The melancholy air which M. de Charlus had assumed in speaking of the Princesse de Cadignan left me in no doubt that the tale in question had not reminded him only of the little garden of a cousin to whom he was not particularly attached. He became lost in thought, and as though he were talking to himself: "The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan!" he exclaimed, "what a masterpiece! How profound, how heartrending the evil reputation of Diane, who is afraid that the man she loves may hear of it. What an eternal truth, and more universal than it might appear! How far-reaching it is!" He uttered these words with a sadness in which one nevertheless felt that he found a certain charm. Certainly M. de Charlus, unaware to what extent precisely his proclivities were or were not known, had been trembling for some time past at the thought that when he returned to Paris and was seen there in Morel's company, the latter's family might intervene and so his future happiness be jeopardised. This eventuality had probably not appeared to him hitherto save as something profoundly disagreeable and painful. But the Baron was an artist to his finger-tips. And now that he had suddenly begun to identify his own situation with that described by Balzac, he took refuge, as it were, in the story, and for the calamity which was perhaps in store for him and which he certainly feared, he had the consolation of finding in his own anxiety what Swann and also Saint-Loup would have called something "very Balzacian." This identification of himself with the Princesse de Cardignan had been made easier for M. de Charlus by virtue of the mental transposition which was becoming habitual with him and of which he had already given several examples. It sufficed, moreover, to make the mere conversion of a woman, as the beloved object, into a young man immediately set in motion around him the whole sequence of social complications which develop round a normal love affair.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 1092-1093
Proust is certainly building the suspense in regards to the eventual fate of M. de Charlus. We are told, "Certainly M. de Charlus, unaware to what extent precisely his proclivities were or were not known, had been trembling for some time past at the thought that when he returned to Paris and was seen there in Morel's company, the latter's family might intervene and so his future happiness be jeopardised." As we'll see soon the Baron gets precipitates a very foolish adventure will calls more attention to his "proclivities" (now I'm as guilty as Proust for dropping hints).
One of the subjects that we discuss in Heroines & Heroes is whether it is either for a man to write a female character or a woman to write a male character. This comes up in our discussion of Feminist literary criticism and most students, fueled by Simone de Beauvoir's notion of man as "the One" and woman as "the Other" would propose that it's easier for a women to write a male character simply because he is the "default" setting (keeping in mind that de Beauvoir is not saying it should be this way, obviously, but that sadly it is). As much as I love Dickens his female characters, most notably Ester Summerson in Bleak House (arguably his best novel), are pretty one-dimensional. [As a side note, I'll usually then ask if it is still true today, and the men uniformly say no and the women almost uniformly say yes.] Proust tells us that, in his melancholy, M. de Charlus identifies with the Princesse de Cadignan. The Baron exclaims, "The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan!" he exclaimed, "what a masterpiece! How profound, how heartrending the evil reputation of Diane, who is afraid that the man she loves may hear of it. What an eternal truth, and more universal than it might appear! How far-reaching it is!" This leads Proust to observe: "This identification of himself with the Princesse de Cardignan had been made easier for M. de Charlus by virtue of the mental transposition which was becoming habitual with him and of which he had already given several examples. It sufficed, moreover, to make the mere conversion of a woman, as the beloved object, into a young man immediately set in motion around him the whole sequence of social complications which develop round a normal love affair." This also made me think of the issue of identifying with characters from literature or cinema who are the opposite sex (and, yes, I know that phrasing the question that way speaks to the face that I grew up in an age that was not as sophisticated in its understanding of gender fluidity). So, I've set myself the challenge of coming up with that list. Stupid Proust - he wears me out with all of his assignments . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment