tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793932809724820232.post5950462277107168019..comments2023-11-03T05:24:11.132-07:00Comments on Reading Proust: Swann in LoveChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594233727708567438noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793932809724820232.post-45039210081412450982010-02-16T23:04:50.771-08:002010-02-16T23:04:50.771-08:00Don't forget Proust wrote this over a long per...Don't forget Proust wrote this over a long period of time during which he changed course more than once. Also, when you get to the last volume, you will notice there are some errors which he did not have time to correct before he died. So it is entirely possible that at one time he intended to give a more detailed explanation of the marriage and then either changed his mind or never got back to it.<br /><br />I think a lot about the two 'ways' (Swann's and the Guermantes') and so I wonder whether marrying Odette was one manifestation of Swann's way, a way which included considerable compromise and lack of belief. Think about the way he highlights Swann's tendency to put quotes, as it were, around anything he says that smacks of a firm opinion. <br /><br />Swann's rise into aristocratic society makes him a man of the world, a man who ceases to believe things deeply, although when you get to the passages about the Dreyfuss affair, you will see he changes a bit, but this is late in his life. <br /><br />He has ceased to believe in much of anything and falls into a relationship with Odette very much against his will and by accident. <br /><br />We do get some hints as to whether Gilberte is really his daughter, but they are oblique and they happen after Swann has died when we observe how she conducts herself in terms of her relationship to him, in particular utterly denying that she is, as a result, half Jewish. Perhaps this is because she is not in fact half-Jewish but simply a child raised in part by a Jewish man who happened to be married to her mother.<br /><br />One other possibility I sometimes wonder about: did Swann marry Odette as a favour after she became pregnant by some other man? You get hints of a kind of messy, hidden nobility in Swann from time to time and at those moments, this thought has occurred to me.<br /><br />On the whole, it is left mysterious. We are as mystified by it as the characters in the novel. How true that rings: do we ever really know why people do the things they do?scheinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16111124657567249600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793932809724820232.post-10798609950802283862010-02-16T19:08:12.240-08:002010-02-16T19:08:12.240-08:00Hi dotdave.
No hints anywhere in all seven volume...Hi dotdave.<br /><br />No hints anywhere in all seven volumes? I'll go crazy!<br /><br />He didn't run out of time and then die. I think the seven books were written approximately in chronological order. He didn't overlook it. He was a compulsive re-writer. The omission seems quite deliberate.<br /><br />I imagine scholarly essays and doctoral dissertations have investigated the question of how Swann and Odette got together, and why Proust left it up the the reader's imagination. I'd like to read more on the topic, but don't know where to look.<br /><br />How does the chronology work out? We know Gilberte's age. Does Odette have the baby while away at sea, or does she get pregnant after she returns, after Swann has lost interest in her? Later on, Swann seems fond of Gilberte, so it seems reasonable to suppose that he is her father.<br /><br />Did Swann marry Odette and give her a child out of some friendly sympathy, after she discloses all, repents, and wishes for a happier and more conventional life? Is this echoed by Swann's polite conversation with the young prostitute in the house of ill repute, near the end of the chapter?<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />SBsequoia boyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14635217649343047435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793932809724820232.post-37327686368714526002010-02-16T12:55:27.469-08:002010-02-16T12:55:27.469-08:00He never tells you. I'd be interested to know ...He never tells you. I'd be interested to know whether it is because he overlooked it, he died before he got to write it or else he felt he had said enough already.scheinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16111124657567249600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793932809724820232.post-7245102832246620982010-02-16T10:23:18.390-08:002010-02-16T10:23:18.390-08:00I'm goin' nuts! Please relieve my distress...I'm goin' nuts! Please relieve my distress. I've read the first three chapters of Swann's Way, and just finished Swann in Love. In early chapters, it's quite clear that Swann eventually marries Odette, and they have a child, Gilberte, who is about seven years old.<br /><br />Swann in Love was really fascinating, full of nuance, surprise, irony and psychology. Proust was an acute observer of human psychology. Throughout Swann in Love, I kept wondering how, when, and why he would marry Odette, and how the two would feel about it. As I saw I was getting near the end of the story, I became increasingly anxious. How would Proust wrap it up? To my shock and horror, he doesn't wrap it up. At the end of Swann in Love, Swann has lost interest in Odette and regrets the time he wasted loving a woman who clearly was not right for him.<br /><br />This seems like a dirty trick by Proust, though it might be intended to keep his readers interested, through the remaining six volumes, hoping to find out.<br /><br />Toward the end of Swann's Way, late in the fourth chapter, Odette is described by former customers and lovers as Mme. Swann. So it seems pretty clear that something happened.<br /><br />Please, please, please, throw me a few clues.<br /><br />Timsequoia boyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14635217649343047435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1793932809724820232.post-56784540523074697672009-02-19T12:31:00.000-08:002009-02-19T12:31:00.000-08:00I have a question: why does Swann eventually marry...I have a question: why does Swann eventually marry Odette?<BR/><BR/>Reading your post makes me think that maybe the same 'intellectual laziness' that Proust describes in him several times, leads him to this. He slips into love with her through a kind of carelessness, a jumbling together of different impressions. The Vinteuil piece makes him think of love, Odette, who plays out attraction to him, becomes associated with the piece, suddenly he is in love with Odette.<BR/><BR/>Does the same thing lead him to marry her?scheinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16111124657567249600noreply@blogger.com