Talk:Marcel Proust

Failed "good article" nomination

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of August 25, 2006, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: The writing needs work. It needs general clean-up work for clarity and precision.

2. Factually accurate?: Generally accurate although some issues remain questionable or need to be further substantiated or fleshed out. Proust's work on Ruskin, for example, which is a particularly interesting aspect of his early literary development, is dealt with here as a rehash of Tadié, which is not a good sign. It needs to be much more synthetic and broad in its approach and reflect the state of Proust scholarship in general. This comment could be applied generally to many of the major themes touched on here. One example: "Literary historians and critics have ascertained that, apart from Ruskin, Proust's chief literary influences included Saint Simon, Montaigne, Stendhal, Flaubert, George Eliot, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy" is a clumsy attempt to provide this kind of synthetic analysis. Readers of a Good Article need to be able safely to assume that the issues, themes & ideas presented reflect up-to-date scholarship (duly referenced and I mifght add here I think the references are on the light side & a tad undergraduate.) Thus: "Proust's main influences reflect the changing world of the nineteenth century novel, both in France and elsewhere" and expain a bit wat that was, since it was experiments of form, character development and plot techniques (or lack of it as a few wags on Proust have noted drily) that is germane here. It would be nice to add a few specific touches as well to give some substance to this kind of boilerplate. I.e. writing landscapes of Daudet, Zola, dramatic reach of Dostoievsky, etc....

3. Broad in coverage?: Not thorough enough. Obviously, this article could be vast given the thousands of scholarly works that have been written about Proust (I recall one entitled "Proust and the Colour Blue" lol), so the job of finding the right synthetic tone and deciding what to include and how is of the utmost importance. This is a daunting task given the stature of the subect and there is some very good stuff here. But I lack the sense that the article benefits from a really substantial digestion of the main themes of that scholarship, viz: early influences, literary influences, interest in expanding existing form and the memory novel. As an example, the article states: Beginning in 1895 Proust spent several years reading Carlyle, Emerson and John Ruskin. Through this reading Proust began to refine his own theories of art and the role of the artist in society What theories of art? What role? This is never coherently addressed, nor tied to the antecedent discussion of his development as a writer, person, etc.... On another note, I personally feel that Proust's homosexuality and his "sickness" need to be much more prominent in this article with respect to defining his life, output and the way he dealt with the world, all critically important to ALRDTP. To be fair, I note the French article is astonishingly peremptory on this: Son homosexualité inavouable dans la société de l'époque est latente dans son œuvre.

4. Neutral point of view?: yes

5. Article stability? yes, but just as I think its current content could be tightened up considerably, I think its form could be usefully expanded. I would not give a definitive structure, but it might be useful to divide up his early life (childhood) from the later period extending to the withdrawal when he wrote ALRDTP. Also, I would like to see something about the reaction to the work in this article, even if that also belongs to the book's main article. But where's Gide, Maurois, Breton, or any of the other hundreds of writers who had wildly different reactions to the man, and his role in redefining the French novel. I think this alone is a major lacuna.

6. Images?: I love that picture of Proust!

When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. Thanks for your work so far. --Eusebeus 21:19, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

comment

Reverted to the page I've added a comment to. No need for sticking to puerile dull pages full of gossip only.

Mir Harven

Albert / Albertine

I removed the following sentence and a half for the reason cited below:

convincingly demonstrates its logical incoherence. For example, if Albertine is "really" a man, are "her" same-sex affairs, about which the Narrator obsesses at length, "really" heterosexual?

It's not logically incoherent at all! Albertine was almost certainly based on Proust's sometime driver and later secretary, Alfred Agnostinelli, who was both male and (primarily) hetereosexual. The narrator fears (with good reason) that his male companion is betraying him with women. (Agnostinelli was married and a greater womanizer, even as he provided some kind of sexual solace to Proust.

Mark Calkins responding to the above:

Sedgwick contends the theory is problematic because it suggests two readings of Marcel's affair with Albertine whose consequences conflict with other elements of the novel.

According to the theory, Albertine is "really" the same gender as the narrator Marcel, i.e., male. In Sedgwick's first reading, Albertine's love objects remain female, but if this is the case, then Albertine is no longer a homosexual (as in the novel), but a heterosexual. The consequence of this reading is to greatly reduce the homosexual theme in the novel, in sum, reducing "Sodom and Gomorrah" to just "Sodom" (Mlle Vinteuil's lesbianism, I would argue, only has its force because of Albertine's possible homosexual ties to her; in "Swann's Way" it is not lesbianism, but sadism that is the subject of the scene at Montjouvain). In the second reading, which preserves the homosexual theme of the novel, Albertine is having affairs with other men. The consequence of this reading is to render void one of the primary motives for Marcel's obsession over Albertine's affairs, namely, as affairs between two women, they are maddeningly unimaginable to him.

Finally, it seems to me that the "transposition of sexes theory" negates any parallelism or prefiguration between Swann's affair with Odette and Marcel's affair with Albertine. Of course it could be reasonably argued that the former heterosexual relationship and the latter homosexual relationship are similar to the degree that they are both relationships of jealousy and obsession, but I would reply that one of the major impulses of Proust's analyses is to distinguish homosexual practices. That said, although the comparison is not explicitly foregrounded in the novel, Charlus's homosexual relationship with Morel is not unlike in many ways Marcel's relationship with Albertine, and if we were to go looking for the appearance of Proust's relationship with Agostinelli in the novel, it is perhaps there we might find it.

replying

It does seem very evident that Proust used the comic aspects of his relationship with Agostinelli (and of course with others) in his depiction of the Charlus/Morel affair, while reserving the tender and heartbreaking aspects for the Narrator/Albertine affair.

I have no difficult whatever in reconciling the Narrator's agony over Albertine's lesbianism with the theory that Albertine is really Alfred (or Albert). The agony results from fear of a relationship that the Narrator can't control or really understand. I don't know of any heterosexual men who get twisted into knots over the thought of women loving women--quite the contrary, in fact. So the Narrator's agony has always struck me as rather unreal. But if Albertine is really Albert (or Alfred), and is basically hetereosexual, now there is a threat!

--Cubdriver 21:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Mark Calkins responding to Cubdriver:

Fair enough. I'm not convinced, however, that just because you don't know any heterosexual men like the Narrator that your assertion is valid. I'm quite happy when a writer shows me worlds and characters I'm quite unfamiliar with...that's why I read fiction, after all. In fact, I don't know anyone quite like the Narrator, but that doesn't make the character any less believable. I try not to judge fiction by my own experiences (but the question of verisimilutude does arise on occasion).

I do find his obsession over Albertine "unique," but his needy relationship with his mother (which he invokes repeatedly in The Prisoner, comparing his need for Albertine to his need for his mother's good-night kiss), his nosiness à la Aunt Léonie (whom he acknowledges he grows to resemble), the prefiguration of his jealous behavior in that of Swann with Odette (and I doubt anyone would dare to read that affair as a homosexual relationship à clef), all contribute towards making his unique behavior more plausible to me. In sum, I don't feel the need to resort to speculation about how Proust's homosexuality finds itself in his fictional creation in order to plausibly understand his Narrator's behavior.

Swann's amour

Well, Proust was the author of "Swann in Love", and we must assume that he understands the Swann/Odette affair the way he (Proust) understands love in his own life. In this case, Odette may physically resemble such women as Laure Hayman, and therefore impress us as a more "live" woman than Albertine, but the clanging emotions must be drawn from Proust's own life, and therefore probably owe more to his love for Reynaldo Hahn. If Swann's amour strikes us as more reasonable, it may perhaps be due to the fact that Proust's youthful relationship with Hahn was a) consummated and b) reciprocated, at least for a time. --Cubdriver 21:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Art and life

What is all this crap! If you're interested in Proust's sexuality, there's plenty of information in the biographies. If you're interested in the novel, read the novel. Thinking that you can "understand" the novel in terms of Proust's personal life is an exercise for an idiot who doesn't deserve the privilege of reading "In Search of Lost Time". Geoffw1948 18:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC) Geoff Wilkins

re. Tolstoy

"Proust's work is heavily influenced by his reading of Tolstoy, as evidenced in the views he gives on art, some of the ways in which he models psychology and social interaction, and in certain episodes such as the trip to Venice (cf. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina)."

Could we get some attribution on this? After writing a dissertation on Proust, I can't think of a single secondary text that suggests he was "heavily influenced" by Tolstoy. If a reference can't be found, or some substantiation, I'd like to remove this claim.--Mcalkins 05:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this must be an overinterpretation. Albertine is killed by accident by a horse and Anna Karenina is on purpose stepping in front of a train. Furthermore Tostoy, like all the big Russian authors, appears to be more influenced by the French language than the other way around.

re. 1,001 nights

"Proust himself claimed that In Search of Lost Time was his attempt at writing a French incarnation of The Thousand and One Nights."

Again, could a reference be included? It is clear that the narrator of RTP state his work-to-be will resemble the 1,001 nights, but I've never heard tell that Proust claimed that's what he was doing. A biographical reference? a letter? If not, I'd like to change the text to make clear it's his narrator, not Proust himself.--Mcalkins 05:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You know, both the Tolstoy comment and the 1001 Nights comment have always read poorly to me, and I've also wondered about references. I'm not sure who added them, but they've been around for a while (over six months at least). If no one responds quickly, I'd go ahead and delete them.Ahpsp 19:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree fully. It is far fetched and not backed up by analysis. To me RTP in terms of literary influences appears to be nothing but a synthesis of Bergson's defaitism and the French stilistic tradition, represented by 18th and 19th century Paris-based writers such as Goncourt, Hugo and Rosseau.

re. literary influences

The following was recently added:

"Literary historians and critics have ascertained that, apart from Ruskin, Proust's chief literary influences included Saint Simon, Montaigne, Stendhal, Flaubert, George Eliot and Dostoevsky."

I don't really dispute this claim, although I think things are not as straightforward as this, and it's probably not without some controversy. I'm happy to keep it if we can get a reference or attribution; otherwise, I think it should be deleted until we do get an attribution/reference. I'll give it a few days.--Mcalkins 01:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The connection to Tolstoy according to me remains weak, whereas it is rather obvious that there are influences from e.g. Stendahl or Dostoevsky, Lucien Leuwen being as neurotic as the key person of RTP in his various correspondences and Dostoevsky’s psychological complexity exposing clear similarities to Proust’s roundabout perspectives on human interaction. On the other hand you would hardly find a comic character like Marmeladov or Myskjkin in Proust's writing, whereas there are other analogies in terms of individual figures, such as the exagerrated childishness of Aglaja and Albertine. If Tolstoy’s epic mastery and thoroughly designed character galleries are to be related to a French author it is possibly Balzac.

/Copywriter

Homosexual or bisexual?

A User writes that it is "well-known" that Proust had a romantic interest in his maid. If by "maid" the User means Celeste Albaret, this assertion is absolutely false. If he means another unnamed maid, this assertion needs to be sourced.

That said, although I'm not sure why so much attention should be paid to Proust's sexuality, a more nuanced picture could be developed here: his chilhood infatuations with girls, his schoolboy infatuations with his male schoolmates, his relationships with Reynaldo Hahn, Agostintelli, his Swedish secretary (male); one critic (I'd have to look up the reference) suggests that in these relationships Proust masturbated rather than had intercourse.

In any case, it's better to source these kinds of assertions if the paragraph is expanded or revised.--Mcalkins 19:42, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

2,000 Characters?

I'm assumung that this is a mistake. Surely a book of over 3,000 pages would have more than 2,000 characters. Unless of course, this is the epitome of "Large Print" books. My source says 9,609,000 characters(http://www.bookspot.com/ask/longestbook.htm). But I am reluctant to change this in case I am just reading it wrong. White Lightning 05:37, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid BookSpot has it wrong. It's about 2,000 characters. Just think, if it were 9,609,000 characters that's an average of approximately 3,203 characters for every page of he book. Even if the characters where just listed on each page, there's not enough room on each page for so many characters. I think not.--Mcalkins 17:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

You are misunderstanding each other. 2000 literary characters; 9 million alphanumeric characters. — goethean ॐ 18:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I read it the same way as White Lightning. I also fail to see how 3,203 characters per page is any more ridiculous than having 0.667 characters per page. To end the confusion that Goethean identified, I intend to edit the article to include both figures. Paranoidblogger 19:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Cultural depictions of Marcel Proust

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 16:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I've now drastically changed my original comment, since I hadn't originally noticed your comment. I was suggesting the inclusion of an "in popular culture" section in the article or some such thing, which still involves grouping this information (whether or not it's a separate article). The article for Proust's In Search of Lost Time includes an "in popular culture" section. It would seem the article about the author would reference this as well, though it'd be nice not to duplicate information. A separate article as you suggest would cover that quite nicely. -Quintote 02:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Quote

This quote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes,” attributed to Proust, is all over the place, but it is never properly referenced. Was it in a novel? Sylvain1972 20:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

IPA

Right now the IPA transcription for his name simply reads /prust/. I'm not sure if this is accurate. The /r/ should be a /ʀ/ uvular trill and shouldn't the final /t/ be left off? I know we say it in English, but I think the final consonant should be dropped. /pʀus/ seems more accurate. Thoughts? JesseRafe 04:15, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The indicated pronunciation is fine as it stands, provided that the 'r' be understood as a generic rhotic phoneme, which can be realized either as an uvular or an alveolar trill. As to the final /t/, to omit it would be an outright mistake. Pseudo account 06:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Remembrance of Things Past??

Why is this (old, inaccurate) title used as a subheading, although the new English translation is entitled In Search on Lost Time? I think we ought to use this version here as well, basically because it's close to the orginal French title. E.J. 13:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree entirely. This comment has far more weight than all the surrounding claptrap confusing the novel with Proust's real-life sexuality. Geoffw1948 18:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC) Geoff Wilkins