[solo] Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah translated by Scott-Moncrieff - rap

[MOKelly]

Thank you again for the PL.

I have uploaded the corrected Section 14; and have uploaded Section 16.

The narrator in this section gives away some of his not-so-appealing characteristics: seeing a well-dressed "ordinary" person in the train, he says that she is likely to be a "procuress" - the narrator seems to indicate any member of the "lower orders" who presumes to try to look sophisticated must be put in their place. The narrator goes on to reflect happily about the gentry such as Mme de Cambremer with whom he is on good terms - "sparkling with irony" at the aspirations of his fellow traveller in the train, as the narrator puts it so fatuously. Secondly, the narrator claims at one point never to have thought about the fact that Robert de Saint-Loup is of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, but we have heard that same narrator rhapsodise again and again about Saint-Loup's aristocratic ways and his noble friends.

If we want to give the author the benefit of the doubt we could say that he is portraying the narrator's unconscious snobbism in all the above.

However, for me the most enthralling drama of whole of the twelve volumes of this story is that of the reader's relationship with the author, as perceived via the narrator. Is the author, via the narrator, trying get the reader's approval of the author, warts and all?

We struggle with the attraction of the narrator's quirky but penetrating perceptions, versus the narrator's interminable fascination with the minutiae of high society and with the unfunny "wit" of its noble inhabitants. Is the author trying to persuade us that he is not really a snob, via the narrator?

We may identify with some of the narrator's most pitiable and ignoble feelings, but the narrator's bullying of his amours and his capriciousness can be difficult to tolerate. Again, is the author, via the narrator, trying to plead his case - the case of his life - with the reader?

And so we read on, perhaps revolted, but also fascinated, and occasionally caught between these two feelings, struck by Proust's insights into the self one would rather one did not have.

[brownrottger]

Section 16 is PL ok. The title of this volume should be "Variations on a theme of hypocrisy and snobbery in the upper classes."

[MOKelly]

True, but in the book there are mixed in some nicely painful portrayals of grief and clear views from the narrator of his own twisted attempts to manage his relationships.

Thank you for the PL.

I have just uploaded the next Section, 17.

Yes, in this Section too you can find further meticulously expressed snobbery, about Princess Sherbatoff, where the narrator emphasises repeatedly and smirkingly her low position in society. It is hard for the reader to bear! but there is also a nice little side-clause "Before strangers - among whom we must always reckon him to whom we lie most barefacedly because he is the person whose scorn we should most dread: ourself..."; and, although maybe hackneyed, I like the bit about the beautiful girl who smokes a cigarette in the train carriage, whom the narrator never forgets - a trope which Proust uses at least twice. Orson Welles (or Herman Mankiewicz) used it in Citizen Kane too, with Bernstein remembering the girl on the boat in the white dress that he saw once and never saw again.

It may be, also, that the stream the narrator's society-obsessed stories and the narrator's own clear-sighted descriptions of his painful behaviour serve as a background that helps the reader to accept passages (about hawthorns, about painting and music, about his saintly grandmother...) which in another book might read as gushing or sentimental. That may be my pro-Proust bias speaking.

[brownrottger]

Section 17 is PL ok. Don't get me wrong; I do love this book! Proust's character dissections through his protagonist ( with that touch of hypocrisy that all humans exhibit, in my opinion) is pure genius!

[brownrottger]

Also, Grand Duchess Eudoxie is in another book that I am DPL of! viewtopic.php?t=98137

[brownrottger]

Also, Grand Duchess Eudoxie is in another book that I am DPL of! viewtopic.php?t=98137

Nope. It is just a coincidence of name. In On the Red Staircase, she is a French governess.