Swann’s Way Part 4 – The Kiss

So, I left off at the point where Swann had found Odette after desperately searching for her. Now he invites her into his carriage to take her home.  

She is covered in cattleyas, holding a bunch, fastened to her swansdown plume and attached to the front of her dress. She is in a state of shock at seeing Swann, whom she probably assumed couldn’t be bothered to come to the Verdurin’s latest party. The carriage knocks them around a little, which makes her feel breathless; he is solicitous but will not allow her to speak, offering to adjust the flowers on her bodice which were loosened by the carriage bumping, to brush off some pollen that has fallen on her dress and to smell her flowers to see if they have lost their scent. She scarcely seems to know how to react to him, and he doesn’t’ seem to want her to speak or react that much. 

I wanted to do a close reading of the next part. 

He slipped his other hand upwards along Odette’s cheek; she fixed her eyes on him, with that languishing and solemn air which marks the women of the old Florentine’s paintings, in whose faces he had found the type of hers; swimming at the brink of her fringed lids, her brilliant eyes, large and finely drawn as theirs, seemed on the verge of breaking from her face and rolling down her cheeks like two great tears. She bent her neck, as all their necks may be seen to bend, in the pagan scenes as well as in the scriptural. And although her attitude was, doubtless, habitual and instinctive, one which she knew to be appropriate to such moments, and was careful not to forget to assume, she seemed to need all her strength to hold her face back, as though some invisible force were drawing it down towards Swann’s. And Swann it was who, before she allowed her face, as though despite her efforts, to fall upon his lips , held it back for a moment longer, at a little distance between her hands. He had intended to leave time for her mind to overtake her body’s movements, to recognise the dream which she had so long cherished and to assist at its realisation, like a mother invited as a spectator when a prize is given to the child whom she had reared and loves. Perhaps, moreover, Swann himself was fixing upon these features of an Odette not yet possessed, not even kissed by him, on whom he was looking now for the last time, that comprehensive gaze with which, on the day of his departure, a traveller strives to bear away with him in memory the view of a country to which he may never return. 

The first time I read this passage I thought it was beautiful, but on re-reading it I found that there are things about it that indicate that all is not as romantic as it first seems. Firstly there is the imagery of her seeming to be on the verge of tears. She ‘knew her attitude to be appropriate to such moments’ – although Swann may forget that Odette is really just a courtesan, the narrator doesn’t let the reader forget. He tries to resist her kiss; the narrator suggests that it is through wanting to prolong her perceived purity, but use of ‘intended’ seems to suggest that Swann has been planning it. The language Proust uses is not that of two lovers, he uses a simile related to a mother and child and to the kiss being like a child’s prize, and there is something a bit peculiar about it. Perhaps it is down to the sense that Swann feel protective towards her, although it is not sure whether Odette actually does need protecting or if her seeming innocence, deferral to Swann’s intelligence and behaving in a wifely way towards him is merely an act to seduce him which has evidently worked. Finally, the narrator returns to the theme of the traveller from the overture, although in this case it is not coupled with the imagery of the invalid, instead it is more to do with memory.

Odette is mostly seen through Swann’s obsession, but Swann himself is mostly seen through the narrator’s gaze and they are both complex characters who can be subject to multiple interpretations. There is a sense that in some ways the narrator romanticises both of them. Odette is an enigma, why does Swann seem to force himself to love her? It’s almost as if he is behaving like an aging roué who has to find some woman, any woman to settle down with, even a former courtesan. I suppose he has probably burnt his boats as far as respectable women are concerned as he has applied to all his acquaintances to meet different women. He is curiously shy and timid towards her, hiding behind the pretence of rearranging her flowers to make sexual advances towards her. 

The relationship completely changes him in that he gives up other women: ‘Swan was no longer the same man’ (p232). He goes to see Odette every night, getting her to play Vinteuil’s sonata which heightens and intensifies his love: ‘one would have said that he was inhaling an anaesthetic which allowed him to breathe more deeply’ (p234). I think the use of ‘anaesthetic’ here is telling – it is as if he has become ‘drugged’ by her. Love affects the senses, intoxicates. 

He knows very little about what she does during the day and little of her past, only that she was a ‘tart’ and a ‘kept woman’ previously. He believes that she is ‘incapable of not telling the truth’ (p237), demonstrated by her apparent embarrassment at being caught out in a white lie. He is disturbed by the thought of her life away from him. He recognises and accepts her lack of taste and intelligence and she hides away from society, fearing gossip from a former friend she fell out with, whereas he is instinctively at ease moving in all circles. The narrator suggests that he is ‘slumming it’ and stooping to her level (p243), changing his tastes and opinions to suit hers.

He deceives himself about the Verdurins, spending more and more time with them. Odette gets them to invite the Comte de Forcheville (brother-in-law to Saniette) to a terrible party. Forchville is extra vulgar and tries to seduce Odette, the doctor makes awful puns and Brichot (a visiting professor) is a big fraud. Swann is defensive towards Forcheville and Brichot because he fears that Odette may go off with one of them, so he offends everyone instead and the Verdurin’s lose respect for him. 

He is continually buying presents for Odette and bailing her out of financial problems, not considering that she may be a gold-digger but fearing that she will go off him if he doesn’t financially reward her. It is almost as if he is ill: ‘But that state of excitement into which Odette’s presence never failed to throw him, added to a feverish ailment which, for some time now, had scarcely left him’. (p265). One night, when she is feeling unwell and denies him sexual favours, he convinces himself that there is a man visiting and spies on her, but looks in the wrong window. 

Gold Digger! (link)

 He is tortured by his love for her and cannot take any pleasure in it. The reader knows what will happen, after all, Odette is highly likely to be the ‘unfortunate wife’ of the first part that he feel no love for and who seems to be an embarrassment. What isn’t known is how or why he gets to that stage, although the narrative clearly points to this love affair becoming a complete disaster for him.

Swann’s Way Part 3 – Mobile Proust

Mobile, because I am attempting to do this on Kindle with my notebook, not the giant copy of Proust I’ve made notes in. Not quite as easy to search, but I’ve been having trouble finding the time to do any more writing about it and part of me wants to finish more of that before I go on to read any more as I am conscious I’ve got quite a lot of book to analyse. This is going to be a rather long post as there wasn’t really anywhere convenient I wanted to stop. Kindle Proust is not that bad a method of writing, although I miss page numbers. Some Kindle books have them, but the version I have doesn’t. Onto the Proust.

The narrator describes the ‘Guermantes Way’ which is harder than the ‘Meseglise Way’, and in the course of the description we learn more about the Guermantes family, who were also the Counts of Combray. There is a sense that they belong to the past in the way they are associated with ruins, but also with beauty in the sense of the landscape and of Mme Guermantes, whom the narrator imagines asking him to go fishing and questioning him about his writing. He develops a sort of obsession with her but his ideas are shattered when she attends the wedding of Dr. Percepied’s daughter and he finds that she doesn’t look that much like her portrait and she looks quite ordinary instead of like some sort of being from another age. Nevertheless, he convinces himself that he is in love with her and that she is beautiful because he thinks that she looks down on him. There is something rather obsequious about ‘Marcel’, perhaps because of his innate snobbery but his feelings of inferiority are linked with his fear that he is not good enough to be a writer.

He introduces the topic of Swann’s love affair that occurred before he was born. The next part of the novel switches from first person to third, which can be quite disorientating as I didn’t realise at first that we had gone back to the past, and it does switch back at times to the narrator’s recollections of his family’s opinions of the situation. Swann in Love opens with a description of a middle class couple, the Verdurins, who are horrendous social climbers who like giving embarrassing Abigail’s Party style ‘soirees’.  To make it classier, they invite a doctor, a pianist and a painter and Madame Verdurin pretends to be highly affected by music and art. They look down on everybody who is not part of their group as ‘bores’ or ‘nuisances’.

Like this, but in 19^th Century France and less dead people (link)

Odette is also a frequent visitor, although it is not clear why – perhaps, as a courtesan, she has associated with some wealthy men and the Verdurins think that she will start bringing them along.  Swann attends the party as Odette’s ‘guest’.

Swann, meanwhile, is a bit of a roué. He’s not snobbish about women’s appearances, but has associated with aristocrats in the course of his search for variety and pleasure. If he runs out of current women, he writes to his friends for letters of introduction, much to the grandfather’s disgust- the family can see how Swann quickly ‘drops’ women after they have been introduced, which is quite embarrassing for them.

When Swann meets Odette he doesn’t find her that attractive: ‘She had stuck Swann not, certainly, as being devoid of beauty, but as endowed with a style of beauty which left him indifferent, which aroused in him no desire, which gave him, indeed, a sort of physical repulsion…’ (p197). She, however, begins to visit him, ostensibly to see his collections of art. He somewhat regrets that he doesn’t find her attractive.  Odette seems quite obsessed with Swann; it is related how she begs to see him again soon in an ‘anxious, timid way’ (p198) and entreats him to teach her about Vermeer. As we only really see her from Swann’s perspective, it is not always easy to tell what she is really thinking or what she is really like, but re-reading this passage I get the sense that she is skilfully manipulating him, especially as Swann’s friend has told him that she is particularly difficult to seduce, but she seems to be trying to seduce him. It does work; Swann begins to obsess over her.

Part of this seduction is inviting him the Verdurins’ party .The grandfather is inevitably unimpressed by the Verdurins, thinking that they are too bohemian and severing acquaintances with them, so he can’t write a letter of introduction for Swann. The parties that they give are quite comical, particularly with the disparate guests like Dr. Cottard who has a bit of an odd sense of humour, probably caused by him having few social skills, he is in fact, sort of Asperger’s, being unable to tell whether someone is joking or not and unable to have the right manner or facial expression to suit the occasion. He’s also got an obsession with figures of speech, ‘plays on words’ or puns, which he has memorised by rote. Mme. Verdurin thinks he is wonderfully clever but even she gets offended after she foolishly asks for his opinion about Sarah Bernhardt meaning to be modest about the tickets she’s paid for and he takes her at face value telling his hostess he’s sick of Sarah. In return, they send Dr. Cottard a ruby worth 300 francs and pretend that it cost 3,000. They forgive him after that, and laugh like hyenas in a really false way whenever he comes up with another dreadful pun.

The Verdurins fear that Swann is going to be another ‘bore’ but are comforted by his manner and he is  pretty much a perfect guest, even getting past Dr. Cottard’s inspection.  In the course of the dreadful party the pianist plays a piece of music which deeply affects Swann, even though he doesn’t know who composed it.  Before he listens to the music he has no ‘ideal goal’ and pursues ‘ephemeral satisfactions’. He takes ‘refuge in trivial considerations’ and does not express an opinion with ‘any warmth’ – just supplies facts and details, or pretends that he is being ironic (p210). Proust returns to the motif of the invalid from the overture to describe how he feels; like an invalid who starts to hope that he is beginning to recover. He asks who the music was composed by and discovers that it was Vinteuil. As he listens to it again he begins to discover more, there is a sense that the composer  was ‘disenchanted with life’ (p217).  Mme Verdurin pretends to be deeply affected but doesn’t really appreciate it. The Cottards don’t understand it (and in fact are totally oblivious to cultural appreciation), so don’t give an opinion. Swann doesn’t believe that it was the work of the music master at Combrey, but it marks the start of his affection for Odette.  

The Verdurins are impressed with Swann but Dr. Cottard is surprised to discover that Swann associates with the Head of State as well as other members of the upper echelon. Even though the Verdurins are portrayed as being rather vulgar, Swann continues to visit for the sake of seeing Odette. He doesn’t want to see her alone as he is afraid that she will assume that he is falling in love with her and he prefers to spend the first part of the evening with a working girl that he has fallen in love with. He does, however, return her home in his carriage at the end of the night and keeps a chrysanthemum that she impulsively gives him.

Throughout their romance Odette is associated with flowers. Although in France chrysanthemums are associated with death and bereavement, they were a craze in Paris at the time, a flower that Swann looks down on usually but is somewhat pleased when he sees them in her lobby. The other flower that she is associated with, the cattleya, is a type of orchid, associated with beauty, royalty and love. Both flowers are known for their ‘showiness’. 

Link

She also has a penchant for oriental decoration and treats him like some sort of potentate or god when he visits her for tea, arranging the surrounding around her to their best effect and showing him all her knick-knack in turn. He is beguiled by her, considering what it would be like to always have a woman he could go to for a cup of tea, and he begins to try to find her attractive, comparing her to Zipporah, Jethro’s daughter in a fresco in the Sistine Chapel (painted by Botticelli).

Link

This allows him to see her as a romantic, beautiful figure rather than as he saw her before, and he places a copy of Botticelli’s fresco on his study table so that he can admire it.

The trouble is, she has not really changed except in his mind and they still have very little in common and little to talk about. To add a frisson when conversation is growing dull he sends her a letter ‘full of hinted discoveries and feigned indignation’ (p224) in the hope that she will declare her love for him, which she does, allowing him to act indifferently toward her in return. Yet, one day when he is late to the Verdurins and she has already gone, he realises how much he has come to expect her to be around. M. Verdurin notices, but Mme believes that it is purely platonic and they are somewhat dismissive of her.

Swann goes in search of her, but is continually held up and can’t find her in any of the restaurants, this causes him to realise how much he has changed, that he can no longer fool himself that he doesn’t care for her. However, I think it’s fair to say that Swann doesn’t love her in the traditional sense, there is a sense of obsession and wanting to posses her as he would posses a piece of art rather than a woman; he blinds himself to her faults in a conscious way and it is difficult to see who the real Odette is. In his searching for her, his obsession is magnified by her absence.

This seems like a convenient place to stop as I want to do a close reading analysis of the next part, and this has been far too long a post already!

References

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/4195444/Avoiding-the-French-faux-pas.html

http://justaddiceorchids.com/_blog/Orchid_Blog/post/The_Symbolism_of_Orchids/

The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley (some spoilers)

Wonderfully appropriate cover image

First, a word about the edition.  I’ve been reading the 2003 Penguin edition edited by Douglas Brooks-Davies and not been that keen. His introduction and notes are peppered with numerous spoilers and he has a tendency to over-analyse everything. If I was studying the book properly or re-reading it I would be really happy with it, but as it is a book that should be read without that much knowledge of the plot, I was disappointed with the heavy-handed editing. Having read the Colm Toibin introduction (available here on the NYRB Classics website), I think I’d prefer that edition. 

Leaving the edition aside, I really liked this book.  Hartley uses lyrical, evocative prose which perfectly captures the voice of young Leo and gives a sense of the period. I could see the resemblance between Hartley’s narrative style and Proust’s, but it wasn’t quite as difficult to read – paragraphs are shorter and are interspersed with dialogue. 

The plot is quite simple, but builds tension well. It begins with Leo remembering the summer of 1900 spent at Brandham Hall with a school friend. Leo innocently agrees to pass love letters between Marian (the school friend’s sister) and Ted (a local farmer) not realising why he is doing it or the implications that it will have for the family and for himself. 

The book works because of the way it is narrated in the first person with Leo gradually discovering what he is doing. He is an incredibly naïve character who is teased by the family because of it, and several humourous incidents in the novel occur due to his misunderstanding or interpreting something too literally. He lives with his widowed mother with whom he has a close relationship and is a rather sensitive child, who believes that he can affect circumstances with magic. With a lack of male guidance at home and feeling an outsider due to the fact that he is from a lower class than his friend Marcus, he is attracted to Marian, to Lord Trimingham (Hugh) and to Ted in turn.  

His relationship with Ted is peculiar; there is a suggestion that he is sexually attracted in the way that he admires Ted’s body and particularly in a deleted scene where Ted gives him a swimming lesson.  But this is a book which is about sexual awakening, Hartley uses belladonna as a symbolic device suggesting the ‘poisonous’ sexual undercurrents, alongside the imagery of the zodiac signs of the Virgin and the Water-Carrier and the changes in temerature.  Although it isn’t as explicit, the passage describing the swimming scene where Leo first observes Ted reminded me of Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, there is a similar overlap between the natural world and sexuality, and like Mellors, Ted is unashamed of his body and sexuality:

His clothes were lying at his side; he hadn’t bothered to seek the shelter of the rushes. Nor did he now. Believing himself to be unseen by the other bathers, he gave himself up to being alone with his body.

The first person narrative leaves the relationship between Ted and Marian open to interpretation.  Marian can be read as a rather selfish, cold character who intends to use Leo from the moment he arrives at Brandham Hall, and is using Ted as a bit of fun before she marries Hugh, or as a rather mixed-up woman who is about to be forced into a marriage with a man she doesn’t love for the sake of the propriety of marrying within her own class and living at Brandham Hall who has an intense relationship with a local farmer. By the end, many years later, it is clear that she is still deceiving herself about the relationship with Ted, having intended to carry it on even when she was married.  Hartley apparently intended the reader to disapprove of the relationship, particularly of Ted apparently seducing Marian, but despite Leo’s suspicion that he is being used by both parties, there is something nice about the character of Ted, he is probably the most likable character in the book as the upper class characters can be rather cold and distant. 

The ending, before the epilogue is devastating. Although I knew what was going to happen, it was still a surprise. It is done in such a quick way.  People have criticised the prologue and the epilogue as a framing devices, in some ways the epilogue could be seen as somehow ‘softening’ the impact of the end of the story, but in other ways this is a book about the past and its effect particularly on Leo, but also on other characters in the novel, both the events of the novel and the significance of the wars the characters have participated in. The prologue and the epilogue show that Leo has rejected relationships completely. Perhaps this is because of his latent homosexuality, but there is a sense that after his nervous collapse, Leo not only finds it difficult to form romantic relationships, but also finds it difficult to trust anyone. 

Overall, it's one of those books that stays with you, and having thought about it since finishing the book I find myself realising more about the book. It will quite likely become a re-read in the future.