I’m always thinking of the idea of Place Names: the Name. If I were to choose the path of reductive thinking, I might see it in terms of pens and swords.
Nom de Plume is Swann’s Way. Nom de Guerre is the way of the Guermantes.
I don’t really believe this, as I think such bipolar thinking is not at all Proustian. The two paths are in reality one and the same, as we know from the famous passage on The Two Ways.
So this is an exercise, nothing more. A way to flesh out an idea, for simplicity’s sake.
If such a dichotomy might exist. Saint Loup would be the perfect synthesis of both sides of the coin. He’s a soldier, an aristocrat, a Guermantes through and through. And when I say Guermantes, sometimes (not always) I think of it in this way- as a coat of arms. combining guerre (arms) and mantes- the cloak-
The other way I see him is as A Saint: in disguise [see The Masked Saint]
And here’s why the two paths converge, and such a dichotomy is specious at best. When we look at the lion, the symbol of St. Mark (and also of Tante Léonie), we see that he is depicted in two different ways- at times there is a sword in the picture, and at other times there is a book. And the book is sometimes shown open, and sometimes shown closed.
Two ways- one of the pen and one of the sword.
If the book was open, it was a time of peace. If the book was closed and/or the lion held a sword, it was a time of war. Hence, my sense of two ways being the nom de plume (writing, the book) and the nom de guerre (the sword, the closed book).
The thematics of war and peace are implied in the little phrase. ‘La rivalité de François Ier et Charles V’ speaks to the two paths- one the path of peace – a peace treaty – and the other the path of war.
But as I said, there is not just one way. That would not be Proustian. The minute you think you’re on the right path and you’ve figured things out, he fools you once again, as he is always fooling himself. If you’ve possessed something (an idea, a person, a wish), you no longer want it. You want something else, and go off in search. That is the Proustian way.
Forget Swann and Guermantes, war and peace, Combray and Venice, life and death. They all meet up in the end.
