and Don Henley, are major jerks (or was in Frey's case).  But I admit to having a soft spot for a number of their songs.  Maybe it's nostalgia, but they could write a catchy hook and had fantastic harmonies.  Not a bad recipe for success.  "Already Gone" is one of their best, with an absolutely killer guitar riff propelling the song along.

Miranda Tavares

Had a bad cold the last couple of  days, which forced me to stay still. I spent several hours with the blog, checking out every single link and following my favorites down the rabbit hole. I've never been so glad to be a bit under the weather :) I also decided I really want to go to Zanzibar. Maybe someday. Hope all is well with you.

William Elliott Whitmore, Hell or High Water

Nate and I had the excellent fortune to catch this vocal and lyrical genius this past weekend. There is so much soul, power, emotion, sadness, and hope on tracks that, more often than not, are simply him and his acoustic guitar. I found this song in particular extremely moving. It references the ending of a year, and toasting friends. As a result, I had made a note to myself to use this song for my final post of Discography, Year Two. Then I sobered up and thought, you drunken fool, you missed the point of the song. This song is a celebration of friendship, and the best time to celebrate friendship is literally every fucking moment, and in particular this very moment. So, cheers. 

Phillip Seiler

Wye Oak

Holy Holy

This week I decided I really wanted to write about Wye Oak, a Baltimore based indie rock band. Baltimore is not generally known as a musical hotbed but it is, more or less, my home town. And there have been a few gems over the years that have emerged from there. But maybe none more interesting to me than Wye Oak.

A two-piece unit with a fair bit of fuzz and noise used to obscure their melodies, Wye Oak trods ground that has been explored before. And yet, the husky, almost masculine vocals of Jen Wasner, lead guitarist and songwriter, spins the convention and upends the whole endeavor. This song drives through the wall of sound with a relentless pace. I include the full lyrics because they are at once mysterious and yet seem so desirous to know.

Holy, holy, holy
There is no other story
Holy, holy, holy
It is madness seeking mastery

Holy, holy, holy
Would you like to know me?
A tongue without a mouth to feed
And only seeking agony

For the joys and secrets I have stored
Here I lie awaiting our reward
Attention for the blessed, final count
The ties that hold your mind and lock me out

No patience can contain this

All human joy is precious
And I alone should know this
And everyone should notice

Holy, holy, holy
There is no other story
It is madness seeking mastery
We will be who we want to be

For the joys and secrets I have stored
Here I lie awaiting my reward
Attention for the blessed, final count
The ties that hold your mind will not give out

Oh, they will give out

Does she sing holy holy holy or hold me hold me hold me? And really, is there a difference?

Alice Neiley

Aimee Mann, Autumn

Let me just say, I’ve been waiting for these cooler temperatures for weeks. I’m naturally hot-blooded; the humid weather and I aren’t buddies. So when I woke up shivering a little yesterday, I thought: “YES!” and “It’s Aimee Mann season!”

In truth, I listen to Aimee Mann’s music all year long, but I straight-up crave it in the fall. Initially I figured this was because, when I lived in Provincetown, MA year-round, things finally slowed down in September, after the tourist insanity. The clothing store where I worked was still open for business, but there were rarely people around to shop. I’d unlock the store around 10am every day, turn on the space heater, line up my hot coffee and ice water on the counter, and choose a playlist. It was often Aimee Mann. Her scrappy, clear alto voice (and her magnetic chord progressions) mirrored the cool air—the seasonally darkening ocean, too—that had surrounded my walk on the busted up side streets earlier.  

Only just tonight did it occur to me there might be another reason I always chose her music for the store in fall, other than simple awesomeness. When “Ghost World” popped up on the iPod during my drive back to Canada, I remembered, Though that’s not my favorite Aimee Mann song anymore, it used to be when I was 20 years old and had just transferred from Kenyon College to UVM. Even with good friends, I’d always been a bit of a loner, so these lyrics especially hit home:

Everyone I know is acting weird
Or way too cool
They hang out by the pool
So I just read a lot and ride my bike
Around the school

But at that time, I was a lost loner, generally. Anorexic, specifically. Full of needs I didn’t know how to meet--couldn’t even name—I tried to need nothing. It seemed logical. “Ghost World” expressed what I couldn’t -- the emotional landscape unique to most people’s early 20s: loneliness, desire for power/escape, and the only tolerable versions of those feelings that ambivalence seems to provide. But it also included that layer of secret desperation:

And all that I need now is someone
With the brains and the know-how
To tell me what I want anyhow.

Slight tangent, bear with me: there’s this “I Remember” writing exercise I sometimes do to get unstuck, and often assign to students, based on a long poem by artist Joe Brainard, in which every sentence begins with “I remember.” What most interests me about it is  how inevitably the cumulative result illustrates the state of mind/body someone was in (at a particular moment/time when I first heard Aimee Mann, for example), more through concrete specifics that surrounded it than description of the moment itself.

In any case, drumming away on the steering wheel tonight, “I remember” sequences essentially kept pummeling through my head, completely unbidden. So, I pulled over and wrote a few on a notecard:

I remember the stone path to my uncle’s big, empty house.

I remember my uncle’s taste in poetry: Frost.

I remember sucking mustard out of Gulden’s packets. 

I remember a shot glass of granola before bed.

I remember T.V. remotes and a couch covered with a white sheet.

I remember Bachelor No. 2 in its case on top of his stereo. I slid it in and played it on a loop for 3 weeks--Ghost World, How am I Different, Deathly--even while I attended Essex treatment center in the afternoons, even while sleeping.

I remember singing in every room.

I remember sit-ups in every room.

I remember the wet leaves smell,

Sony wrap-around headphones,

those strong, opening guitars.

I remember the stone path was too hard for sit-ups, even with a folded towel. I remember lying down--my back cooled, heavy, unfolded.  

Dave Mills

Song: Graveclothes

Band: Birdtalker

My song this week is from the debut EP of Birdtalker, an alt-folk (if such labels mean anything) band from Nashville, named for St. Francis of Assisi and his impulse to talk to animals in recognition of the inherent value and dignity of all things. I just stumbled across this last month, about a year after its release. The song "Graveclothes" (main lyric: shake your graveclothes off) is a whimsical celebration of joy and dancing. Honestly, I haven't paid close attention to the lyrics of the verses. There seems to be a line about growing a garden out of the top of your head, which I'm hoping is a metaphor, since there's little I can grow on the top of my head these days. But the refrain of the chorus, coupled with the contagiously danceable tune, are enough for me. Without minimizing the seriousness off so many of today's headlines, it's still necessary that we remember how to dance and find joy rather than wallow in sadness and powerlessness. The video, linked here, is an invigorating montage of found footage (mostly of dancing) set to the music. Enjoy, and, perhaps, find joy this week.

Cyndi Brandenburg

Mindy Smith, Tennessee 

As usual, I waited until the last minute to realize I had something I
wanted to post this week, but this song managed to infiltrate my
consciousness at just the right time.  Last week, I was lucky enough
to hang out for a few days in Tennessee.  I grew up in Pittsburgh,
Buffalo, and Denver, was raised by a couple of true Midwesterners
(okay, sort of, but that's a long story), and generally think of
myself as a New Englander for whom the South has little appeal. And
yet, I can also see all the ways that my perspectives and assumptions
might be wrong. Which is just an overly complicated way of noting that
there are infinite possibilities for what can actually work.  Maybe
there's a tattoo design for that?

Kathy Seiler

I'm short on commentary this week, but I'm short on just about everything, as we all know. 

----

The Lone Bellow and Blind Boys of Alabama “WatchOver Us”

The music just plain speaks for itself, both the singing and the lyrics of the song - so soulful. We all need some watching over right now, whether we are in Vermont, Ohio, Puerto Rico, Florida, the Virgin Islands, Houston, Myanmar, or Yemen.

And if you haven’t gotten your tickets to the Lone Bellow concert and you are here in VT…

Go. Get. Them. Now.

Here’s the link.

Watch over us
Watch over us
When my hands are tired
When my strength is gone

Momma, your baby's
Shrouded in sorrow
You've had your time
But who has tomorrow?

Watch over us
Watch over us
Father, your sickness
Lives here in me

I don't need no crown
I don't need no glory
You've had your life
But that ain't my story

Sometimes I'm up
Sometimes I'm down
Sometimes I'm almost
Leveled to the ground

But my baby's sleeping
Sleeping in peace

So watch over us

Dave Kelley

Well, I have been good so far and limited myself to one song per post, but we all knew that was not going to last!!

My songs this week have one thing in common.  They are all tunes that Tom Petty wrote for himself that were ultimately covered by a female artist. 

"Stop Dragging My Heart Around"    Stevie Nicks

Apparently Jimmy Iovine who was producing Petty at the time convinced him it would be a good idea to give this song to Nicks for her upcoming solo album.  He even convinced Petty to sing on the track and have The Heartbreakers serve as the backing band.  What Iovine kept hidden from Petty was that he was secretly dating Nicks.  Petty was pissed when he found out, but by then the song was a hit.  Petty is an amazing songwriter, and he is at the top of his game here.  I love the guitar work, the keyboards, and the vocals.

"Ways to be Wicked"  Lone Justice

Apart from having a huge crush on Maria McKee, the lead singer, during the late eighties/early nineties, I think she has a fantastic voice.  I was convinced that Lone Justice was going to be a huge band.   That was obviously the kiss of death, because they soon faded away.  This is another song with fantastic interplay between guitars and the keyboard.  Love the vocals.  Petty commented that the lines "You ain't afraid to let me have it.  You ain't afraid to stick it in" took on a very unintended connotation when sung by a female.   Just a great tune that I had not thought of in a very long time.

"Changed the Locks"  Lucinda Williams

Lucinda is such a great writer herself that she rarely does covers on her studio records.  She recently made an exception and covered Bruce's "Factory".  I am very glad that she also covered this Petty tune.  The singer is so anxious to get away from a former lover who is clearly no good for her that in succession she:  changes the locks on her front door, the number on her phone, the kind of car she drives, the kind of clothes she wears, the tracks underneath the train, and the name of this town.    The vocals are accompanied by some down and dirty harmonica and guitar work.

Gary Scudder

Sarah Harmer, Dandelions in Bullet Holes

First off, I have to give props to the truly excellent Kevin Andrews for reminding me of Sarah Harmer, and bringing her back to my life's playlist.

As is often the case, this week's song is not my first or my second or even my third choice.  I think one of the reasons why I found it easy to include songs every week last year was that I was perpetually writing blog posts, and then if I thought of another song which seemed a better fit for that week's mood I would simply create a new weekly blog shell and move the original post there to wait. In turn, it might get published in its new location, or it might get moved again; some of the songs and commentaries eventually saw the light of day months later, and some are still waiting.  My current SO says that one of my great strengths is productively using isolated little corners of the day which have the potential to be wasted.

"This call to arms means wrap them around the first person you see."

I came to this song circuitously, which, again, is pretty typical for the world's least productive and least rational thinker.  After being prompted by Kevin, I found myself reflecting upon the perpetual drumbeat of war from our mad king and so many of the GOP chickenhawks.  Obviously, it is wrong for a myriad of reasons: it deliberately distracts people from political scandals and is a form of corporate welfare and it stifles free speech by playing up a frantic, panicked patriotism, but, at least to me, it is most abhorrent because it costs the warmongers absolutely nothing while spreading immense harm. In my faith we are taught that if you kill one person it is as if you had killed everyone on the planet.  Granted, and sadly, there are times when you have to fight, but there has to be a very special place in the Hell of your choice for those who actively promote wars for political or economic profit.  One of the things that has made Trump's Muslim travel ban so especially horrific is that the wars that George W. Bush started in the Middle East have killed somewhere between two and four million people, and in the process helped create the very refugees we're blocking entry.

So, clearly, I was in a mood when I began listening to Sarah Harmer again.  My favorite Harmer song has always been Dandelions in Bullet Holes, and naturally, and magnetically, I was drawn to it again. However, it also took me to a very different place.  As you know years ago, and in a very different personal world, I spent a year living in Abu Dhabi.  I was pretty professionally, and especially, and more importantly, emotionally bruised.  One doesn't normally think about retreating to the desert for redemption and rebirth but it does happen (and not simply for religious prophets).  Unexpectedly, I found myself opening my heart to someone, and the first trip we made as a couple, even an at the time unofficial one, was to Beirut, Lebanon.  The city was damaged and crowded with ghosts, but was also still living, and even the bullet holes spoke of survival.  And I decided to live.  In turn, I decided not to die, and that we have to fight against anyone who promotes death.  In the end I think the song is about the survival of life and love in the face of sorrow and horror.

My Years With Proust - Day 581

This love between women was something too unfamiliar; there was nothing to enable me to form a precise and accurate idea of its pleasures, its quality.  How many people, how many places (even places which did not concern her directly, vague haunts of pleasure where she might have enjoyed some pleasure, places where there are a great many people, where people brush against one) had Albertine - like a person who, shepherding all her escort, a whole crowd, past the barrier in front o f her, secures their admission to the theatre - from the threshold of my imagination or of memory, where I paid no attention to them, introduced into my heart! Now, the knowledge that I had of them was internal, immediate, spasmodic, painful.  Love is space and time made perceptible to the heart.

   And yet perhaps, had I myself been entirely faithful, I might not have suffered because of infidelities which I would have been incapable of conceiving; whereas what it tortured me to imagine in Albertine was my own perpetual desire to find favour with new women, to start up new romances, was to suppose her guilty of the glance which I had been unable to resist casting, the other day, even while I was by her side, at the young bicycles seated at tables in the Bois de Boulegne.  As there is no knowledge, one might almost say that there is no jealousy, save of oneself.  Observation counts for little.  It is only from the pleasure that we ourselves have felt that we derive knowledge and pain.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 392-393

One of my peculiarities - one of my many peculiarities - is my making my first year students read snippets of Remembrance of Things Past.  They never have to read a lot, maybe a paragraph or two - although, to be fair, with Proust that can still be a lot.  Mainly I restrict it to the section of the class when we're focusing on neuroscience and reading Linden's The Accidental Mind; I mean, there's a reason why people write books such as Proust was a Neuroscientist (which I support I should read someday). Beyond the fact that Remembrance of Things Past is beautiful and profound, I'm also trying to get them to read and think more deeply, and, well, after all, it's Proust.  I tie this passage to Linden's chapter on the brain and love and sex.  We read this passage in class and then I tell them to open up their copy of Linden and formulate a theory, using the appropriate conceptual tools, to explain his thoughts or actions; again, why students take me is beyond comprehension. I suspect this is just another occasion where I'm trying to challenge myself.  Doubtless I raised the idea at one point or another and someone, probably some Junior Faculty underling, answered that it was impossible, which is all the inspiration I needed.

Marcel can certainly be annoying, but you do have to give him some props in this section for admitting his own infidelities in this passage (although he hardly seems torn up over them or particularly guilt-stricken).  As he admits, "And yet perhaps, had I myself been entirely faithful, I might not have suffered because of infidelities which I would have been incapable of conceiving . . ." Essentially, he's saying that he wouldn't have admitted Albertine wanting to sleep with every woman she met, if he wasn't equally guilty of wanting to sleep with every woman he met.  Looks like we may be rereading this passage when we get to the Freudian defense mechanisms section of Hock's Forty Studies That Changed Psychology book.

After saying all that, the concept from this section that I like the best, and which is making my head hurt the most (like the Grinch, I puzzled and puzzled until my puzzler was sore) is this one: "Love is space and time made perceptible to the heart."  I would put money on the fact that this is going to be one of those which I'll revisit in the future, but at this point I would suggest that Proust was proposing that it is only when you are in love, and especially for the first time, that you actually notice the rest of the world.  This, I believe, is undeniably true, although, again, that may not be his point. Of course, when the relationship ends this turns back on itself savagely and the world disappears again and all you can see and feel and taste is your own agony.

My Years With Proust - Day 580

And, by contrast with all this relief, by the harmony also which united them with her, who had adapted her attitude to their form and purpose, the pianola which half concealed her like an organ-case, the bookcase, the whole of that corner of the room, seemed to be reduced to the dimensions of a lighted sanctuary, the shrine of this angel musician, a work of art which, presently, by a charming magic, was to detach itself from its niche and offer to my kisses its precious, rose-pink substance.  But, no, Albertine was for me not at all a work of art.  I knew what it meant to admire a woman in an artistic fashion, having known Swann.  For my own part, however, no matter who the woman might be, I was incapable of doing so, having no sort of power of detached observation, never knowing what it was that I saw, and I had been amazed when Swann added retrospectively an artistic dignity - by comparing her to me, as he liked do gallantly to her face, to some portrait by Luini, by recalling in her attire the gown or the jewels of a picture by Giorgione - to a woman who had seemed to me to be devoid of interest.  Nothing of that sort with me.  The pleasure and the pain that I derived from Albertine never took the line of taste and intellect in order to reach me; indeed, to tell the truth, when I began to regard Albertine as an angel musician glazed with a marvellous patina whom I congratulated myself upon possessing, it was not long before I found her uninteresting; I soon became bored in her company; but these were of brief duration: one only loves that in which one pursues the inaccessible, one only loves what one does not possess, and very soon I began to realise once more that I did not possess Albertine.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 390-391

"But, no, Albertine was for me not at all a work of art.  I knew what it meant to admire a woman in an artistic fashion, having known Swann."

One of the many reasons why I have enjoyed reading Remembrance of Things Past is that it has introduced me to many writers and painters and composers who I knew either only tangentially or not at all.  It feels like I've been pouring (stuffing?) knowledge into my head since I was around fourteen and I'm still often amazed/shocked/horrified about what an intellectual lightweight I am.  Truthfully, I had never heard of Bernardino Luini (where did I go to school?  did I go to school?).  Proust writes: "For my own part, however, no matter who the woman might be, I was incapable of doing so, having no sort of power of detached observation, never knowing what it was that I saw, and I had been amazed when Swann added retrospectively an artistic dignity - by comparing her to me, as he liked do gallantly to her face, to some portrait by Luini, by recalling in her attire the gown or the jewels of a picture by Giorgione - to a woman who had seemed to me to be devoid of interest." Beyond my barely suppressed snort of laughter at Proust's proposal that "I was incapable of doing so, having no sort of power of detached observation" (sometimes I wonder if he's just being ironic for fear of becoming a parody of himself), this statement drove me to do a little research on Luini.  As always, Proust is correct; Luni definitely produced beautiful and evocative faces for his women.  It makes me even more interested in going back and re-reading the passages dealing with Swann and Odette, although I fear, much like Albertine, that Odette herself will still remain just out of reach.  I'm famous/infamous among my friends for proposing endless questions on Facebook or email (people still occasionally prompt me to start up the Correct Answer series again) or as part of the Discography discussion or simply over adult scholarly beverages.  What painters would you choose to capture the different women you have loved?  I already have a match for Luini.

Bernardino Luni, Saint Catherine.

Bernardino Luini, The Magdalen.

Bernardino Luini, Lady With a Flea Fur.

My Years With Proust - Day 579

   It was not, however, his music alone that Albertine played me; the pianola was to us at times like a scientific magic lantern (historical and geographical), and on the walls of this room in Paris, supplied with inventions more modern than my room at Combray, I would see extending before me, according to whether Albertine played me Rameau or Borodin, now an eighteenth-century tapestry sprinkled with cupids and roses, now the Eastern steppe in which sounds are muffled by the boundless distances and the soft carpet of snow.  And these fleeting decorations were as it happened the only ones in my room, for although, at the time of inheriting my aunt Leonie's fortune, I had resolved to become a collector like Swann, to buy pictures and statues, all my money went on horses, a motor-car, dresses for Albertine.  But did not my room contain a work of art more precious than all these - Albertine herself? I looked at her. It was strange to me to think that it was she, she whom I had for so long thought it impossible even to know, who now, a wild beast tamed, a rosebush to which I had acted as the prop, the framework, the trellis of its life, was seated thus, day by day, at home, by my side, before the pianola, with her back to my bookcase. Her shoulders, which I had seen dropping sullenly when she was carrying her golf-clubs, now leaned against my books.  Her shapely legs, which on the first day I had with good reason imagined as having manipulated throughout her girlhood the pedals of a bicycle, now rose and fell alternately upon those of the pianola, upon which Albertine, who had acquired an elegance which made me feel her more my own, because it was from myself that it came, pressed her shoes of cloth of gold.  Her fingers, at one time accustomed to handle-bars, now rested upon the key like those of a St. Cecilia.  Her throat, the curve of which, seen from my bed, was strong and full, at that distance and in the lamplight appeared pinker, less pink however than her face, bent forward in profile, which my gaze, issuing from the innermost depths of myself, charged with memories and burning with desire, invested with such a brilliancy, such an intensity of life that its relief seemed to stand out and turn with the same almost magic power as on the day, in the hotel at Balbec, when my vision was clouded by my overpowering desire to kiss her; and I prolonged each of its surfaces beyond what I was able to see and beneath what concealed it from me and made me feel all the more strongly - eyelids which half hid her eyes, half that covered the upper parts of her cheeks - the relief of those superimposed planes; her eyes (like two facets that alone have yet been polished in the matrix in which an opal is still embedded), become more resistant than metal while remaining more brilliant than light, disclosed, in the midst of the blind matter overhanging them as it were the mauve, silken wings of a butterfly placed under glass; and her dark, curling hair, presenting different conformations whenever she turned to ask me what she was to play next, now a splendid wing, sharp at the tip, broad at the base, black, feathered and triangular, now massing the contours of its curls in a powerful and varied chain, full of crests, of watersheds, or precipices, with its soft, creamy texture, so rich and so multiple, seeming to exceed the variety that nature habitually achieves and to correspond rather to the desire of a sculptor who accumulated difficulties in order to emphasise the suppleness, the vibrancy, the fullness, the vitality of his creation, brought out more strongly, by interrupting in order to cover it, the animated curve and, as it were, the rotation of the smooth, roseate face, with its glazed matt relief as of painted wood.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 388-390

"But did not my room contain a work of art more precious than all these - Albertine herself?"

We've talked so often about Marcel's fascination with keeping Albertine captive (and it's clearly not too strong a word, and Proust specifically uses it himself). Part of it is clearly his desire to control her, but part of it is also his desire to own her (not that they aren't in most ways one and the same). Albertine is a work of art, and Marcel admits that had "resolved to become a collector like Swann, to buy pictures and statues . . ."  In the end one of the items in Swann's collection was Odette, and Marcel appears to be following his lead. Although, are not all men like this?  The term "trophy wife" has a life of its own, even if the trophy wives themselves often don't.  However, in the process of owning, of commodifying the woman, does it not insure a negative transformation?  Proust writes, "It was strange to me to think that it was she, she whom I had for so long thought it impossible even to know, who now, a wild beast tamed, a rosebush to which I had acted as the prop, the framework, the trellis of its life, was seated thus, day by day . . ."  Albertine has clearly been bent to fit his life.  Part of this ownership also implies a surface-level appreciation.  I included this section, not only because it sets up tomorrow's deeper analysis, but also because it tells us so much about Marcel's relationship with Albertine, but maybe all relationships.  He mentions Albertine's shoulders, her "shapely legs," her fingers, her throat, her eyelids, her cheeks, her hair, but he also understands that so much of what lies beneath is hidden from him, and it's doubtless because he's not looking.  Marcel reflects on " . . . its surfaces beyond what I was able to see and beneath what concealed it from me . . ."  He has collected her body, which he seems to appreciate aesthetically although doesn't seem to desire carnally - it's more important that she cannot give it to another man or woman - but all he owns is an assortment of surfaces.

My Years With Proust - Day 578

Well, this novel beauty remains identical in all Dostoievsky's works.  Isn't the Dostoievsky woman (as distinctive as a Rembrandt woman) with her mysterious face, whose engaging beauty changes abruptly, as though her apparent good nature was only play-acting, into coarse ferocity (although at heart it seems that she is more good than bad), isn't she always the same, whether it's Nastasia Philipovna writing love letters to Aglaya and telling her that she hates her, or in a visit that's absolutely identical with this - as also the one where Nastasia Philipvna insults Gania's family - Grushenka, as charming in Katerina Ivanovna's house as the latter had supposed her to be terible, then suddenly revealing her malevolence by insulting Katerina Ivanovna (although Grushenka is good at heart)? Grushenka, Nastasia - figures as original, as mysterious, not merely as Carpaccio's courtesans but as Rembrandt's Bathsheba.  Mind you, he certainly didn't only know how to depict that striking dual face, with its sudden explosions of furious pride, which makes the woman seem other than she is ("You are not like that," says Myshkin to Nastasia during the visit to Gania's family, and Alyosha might have said the same to Grushenka during the visit to Katerina Ivanovna).  But on the other hand when he wants to try and 'pictorial ideas' they're always stupid and produce at best the pictures where Myshkin wants to see the representation of a condemned man at the moment when . . . etc., or the Virgin Mary at the moment when . . . etc.  But to return to the new kind of beauty that Dostoievsky brought to the world, just as, in Vermeer, there's the creation of a certain soul, of a certain colour of fabrics and and places, so in Dostoievsky there's the creation not only of people but of their homes, and the house of the Murder in The Brothers Karamazov, with it dvornik, isn't it as marvous as the masterpiece of the house of Murder in The Idiot, that sombre house of Rogozhin's, so long, and so high, and so vast, in which he kills Nastasia Philipovna. That new and terrible beauty of a house, that new and two-sided beauty of a woman's face, that is the unique thing that Dostoievsky has given to the world, and the comparisons that literary critics may make, between him and Gogol, or between him and Paul de Kock, are of no interest, being external to this secret beauty.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 384-385

This is one of those posts that I'll definitely need to revisit.  One of my goals is that, in addition to rereading Proust, I'd like to make a reconsideration of of my commentary, although, obviously, on a more casual level than the first time through.  By that I mean that I want to reread Proust just for the joy of it, and not with the chore of taking extensive notes and writing daily commentary hanging over my head.  That said, it would be impossible for me as part of that reread to not take a look at my initial reflections.  I have more immediate plans for the commentary that I'm creating, clumsily, but more on that later, so the massive reread/reconsideration is a few years down the road.

In this particular instance the need for a reread relates to Proust's comments about Dostoevsky.  I have to admit to my shame that I haven't read any Dostoevsky in thirty years, although I recently picked up copies of The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, so this passage from Proust is well-timed.  Proust writes: "Isn't the Dostoievsky woman (as distinctive as a Rembrandt woman) with her mysterious face, whose engaging beauty changes abruptly, as though her apparent good nature was only play-acting, into coarse ferocity (although at heart it seems that she is more good than bad) . . ." So, I need to reacquaint myself with the Dostoevsky woman.  Certainly for centuries women were often not much more than props in literature; I loved Dickens, but, as we've discussed, never wrote particularly interesting female characters (especially Esther Summerson in the otherwise brilliant Bleak House). So, I'll have to check back and let you know if I agree with Proust's proposal: "That new and terrible beauty of a house, that new and two-sided beauty of a woman's face, that is the unique thing that Dostoievsky has given to the world . . ."  This goes back to our discussion the other day about the role of the genius in changing the rules, and thus changing the world.

My Year With Dostoevsky? Thanks, Barnes and Noble for the bargain classic table (now, hopefully they're good translations).

My Years With Proust - Day 577

   Vinteuil's phrases made me think of the "little phrase" and I told Albertine that it had been as it were the national anthem of the love of Swann and Odette, "the parents of Gilberte, whom I believe you know.  You told me she was a bad girl.  Didn't she try to have relations with you?  She spoke to me about you."

   "Yes, you see, her parents used to send a carriage to fetch her from school when the weather was bad, and I seem to remember she took me home once and kissed me," she said, after a momentary pause, laughing as though we were an amusing revelation.  "She asked me all of a sudden whether I was fond of women." (But if she only "seemed to remember" that Gilberte had taken her home, how could she say with such precision that Gilberte had asked her this odd question?) "I fact, I don't know what weird idea came into my head to fool her, but I told her that I was." (It was a though Albertine was afraid that Gilberte had told me this and did not want me to see that she was lying to me.) "But we did nothing at all." (It was strange, if they had exchanged these confidences, that they should have done nothing, especially as, before this, they had kissed, according to Albertine.) "She took me home like that four or five times, perhaps more, and that's all."

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 383

Albertine, once again, winding up Marcel.  However, it's hard to have too much sympathy for him since he had started it.  Marcel is always embarking on these schemes to entrap Albertine, which always end of being as transparent as me trying to sneak a rook down the right flank in chess - and his plans always ended up as abysmally. In this case he tries to use Gilberte, Swann and Odette's daughter - and his first love - to try and entrap Albertine, but she simply plays along with the story and half-admits that something may have happened, knowing that it will tweak Marcel's jealousy.  Albertine "confesses" that "I seem to remember she took me home once and kissed me."  Years ago when Sanford and I were driving to Oklahoma we talked about anything and everything, and never once turned on the TV or the radio the entire time.  Besides speaking fluent French, Sanford also spent a lot of time in France.   He assured me that if a French woman let you kiss her - of, better yet, if she kissed you, then you would have have sex.  This wasn't an assault on their moral foundation, but rather a compliment that they were honest and didn't play foolish games.  So, following Sanford's dictum, might we assume that since Albertine and Gilberte kissed then they also made love?  If that's true, then it seems like everyone in France was having at least occasional homosexual liaisons, with the exception of Marcel (although, as we assume, that was not true of Proust himself).

  

My Years With Proust - Day 576

Thus nothing resembled more closely than some such phrase of Vinteuil the peculiar pleasure which I had felt at certain moments in my life, when gazing, for instance, at the steeples of Martinville, or at certain trees along a road near Balbec, or, more simply, at the beginning of this book, when I tasted a certain cup of tea.  Like that cup of tea, all these sensations of light, the bright clamour, the boisterous colours that Vinteuil sent to us from the world in which he composed, paraded before my imagination, insistently but too rapidly for me to be able to apprehend it, something that I might compare to the perfumed silkiness of a geranium.  But whereas in memory this vagueness may be, if not fathomed, at any rate identified, thanks to a pinpointing of circumstances which explain why a certain taste has been able to recall to us luminous sensations, the vague sensations given by Vinteuil coming not from a memory but from an impression (like that of the steeples of Martinville), one would have had to find, for the geranium equivalent, the unknown, colourful festival (of which his works seemed to be the disconnected fragments, the scarlet-flashing splinters), the mode by which he "heard" the universe and projected it far beyond himself.  Perhaps it was in this, I said to Albertine, this unknown quality of a unique world which no other composer had ever yet revealed, that the most authentic proof of genius lies, even more than in the content of the work itself.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 381-382

"Perhaps it was in this, I said to Albertine, this unknown quality of a unique world which no other composer had ever yet revealed, that the most authentic proof of genius lies, even more than in the content of the work itself."  I've often made the points to my students (and the long-suffering readers of my blog, naturally) that one of the most overused, and least understood, terms in the world is that of "genius."  It's certainly more than simply achieving some highly debatable number on a generated spectrum.  And while you can argue about what creates a genius (probably more nature than nurture, but it's certainly not just raw intellect) I've always proposed that you can tell when a genius has been at work because they change the world, or at least the change the rules in the field in which they operate, not because they necessarily set out to change the rules, but because they cannot not change the rules.  The rules for the world are different, because the rules under which they see the world are already different.  This is why I always promote Miles Davis as the great American genius of the 20th century - and, no, I'm not simply being contrarian.  He changed specifically jazz, and more generally music, and more profoundly culture repeatedly, almost annually for a while, because he simply viewed the world in a way differently than anyone else - and had the courage to pursue that vision (an attribute, courage, that is often forgotten when discussing genius).  I would argue that Proust is talking about the same thing in this passage when, while discussing his appreciation of the music of Vinteuil, he writes of "the mode by which he 'heard' the universe and projected it far beyond himself."