Proust: One water lily

One water lily, five sentences:

Soon the course of the Vivonne is obstructed by water plants. First they appear singly, like this water lily, for instance, which was allowed so little rest by the current in the midst of which it was unfortunately placed that, like a mechanically activated ferry boat, it would approach one bank only to return to the one from which it had come, eternally crossing back and forth again. Pushed toward the bank, its peduncle would unfold, lengthen, flow out, reach the extreme limit of its tension at the edge where the current would pick it up again, then the green cord would fold up on itself and bring the poor plant back to what may all the more properly be called its point of departure because it did not stay there a second without starting off from it again in a repetition of the same maneuver. I would find it again, walk after walk, always in the same situation, reminding me of certain neurasthenics among whose number my grandfather would count my aunt Léonie, who present year after year the unchanging spectacle of the bizarre habits they believe, each time, they are about to shake off and which they retain forever; caught in the machinery of the maladies and their manias, the efforts with which they struggle uselessly to abandon them only guarantee the functioning and activate the triggers of their strange, unavoidable, and morose regimes. This water lily was the same, and it was also like one of those miserable creatures whose singular torment, repeated indefinitely throughout eternity, aroused the curiosity of Dante, who would have asked the tormented creature himself to recount its cause and its particularities at greater length had Virgil, striding on ahead, not forced him to hurry after immediately, as my parents did me.

From Swann's Way, translated by Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002), 172-173

Five comparisons: the water plants appear one by one, "like this water lily." This lily then is likened to a ferry and to "certain neurasthenics," among whom the narrator's grandfather would include Léonie. Now we're somehow inside both the narrator's consciousness and that of his grandfather, and we're out on a walk and back home in Léonie's room. But there's more: this lily also resembles a figure in Dante's hell, adding a new overtone to the ferry comparison. And finally — finally! — the narrator compares Dante and Virgil to himself and his parents, bringing us back to the walk itself and childhood.

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Proust and TSE

Sara McWhorter passes on this exchange from D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928):

"Have you ever read Proust?" he asked her.

"I've tried, but he bores me."

"He's really very extraordinary."

"Possibly! But he bores me: all that sophistication! He doesn't have feelings, he only has streams of words about feelings. I'm tired of self-important mentalities."

"Would you prefer self-important animalities?"

"Perhaps! But one might possibly get something that wasn't self-important."

"Well, I like Proust's subtlety and his well-bred anarchy."

"It makes you very dead, really."

"There speaks my evangelical little wife."

Which reminded me of this exchange concerning T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922):

His grin broadened. "All I can say is, my dear, give me the old songs, though I can't sing them, if they're the new. What does poetry want with footnotes about psycho-analysis and negro mythology?"

"Suppose," someone asked him, "that you don't know anything about them?"

"Well, I couldn't get them out of footnotes and the poetry all at one stride, could I? But Doris, they were very clever and insulting poems, I think. Sing a song of mockery. Is that the latest? But it was a surprising little book, though it smelt like the dissection of bad innards."

From H.M. Tomlinson, Gallions Reach (1927), quoted by F.R. Leavis in New Bearings in English Poetry. (Leavis was on Eliot's side.)

Introducing Mlle. Swann

Proust again:

I looked at her, at first with the sort of gaze that is not merely the messenger of the eyes, but a window at which all the senses lean out, anxious and petrified, a gaze that would like to touch the body it is looking at, capture it, take it away and the soul along with it; then, so afraid was I that at any second my grandfather and my father, noticing the girl, would send me off, telling me to run on a little ahead of them, with a second sort of gaze, one that was unconsciously supplicating, that tried to force her to pay attention to me, to know me! She cast her eyes forward and sideways in order to take stock of my grandfather and father, and no doubt the impression she formed of them was that we were absurd, for she turned away, and, with an indifferent and disdainful look, placed herself at an angle to spare her face from being in their field of vision; and while they, continuing to walk on without noticing her, passed beyond me, she allowed her glances to stream out at full length in my direction, without any particular expression, without appearing to see me, but with a concentration and a secret smile that I could only interpret, according to the notions of good breeding instilled in me, as a sign of insulting contempt; and at the same time her hand sketched an indecent gesture for which, when it was directed in public at a person one did not know, the little dictionary of manners I carried inside me supplied only one meaning, that of intentional insolence.

"Gilberte, come here! What are you doing?" came the piercing, authoritarian cry of a lady in white whom I had not seen, while, at some distance from her, a gentleman dressed in twill whom I did not know stared at me with eyes that started from his head; the girl abruptly stopped smiling, took her spade, and went away without turning back toward me, with an air that was submissive, inscrutable, and sly.

So it was that this name, Gilberte, passed by close to me, given like a talisman that might one day enable me to find this girl again whom it had just turned into a person and who, a moment before, had been merely an uncertain image. Thus it passed, spoken over the jasmines and the stocks, as sour and as cool as the drops from the green watering hose; impregnating, coloring the portion of pure air that it had crossed — and that it isolated — with the mystery of the life of the girl it designated for the happy creatures who lived, who traveled in her company; deploying under the pink thicket, at the height of my shoulder, the quintessence of their familiarity, for me so painful, with her and with the unknown territory of her life which I would never be able to enter.

From Swann's Way, translated by Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002), 144-45

I especially like "no doubt the impression she formed of them was that we were absurd": the pronoun slippage shows so well the narrator's feeling that he's being judged by the company he keeps. The "pink thicket" is of hawthorns.

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Proust again

On reading:

In the sort of screen dappled with different states of mind which my consciousness would simultaneously unfold while I read, and which ranged from the aspirations hidden deepest within me to the completely exterior view of the horizon which I had, at the bottom of the garden, before my eyes, what was first in me, innermost, the constantly moving handle that controlled the rest, was my belief in the philosophical richness and the beauty of the book I was reading, and my desire to appropriate them for myself, whatever that book might be. For, even if I had bought it in Combray, having seen it in front of Borange's grocery, which was too far away from the house for Françoise to be able to do her shopping there as she did at Camus's, but which was better stocked as stationer and bookshop, held in place by some strings in the mosaic of pamphlets and monthly serials that covered the two panels of its door, which was itself more mysterious, more sown with ideas than the door of a cathedral, the fact was that I had recognized it as having been mentioned to me as a remarkable work by the teacher or friend who appeared to me at that period to hold the secret of the truth and beauty half sensed, half incomprehensible, the knowledge of which was the goal, vague but permanent, of my thoughts.

From Swann's Way, translated by Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002), 85-86

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Dance Festival

From this morning's New York Times:

No one is quite sure when New York City children began celebrating spring by dancing in schoolyards, their teachers leading them, often awkwardly, through the steps, their proud parents gathered round, snapping pictures and clapping along. It is a peculiar urban rite — called Dance Festival in most of the city, and May Fete on Staten Island — that has been around, it seems, for as long as the public school system itself.

My most vivid Dance Festival memories (P.S. 131, Boro Park, Brooklyn): crepe-paper sashes and armbands and a song called "Wind the Bobbin":

Wind, wind, wind the bobbin,
Wind, wind, wind the bobbin,
Pull, and pull,
And clap, clap, clap.

Or was it "Tap, tap, tap"?

Oh to be a city-kid again.

Link » When School Turns Into the Land of 1,000 Dances
(New York Times, registration required)

From Proust

Marcel Proust on "'seeing a person we know'":

But even with respect to the most insignificant things in life, none of us constitutes a material whole, identical for everyone, which a person has only to go look up as though we were a book of specifications or a last testament; our social personality is a creation of the minds of others. Even the very simple act that we call "seeing a person we know" is in part an intellectual one. We fill the physical appearance of the individual we see with all the notions we have about him, and of the total picture that we form for ourselves, these notions certainly occupy the greater part. In the end they swell his cheeks so perfectly, follow the line of his nose in an adherence so exact, they do so well at nuancing the sonority of his voice as though the latter were only a transparent envelope that each time we see this face and hear this voice, it is these notions that we encounter again, that we hear.

From Swann's Way, translated by Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002)

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The dowdy world goes to a party

That's an early Father's Day present, Parties for All Occasions, by Jane Werner (Racine, WI: Whitman Publishing Company, 1941). Here are Miss Werner's suggestions for one such party. Mind you, this party's for grown-ups:

SLEIGH OR HAY RIDE

Invitations: By telephone if you like, but this is a perfect opportunity for original invitations. These should be very simple. For a hay ride they could be of brown wrapping paper, for a sleigh ride a circle of white to represent a snow ball. Color is almost an essential; even if you are not artistic you can manage funny stick figures in colored pencil to decorate the invitations. And a rhyme is worth the effort; perhaps it may be something like:

      With a hi! and a ho! it's a hay (sleigh) ride!
      Climb aboard at half past eight!
      We'll be starting from our door
      Promptly then — but not before —
      So we urge you not to come too late!

Hour: Any time during the evening.

Decorations: A basement game room is ideal for after-the-ride refreshment and games. If you do not have one, try to carry out the informal spirit of the party in the rooms you do use. A scarecrow might greet the guests after a hay ride. If cornstalks are not in season, jars full of grasses would be decorative. Shiny Christmas tree icicles and evergreen boughs covered with artificial snow would help suggest winter for a sleigh ride.

The table for a hay ride should be covered with a bright cloth, and your brightest pottery should be used. A centerpiece of fresh vegetables might be used.

A typical winter table might have a mirror centerpiece surrounded by cotton batting snow, with paper or pipe-cleaner figures skating, skiing, and enjoying other winter sports. They can be dressed up easily in bits of colored paper or cloth, with green paper trees in the background.

Refreshments: One hot dish, such as chili or oyster stew. Something hearty and fairly substantial is essential for crisp winter weather, followed by hot chocolate and cookies.

Of course warm weather would demand lighter refreshments. Perhaps cold meats, vegetable salad, rolls, a cold drink (or coffee) and cookies would be the solution. Or you might serve individual picnic lunches packed in boxes covered with colored paper.

These tips are followed by descriptions of several games that might follow the refreshments: On the Ski Trail, Walk to the Duck Pond, Livestock, Snowflake Tennis, Wit-Tickler.

While waiting for cornstalks and snowflakes to be in season, you can read more about "the dowdy world" via the links.

Link » The dowdy world on film
Link » The dowdy world on radio

Hail, kale

Eating vegan has the paradoxical effect of opening up one's food choices in all sorts of unexpected ways. Tonight, there was kale, which I'd never eaten before. Sauteed with olive oil and garlic, it's a hearty, satisfying vegetable.

O kin to broccoli and Brussels sprout,
Thy bounty gaineth favor at our board!

Hail to thee, blithe kale.

Link » Kale (from Wikipedia)
Link » Kale (from The World's Healthiest Foods)
Link » Kale and collard greens (from molliekatzen.com)

Movie recommendation: The Honeymoon Killers

François Truffaut called The Honeymoon Killers (1970) his favorite American film. It was written and directed by Leonard Kastle and is based on the true-crime story of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, the "Lonely Hearts Killers," who teamed up to con gullible spinsters and widows of their savings and lives. Kastle, an opera composer, had never made a film before; his friend Warren Steibel (producer of William F. Buckley's television show Firing Line) suggested that the Fernandez-Beck story would make a good film.

Ray (played by Tony Lo Bianco) is a cheap approximation of elegance; Martha (played by Shirley Stoler) is a sour, haughty, contentious woman whose every attempt at conversation seems to turn into an argument. (Stoler's work is almost certainly a major influence on Divine in John Waters' films.) Ray and Martha's mutual passion takes us into operatic territory as they move from murder to murder to their own destruction, accompanied by excerpts from Mahler's Sixth Symphony.

The Honeymoon Killers is no gore-fest, but it is strong stuff: the brief on-screen violence is terrifying in its matter-of-factness. "Hit her again," says Ray. "Finish her," says Martha. What happens off-screen, toward the film's end, is even more terrifying. The film's greatest distinction lies in its hilariously deadpan dialogue, spoken by characters who are wholly without irony. Here are Ray and Martha bickering in the house they've just bought, in Valley Stream, Long Island:

Ray: Don't eat candy at ten o'clock in the morning.

Martha: It's because you're making me nervous!

Ray: You're nervous! How do you think I feel, sitting around here day after day? Now I've even taken to reading these stupid magazines of yours! . . . They call this place Valley Stream. Hmm, hmm. What a joke. One little jail after another with ten feet of grass between them. Valley Stream. I hate it here.

Shooting with a very modest budget ($150,000), Leonard Kastle made a masterpiece. I'd liken The Honeymoon Killers to Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls (1962), another great American film made with maximal imagination and minimal resources. Both films are available from The Criterion Collection, in beautiful digital transfers, with all sorts of wonderful extras.

Link » The Honeymoon Killers (The Criterion Collection)
Link » Carnival of Souls (The Criterion Collection)

Revenant

From Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day:

revenant   \REV-uh-nahng (the final "ng" is not pronounced, but the vowel is nasalized)\ noun: one that returns after death or a long absence

Example sentence: The play is about a family of revenants who come back to their ancestral home after years of political exile.

Did you know? Frightening or friendly, the classic revenant was a ghost — a specter returned from the dead. Even in figurative uses, death played its hand. When Sir Walter Scott, in his 1828 novel The Fair Maid of Perth, used "revenant" in one of the earliest uses of the word in English, he was referring to a criminal who had survived the gallows, who "was cut down and given to his friends before life was extinct, and . . . recovered." Eventually, though, we appended a more earthly meaning: a revenant can be a flesh-and-blood returnee when we use it simply to mean a person who shows up after a long absence. We borrowed "revenant" from the French, who created it from their verb "revenir," which means simply "to return," as does its Latin ancestor, "revenire."

"Revenant" has two associations for me. The word turns up in the lyrics of the first song of Sufjan Stevens' Illinois, "Concerning the UFO Sighting near Highland, Illinois":

When the revenant came down
We couldn't imagine what it was

And it furnishes the name of a great record label, Revenant Records, devoted mainly to reissues of neglected American music. Revenant is the label responsible for Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton, the best boxed set I've ever seen.