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/