A rivalry, a quartet, a church? on the first page? That's odd, no? she asked. And Marcel Proust said "Yes! My lovely little phrase- she is famous now?!'
Here they are, my two kings, the ones to blame for starting it all.
I don’t even know why I looked them up. I’ve never been the least bit interested in history. But that’s how it started. I did a casual search, a few words typed in- and that’s when I stumbled on Cambrai Continue reading “Prooosty stumbles onto something”
Even though I’m not French I get it. The sound of an ‘o’ in a French word is nothing like the sound of an ‘a.’ So you say it’s Combray and I say but maybe it could be Cambrai. And then you ask me if I’m nuts. And I say well I’m not French, but… Continue reading “You say Combray, I say Cambrai”
Quatuor is not a very easy word to say in French. Probably why it caught my attention.
I just loved that word all by itself. – the u and the o a bit of a tongue twister for me, the non-native French speaker. And in my mind, twisting letters around- because the line preceding it… Continue reading “2 + 2 = a Quatuor!”
Meet Le cygne de Cambrai: Francois Fenelon. He’s a French archbishop from the late 1600’s who somehow took on the sobriquet The Swan of Cambrai. And could possibly, just possibly, have served as inspiration for the Swann of Combray front and center in Swann’s Way.
It could be nothing more than that. Just a simple borrowing of… Continue reading “Ceci n’est pas un Swann de Combray”
My son sometimes says something I’ve done is cringe, and I mean no harm to Illiers when I say this (though I hate when he says it to me!) but I do find it a bit that. Of course the town’s the real deal, and yes I’ve been there and it’s charming, but a name… Continue reading “Illiers-Combray lolol”