Discography - Week 43

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My Years With Proust - Day 371

   Next day, when Albertine wrote to me that she had only just got back to Egreville, and so had not received my note in time, and owuld come, if she might, to see me that evening, behind the words of her letter, as behind those that she had said to me once over the telephone, I thought I could detect the presence of pleasures, of people, whom she had preferred to me.  Once again, my whole body was stirred by the painful longing to know what she could have been doing, by the latent love which we always carry within us; I almost thought for a moment that it was going to bind me to Albertine, but it confined itself to a stationary throbbing, the last echo of which died away without the machine's having been set in motion.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 826

Marcel's jealousy of Albertine continues to grow, and I think everyone has had that phone call or email or actual physical letter wherein we detected that "presence of pleasures, of people, whom she had preferred to me."  What I really found interesting is Proust's comment of "the latent love which we always carry within us."  My excellent friend Cyndi and I, probably in the Cave Bar at Petra in Jordan, had a discussion once about whether or not there was truly one great love in our life and whether or not it was possible to love to people at the same time.  Not surprisingly (she is a right-thinking individual, after all) we were in complete agreement: probably not on the former, and definitely yes on the latter.  I've clearly been sincerely in love with two women at the same time, and although I may have loved them for different reasons, it didn't mean that one was necessarily more profound than the other - or that choosing one over the other would have been the "wrong" choice.  This bring us back to Proust's point about the "latent love which we always carry with in."  You could read it as the latent love he was carrying around for Albertine or more generally the latent love as in our more general, essential need to feel, receive and give love.  I do think this is an essential part of the human experience, which, I guess, begs the question of what triggers it with one woman and not another?  Yes, and now we're back to mystery.

My Years With Proust - Day 370

   The mischief that his remarks about Albertine and Andree had done me was extreme, but its worst effects were not immediately felt by me, as happens with those forms of poisoning which begin to act only after a certain time.

   Albertine, on the night the lift-boy had failed to find her, did not appear, in spite of his assurances.  There is no doubt that a person's charms are a less frequent cause of love than a remark such as: "No, this evening I shan't be free."  We barely notice this remark if we are with friends; we remain gay all the evening, a certain image never enters our mind; during those hours it remains dipped in the necessary solution; when we return home we find the plate developed and perfectly clear.  We become aware that life is no longer the life which we would have surrendered for a trifle the day before, because, even if we continue not to fear death, we no longer dare thing of a parting.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 825-826

I found myself sharing the line, "There is no doubt that a person's charms are a less frequent cause of love than a remark such as: 'No, this evening I shan't be free'" with friends because I thought it was simple but also decidedly true.  Why is a little jealousy, or, in a larger sense, a little uncertainty such a trigger for love?  Why will we fly across the country or the world to test out the legitimacy of our theory that some woman's casual comment actually means so much more, when there are people within walking distance who profess their love to us?  First off, the obvious: as Flaurbert reminds us, whatever else happens, we shall remain stupid.  Beyond that, maybe uncertainty is actually life affirming because it makes us feel something, even if it is all too often pain.  The difficult part of this is that some people, and I suspect that men and women are guilty of this crime, consciously without affection or affirmation to create that sense of jealousy or of uncertainty.  As a certain Economist has opined, it is all about incentive.

My Years With Proust - Day 369

   It was not on that evening, however, that my cruel mistrust began to take solid form.  No, to reveal it here and now, although the incident did not occur until some weeks later, it arose out of a remark made by Cottard.  On the day in question Albertine and her friends had wanted to drag me to the casino at Incarville where, to my ultimate good fortune, I would not have joined them (having decided to pay a visit to Mme Verdurin who had invited me several times), had I not been held up at Incarville itself by a train breakthrough which required a considerable time to repair.  As I strolled up and down waiting for the men to finish working at it, I found myself all of a sudden face to face with Dr. Cottard, who had come to Incarville to see a patient. . . . I was meaning to go off with Cottard in a moment to the Verdurins', when I finally declined his offer, seized by an irresistible desire to stay with Albertine.  The fact was that I had just heard her laugh.  And this laugh at once evoked the flesh-pink, fragrant surfaces with which it seemed to carry with it, pungent, sensual and revealing as the scent of geraniums, a few almost tangible and mysteriously reveling particles.

    One of the girls, a stranger to me, sat down at the piano, and Andree invited Albertine to waltz with her.  Happy in theought that I was going to remain in this little casino with these girls, I remarked to Cottard how well they danced together.  But he, taking the professional point of view of a doctor and with an ill-breeding which overlooked the fact that they were my friends, although he must have seen me greet them, replied: "Yes, but parents are very rash to allow their daughters to form such habits.  I should certainly never let mine come here.  Are they pretty, though?  I can't make out their features.  There now, look," he went on, pointing to Albertine and Andree who were waltzing slowly, tightly clasped together, "I've left my glasses behind and I can't see very well, but they are certainly keenly aroused.  It's not sufficiently known that women derive most excitement through their breasts.  And theirs, as you see, are touching completely."  And indeed the contact between the breasts of Andree and of Albertine had been constant.  I do not know whether they heard or guessed Cottard's observation, but they drew slightly apart while continuing to waltz.  At that moment Andree said something to Albertine, who laughed with the same deep and penetrating laugh that I had heard before.  But the turmoil it roused in me this time was a painful one; Albertine appeared to be conveying by it, to be making Andree share, some secret and voluptuous thrill.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 812-814

I've stated before that I'm always amazed/amused/incredulous the Marcel proposes that he is not jealous, or suggests that he had not been jealous up to that point, and then turns around and displays marked jealousy.  I'm suppose I should be amazed/amused/incredulous, because I'm a firm believer that most of us have precious little understanding of our true nature.  I used to joke with my classes that I have an almost profound bordering on mystic understanding of why people do things, with the one obvious exception of myself, in which case I might as well be discussing quantum physics for my ability to make a calculated guess.  Here Dr. Cottard, basing his observation on his medical knowledge, proposed that Andree and Albertine are dancing much too closely, and that "parents are very rash to allow their daughters to form such habits." He follows it up by adding, "It's not sufficiently known that women derive most excitement through their breasts.  And theirs, as you see, are touching completely."  To top it off, the two women, apparently sending the conversation between the two men, laughed and seemed to share "some secret and voluptuous thrill."  This is fascinating on several levels, not all of which I'll pursue at the moment because, in classic Proustian fashion, this reflection continues for several more pages - and because I'm having folks over to watch Local Hero on one of my movie nights.  At this points it's enough to point out that reading it made me think of my time in Abu Dhabi, and how I taught a couple girls who were clearly more than just friends, and would practically rub each up in class.  In the Emirates, where women lived a very isolated existence, the girls formed intense friendships which, obviously, were occasionally so much more.  We all need to be touched, emotionally and physically, and this becomes especially true when the options are so totally limited.  It also reminded me of how the men and women, in segregated classes, would ask me questions about the other group as if they were a totally alien species.  Dr. Cottard's comments, and his observations that it's "not sufficiently known that women derive most excitement through their breasts" reflects a similar distance, although here it's based less on total isolation, but rather, I would argue, an accepted societal belief that female pleasure was not particularly important.

I Don't Think You're So Stupid

As I've pointed out way too often, it's always the small, at the time seemingly insignificant events of a trip (and of a life), which inevitably form the most lasting memories, and inspire the greatest insight.  On our recent trip to Iceland it really jumped out at us how many of the gas pumps were automatic with no human service to be found.  With a country with a population half that of Vermont it's not particularly surprising that the pumps in many places would be unmanned.  Why would you keep someone around on the off-chance that one person might actually show up that day?  Many of them were not linked to a gas station, even an empty one, at all.  This would not be surprising in so many of the utterly isolated places (as I've opined, there were so many times, especially up in the Westfjords, where we felt we were at the edge of the world) but it's also true in the one gas station in Holmavik, which is small, but by Icelandic standards a decent sized town.  I flashed back several times to the, at best overly simplistic, at worst outright lie, Donald Trump claim that all American jobs are disappearing because of globalization and/or illegal immigrants.  Recently I read a study which pointed out that 88% of lost American factory jobs relate to automation.  The isolated automated pumps in Iceland seemed a metaphor.  In Iceland they made perfect sense, but there's now the counterpart not a mile from my house here in Burlington.  The pumps proved to be a bit of a challenge for me, and not simply because of my technological incompetence and general buffoonery.  The first time I tried to use one I ended up putting in an absurdly tiny amount of gas, which was caused by my miscalculations of liter/gallon, currency conversion, more expensive gas (more like the European norm of over $7 a gallon) and the fact that I had to enter in the exact amount before I started.  I ended up not putting in any more because someone else was waiting to use the pump and I couldn't stop laughing.  As we were leaving Holmavik I wanted to fill up.  This time I had done my math and knew what I wanted to enter in, which I did, but the gas pump handle was jammed and wouldn't release and the system timed itself out (another potential wrinkle with the system, and there was no one at the station to refund the money).  There was a nice Icelandic man at the next pump (which actually also ended up being broken, albeit for a different reason) so I asked him for help.  In situations like that I've found that it's best to take on the smiling, well-intentioned but generally helpless American persona - or, in this case, to reveal my smiling, well-intentioned but generally helpless American persona - and I said, "Excuse me.  I think I may be really stupid, because I can't get the gas pump to work."  He was affable and quite willing to help (as seemingly everybody we met in Iceland is) and said, "I don't think you're so stupid."  I suppose adding "so" might have made it a dig, but he was generally friendly and I was touched by his desire to help. He couldn't get it unstuck either, so instead he just struck it violently against the ground and it popped loose.  I told him that in America my answer would have been to smash something as well, but since I was a visitor I wanted to be more gentle, which he thought was very funny.

We had read in our preparation that in Iceland everyone does everything on ATM or credit card, and we certainly saw that.  The payment machine, here on the left, is usually separate from the gas pump itself.  Be careful, it does time out and you're required to put in the exact amount you want before you pump.

    

My Years With Proust - Day 368

   Albertine had made me take a note of the dates on which she would be going away for a few days to visit various friends, and had made me write down their addresses as well, in case I should want her on one of those evenings, for none of them lived very far away.  This meant that in seeking her out, from one girl friend to another, I found her more and more entwined in ropes of flowers.  I must confess that many of her friends - I was not yet in love with her - gave me, at one watering-place or another, moments of pleasure.  These obliging young playmates did not seem to me to be very many.  But recently I thought of them again, and their names came back to me.  I counted that, in that one season, a dozen conferred to on me their ephemeral favours.  Another name came back to me later, which made thirteen.  I then had a sort of childishly cruel impulse to settle for that number.  Alas, I realised that I had forgotten the first, Albertine who was no more and who made the fourteenth.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 817

Marcel comments on the time he spent with so many of Albertine's friends during that season.  Now, it seems to me that the obvious question here is what does Proust mean by the terms "ephemeral favours" and "moments of pleasure," decidedly vague descriptions from an author known for the extraordinary precision of his language, which speaks, in my mind anyway, to the intentionality of their vagueness.  It could very well be that all the members of Albertine's troop were unfailingly friendly and these were nothing more than innocent shared moments over coffee; which along would certainly speak to a society where men and women co-mingled socially with ease; which seems like a "duh" but I've done enough travelling around the world to have encountered many places where that is rare if not absolutely prohibited today.  Of course, it could also be that these favours were more tangible and carnal than purely ephemeral, which would also remind us why this novel was so groundbreaking in its modernity.  I don't know if I have any evidence that these moments of pleasure were any more than innocent meetings, other than the extreme delicacy of Proust's language, which almost seems like I'm trying to prove a positive by a negative - or, essentially, prove something not be evidence but by lack of evidence (and I would scold by students for this sloppy methodology).  Maybe a more damning bit of evidence relates to Proust's preoccupation with the number of her friends with which he had spent moments of pleasure, which speaks to a fascination with sexual conquests.  Most men can tell you exactly how many women they've slept with, or at least can render it roughly in exponential notion. If nothing else, I guess we know that Marcel was not quite as frail as he sometimes appears.  Clearly I needed to lead a life that included more ropes of flowers.

My Years With Proust - Day 367

There was still a long time to wait before Albertine appeared.  But the gaiety and the charm that she showed on this occasion dispelled my gloom.  She informed me (contrary to what she had said the other day) that she would be staying for the whole season and asked me whether we could not arrange, as in the former year, to meet daily.  I told her that at the moment I was too sad and that I would rather send for her from time to time at the last moment, as I did in Paris.  "If ever you're feeling gloomy or if you're in the mood, don't hesitate," she told me, "just send for me and I shall come at once, and if you're not afraid of its creating a scandal in the hotel, I shall stay as long as you like."  Francoise, in bringing her to me, had assumed the joyous air she wore whenever she had gone to some trouble on my behalf and had succeeded in giving me pleasure.  But her joy had nothing to do with Albertine herself, and the very next day she was to greet me with these penetrating words: "Monsieur ought not to see that young lady.  I know quite well the sort she is, she'll make you unhappy."

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 815-816

The words of Francoise on Albertine are both interesting and insightful: "Monsieur ought not to see that young lady.  I know quite well the sort she is, she'll make you unhappy."  Now, of course, the question centers on "the sort" Albertine is.  Is Francoise simply commenting on the, to a more traditional generation, the views of the shocking behavior of the modern young woman, or is she also obliquely commenting on Albertine's "Gomorrhan" tendencies?  Having said all that, it might be better to turn our attention to what "sort" Marcel is.  He tells Albertine, "I was too sad and that I would rather send for her from time to time at the last moment as I did in Paris." I guess we could argue about whether he means a cup of coffee with a dear friend or an unmitigated booty call, although her response ("just send for me and I shall come and once, and if you're not afraid of its creating a scandal in the hotel, I shall stay as long as you like") seems to imply the latter.  Either way, it's a pretty selfish, inconsiderate way to treat another person, be they a dear friend or a sexual gymnastics partner.  In that way, maybe Marcel deserves all the unhappiness Francoise is predicting.