My Years With Proust - Day 542

   As one does on the eve of a premature death, I drew up a mental list of the pleasures of which I was deprived by the fact that Albertine had put a full stop to my freedom.  At Passy it was in the middle of the street itself, so crowded were the footways, that a pair of girls, their arms encircling one another's waists, enthralled me with their smiles.  I had not time to distinguish them clearly, but it is unlikely that I was overrating their charms; in any crowd, after all, in any crowd of young people, it is not unusual to come upon the effigy of a noble profile. So that these assembled masses on public holidays are so precious to the voluptuary as is to the archaeologists the disordered jumble of a site whose excavation will bring ancient medals to light.  We arrived at the Bois.  I reflected that, if Albertine had not come out with me, I might at this moment, in the enclosure of the Champs-Elysees, have been hearing the Wagnerian storm set all the rigging of the orchestra ascream, draw into its frenzy, like a light spindrift, the tune of the shepherd's pipe which I had just been playing to myself, set if flying, mould it, distort it, divide it, sweep it away in an ever-increasing whirlwind. I was determined, at any rate, that our drive should be short and that we should return home early, for, without having mentioned it to Albertine, I had decided to go that evening to the Verdurins'.  They had recently sent me an invitation which I had flung into the waste paper basket with all the rest.  But I had changed  my mind as far as this evening was concerned, for I meant to try to find out who Albertine might have been hoping to meet there in the afternoon. To tell the truth, I had reached that stage in my relations with Albertine when, if everything remains the same, if things go on normally, a woman no longer serves any purpose for one except as a transitional stage before another woman.  She still retains a corner of one's heart, but a very small corner; one is impatient to go out every evening in search of unknown women, especially unknown women who are known to her and can tell one about her life. Herself, after all, we have possessed, and exhausted everything that she has consented to yield to us of herself.  Her life is still herself, but precisely that part of her which we do not know, the things about which we have questioned her in vain and which we shall be able to gather from fresh lips.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 165-166

Proust continues to ruminate on what his relationship with Albertine had cost him, now that she "had put a full stop to my freedom."  He imagines that every woman he sees would be open to his advances if only Albertine were not in the way.  One would think that the captive in The Captive was Marcel and not Albertine. A couple days ago we discussed Proust's realization that as he became the master he became the slave.  Yes, on the one hand it was a case of self-pity, if not self-delusion, but it is true that as he shrank Albertine's world he in turn shrank his own.  And, as we all know, when you do that you hating, or at least not loving, what you've created.  Proust realizes, "To tell the truth, I had reached that stage in my relations with Albertine when, if everything remains the same, if things go on normally, a woman no longer serves any purpose for one except as a transitional stage before another woman."  It's very easy, and obviously incorrect, to think back over your life and view all the people, especially the women you've loved, as chess pieces who have helped get you, geographically and intellectually and emotionally, to where you are now, and to who you're with now.  Not only is that insensitive and disrespectful, but it also doesn't make much sense because life is not that simple.  Still, you can be in such a dying relationship that it is hard to not think of it as nothing more than a transitional stage.  It is an old chestnut that nothing makes a man more appealing to a woman than the fact that he is someone else's boyfriend/fiance/husband, and one wonders if this is what Marcel believes.  Even if he doesn't believe that simply having a mistress in Albertine makes him more desirable to other women, he certainly views the relationship as expiring, which, of course, is also a self-fulfilling prophecy because he's going to devote even less time to it (although there's always time to be jealous and find ways to make Albertine miserable). In the end she's nothing more than something to be possessed, and the process of possessing her has in turn made her undesirable.  As Proust tells us, coldly, although I suspect also honestly, "Herself, after all, we have possessed, and exhausted everything that she has consented to yield to us of herself."

My Years With Proust - Day 541

   "What did you think of the Trocadero, you little gadabout?"

   "I'm jolly glad I came away from it to go out with you.  Architecturally it's pretty measly, isn't it?  It's by Davioud, I believe."

   "But how learned my little Albertine is becoming!  It is indeed by Davioud, but I'd forgotten."

   "While you're asleep I read your books, you old lazybones."

   "I saw, little one, you're changing so fast and becoming so intelligent" (this was true, but even had it not been true I was not sorry that she should have the satisfaction, failing others, of saying to herself that at least the time she spent in my house was not being entirely wasted) "that I don't mind telling you things which would generally be regarded as false but which correspond to a truth that I'm searching for.  You know what is meant by impressionism?"

   "Of course!"

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 164-165

This is an interesting little passage, which I did not include solely to annoy my readers with a more feminist philosophical leaning (at least not entirely).  Actually, I'm thinking about having my students read this section later this year in my Heroines & Heroes class, when we discuss feminist literary criticism, for just that reason (and also because I love to have my students read Proust).  Everything about this exchange expressed Marcel's desire to infantilize Albertine. Consider these statements:

"What did you think of the Trocadero, you little gadabout?"

"But how learned my little Albertine is become!"

"I saw, little one, you're changing so fast and becoming so intelligent . . "

"You know what is meant by impressionism?"

This is far more than a century-old French version of mansplaining, although every woman in the world today would recognize the condescension. When asked for relationship advice, and I find the request laughable although it is presented fairly routinely (I'm assuming mainly because of my impressive vintage), I always propose that one of the most obvious acts to avoid is to, consciously or unconsciously, turn your partner into someone you abhor (or at least wouldn't fuck on a bet).  A fairly common, and relatively harmless, example is the women who dress their husbands out of the L.L. Bean catalog and drag them off to Lowe's for home improvement projects and then begin to loath them for being the insipid, suburban vestigial males they in fact created. The far more insidious version, both in early 20th century France and the early 21st century U.S., made far more dangerous because of societal gender-based power dynamics, are the men who, much like Marcel in the example above, infantilize the women in their personal and professional worlds.

Visitors from the Deep South

It's odd.  For years it seemed like we never had any visitors, but suddenly the last couple years there's been a steady stream of friends who have made the sojourn north to see us in Vermont.  I'm assuming that this is partially me making a more concerted effort to be a more present friend, and to visit them, but also Vermont (aka the Yankee hellhole) is looking better and better as the rest of the country slips into an alt-right, crypto-fascist state (not that I have strong political beliefs or anything).  A month ago it was my friend Janan and her husband Kal, who were up in the area for their daughter's wedding.  We taught together for nine years at Georgia Perimeter College (nee DeKalb College) in Atlanta before a midlife crisis drove me north.  It was humbling, but also sweet, when we did the math and realized that we had known each other for twenty-six years.  Our offices were always right next to each other, and were always supportive friends through any number of personal and professional trials and tribulations.  It was wonderful to see them, and I think it's time for me to return the favor and head back to Atlanta for a visit.

Janan, who, cruelly, even after a quarter century, refuses to age.

Her husband, Kal, a very good soul.

Some old dude interrupted the festivities.

My Years With Proust - Day 540

I was struck by how much reality there is in the work of Wagner as I contemplated once more those insistent, fleeting themes which visit an act, recede only to return detached, are at other moments, while remaining vague, so pressing and so close, so internal, so organic, so visceral, that they seem like the reprise not so much of a musical motif as of an attack of neuralgia.

   Music, very different in this respect from Albertine's society, helped me to descend into myself, to discover new things: the variety that I had sought in vain in life, in travel, but a longing for which was none the less renewed in me by this sonorous tide whose sunlit waves now came to expire at my feet.  A twofold diversity.  As the spectrum makes visible to us the composition of light, so the harmony of a Wagner, the colour of an Elstir, enable us to know that essential quality of another person's sensations into which love for another person does not allow us to penetrate.  Then a diversity inside the works itself, by the sole means that exist of being effectively diverse to wit, combining diverse individualities.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, p. 156

I don't know if I have anything profound to say about this passage (or any, for that matter), but it seemed remarkably well-timed as we start up Year Two of our Discography music discussion in a couple weeks.  Having included that disclaimer, why is it true that, as Proust writes, "Music, very different in this respect from Albertine's society, helped me to descend into myself, to discover new things: the variety that I had sought in vain in life, in travel, but a longing for which was none the less renewed in me by this sonorous tide whose sunlit waves now came to expire at my feet."? Why does music, that "sonorous tide," bring Proust (or most right-thinking individuals) to places that relationships (even with mysterious bisexual French women) cannot?  Certainly it relates to the emotional vibrancy of music. Granted, relationships, by definition, possess an emotional intensity.  Maybe the key here is the shelf life of the emotional intensity/vibrancy.  I can't imagine a time when I'll tire of hearing Neil Young's Helpless or Bill Evans's Young and Foolish or the Drive-By Truckers' Lookout Mountain or Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' Else or Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town or Miles Davis's Stella by Starlight or Uncle Tupelo's Looking for a Way Out or, well, it just goes on and on.  Sadly, however, we always tire of our relationships.  Why?  That would doubtless require a much more intelligent, perceptive person than me (not a particularly select fraternity) to answer, although I have a theory; which helps us transition into part two of our discussion of Proust's view of music.  I think music, at least great music, doesn't age (or at least doesn't age badly) because it is more evocative than definitive, it hints at more than it declares, which allows us to fill in the rest from our own emotion and perception and need. Eventually you know everything there is about that other person, especially if they aren't growing and recreating themselves (yes, one of my favorite themes), whereas there are infinite levels to Davis's So What.

Discography Archives - Dave Kelley

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