If you haven’t figured out by name, I’m relatively obsessed with names and etymologies. I can remember way way back carrying my Petit Robert around to look words up. But the name Vinteuil has been stubborn as hell- refusing to come to the light. At a certain point I resigned myself to the annoying Continue reading “Vinteuil- at long last I grok you!”
Let’s talk Ottomans, shall we?
As I’ve said before, I’m no history buff, so forgive me if I’m a little glib about such matters. But let’s talk Ottomans, shall we? And Persia, Byzantine culture, St. Mark and so on. We have to, because Continue reading “Let’s talk Ottomans, shall we?”
An Exercise: Nom de Plume, Nom de Guerre
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. Continue reading “An Exercise: Nom de Plume, Nom de Guerre”
Madame de Cambremer deserves better
Mme. de Cambremer let herself drift upon a stream of exquisite memories and sensations.
Lovely Mme. de Cambremer. I know she’s the butt of jokes. Her name ends poorly, meaning the ‘de’ should be appended to the end. Mme de Cambremer(de). Not all that different in tone from Mme Verdurin’s name – verdant tinged with the subtext of ordure and Continue reading “Madame de Cambremer deserves better”
You say Combray, I say Cambrai
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”
Isn’t a little phrase an Ode-ette?
Now what would MP be up to, calling Swann’s lover Odette? Ode – some kind of poem-ish form. But diminished. a diminutive ode. An Odette. So basically a phrase. But a little one. A little ode.
I’m not saying there isn’t a little phrase in a piece of music written by M. Vinteuil and played… Continue reading “Isn’t a little phrase an Ode-ette?”
Ceci n’est pas un Swann de Combray
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”
ISOLT Excerpt: The Two Ways
For there were, in the environs of Combray, two ‘ways’ which we used to take for our walks, and so diametrically opposed that we would actually leave the house by a different door, according to the way we had chosen: the way towards Méséglise-la-Vineuse, which we called