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Part
Two
Place
Names: The Place
[2002.02.15]
The
second volume has no structure, containing only two parts. However, as
with the first volume, there are a few pages at the rear of the book,
called Synopsis. I have added numerical section numbers to aid in the
structure of the headings.
- 1
- Departure
for Balbec (299)
- Subjectiveness
of love (300)
- Contradictory
effects of habit (301)
- Railway
stations (303)
- Francoise's
simple and infallible taste (309)
- Alcoholic
euphoria (312)
- Mme
de Sevigne and Dostoievsky (315)
- Sunrise
from the train (316)
- the
milk-girl (317)
- Balbec
church (322)
- "The
tyranny of the Particular" (324)
- Place-names
on the way to Balbec-Plage (326)
- 2
- Arrival
at Balbec-Plage (327)
- The
manager of the Grand Hotel (327)
- My
room at the top of the hotel (333)
- Attention
and habit (333)
- My
grandmother's kindness (334)
- The
sea in the morning (341)
- Balbec
tourists (345)
- Balbec
and Rivebelle (346)
- Mme
de Villeparisis (349)
- M.
and Mlle Stermaria (351)
- An
actress and three friends (352)
- The
weekly Cambremer garden-party (355)
- Resemblances
(358)
- Poetic
visions of Mlle de Stermaria (364)
- The
general manager (367)
- Francoise's
Grand Hotel connections (369)
- Meeting
of Mme de Villeparisis and my grandmother (371)
- The
"sordid moment" at the end of meals (372)
- The
Princesse de Luxembourg (377)
- Mme
de Velleparisis, M. de Norpois and my father (381)
- The
bourgeoisie and the Faubourg Saint-Germain (384).
- 3
- Different
seas (387)
- Drives
with Mme de Villeparisis (387)
- The
ivy-covered church (391)
- Mme
de Villeparisis's conversation (394)
- Norman
girls (396)
- The
handsome fisher-girl (402)
- The three trees of
Hudimesnil (404)
- The fat Duchesse
de La Rochefoucauld (416)
- My grandmother and
I: intimations of death (419).
- 4
- Robert de Saint-Loup
(421)
- My friendship with
him (430)
- but real happiness
requires solitude (431)
- Saint-Loup as a work
of art: the "nobleman" (432)
- A Jewish colony (432)
- Variety of human
failings and similarity of virtues (436)
- Bloch's bad manners
(442)
- Bloch and his father
(443)
- The stereoscope (447)
- 5
- M. de Charlus's strange
behavior (455)
- Mme de Villeparsis
is a Guermantes (456)
- I recognize him as
the man in the grounds of Tansonville (458)
- Further weird behavior
(463)
- Mme de Sevigne, La
Fontaine and Racine (467)
- Charlus comes to
my room (471)
- 6
- Dinner at the Blochs'
with Saint-Loup (474)
- To know "without
knowing" (477)
- Bloch's sisters (477)
- The elegance of "Uncle
Solomon (481)
- Nissim Bernard (482)
- his lies (485
- Bloch an Mme Swann
in the train (489)
- Francoise's view
of Bloch and Saint-Loup (490)
- Saint-Loup and his
mistress (490)
- My grandmother's
inexplicable behavior. (500)
- 7
- The blossoming girls
(503)
- "Oh, the poor
old boy ..." (508)
- The dark-haired cyclist:
Albertine (510)
- The name Simonet
(519)
- Rest before dinner:
different aspects of the sea (523)
- Dinners at Rivebelle
(529)
- The astral tables
(533)
- Euphoria induced
by alcohol and music (534)
- Meeting with Elstir
(553)
- The new aspects of
Albertine (558).
- 8
- Elstir's studio (564)
- his seascapes
(566)
- the painter's
"metaphors" (567)
- Elstir explains to
me the beauty of Balbec church (573)
- Albertine passes
by (578)
- The portrait of Miss
Sacripant (585)
- "My beautiful
Gabrielle!" (586)
- Age and the artist
(588)
- Elstir and the little
band (593)
- Nullity of love (596)
- Miss Sacripant was
Mme Swann (600)
- and M. Biche Elstir!
(604)
- One must discover
wisdom for oneself (605)
- My grandmother and
Saint-Loup (608)
- Saint-Loup and Bloch
(609)
- Still lifes (613)
- Afternoon party at
Elstir's (615)
- Yet another Albertine:
a well-brought up girl (619)
- Albertine on the
esplanade: once more a member of the little band (623)
- Octave, the gigolo
(625)
- Albertine's antipathy
for Bloch (627)
- Saint-Loup engaged
to Mlle d'Ambresec? (634)
- Albertine's intelligence
and taste (635)
- Andree (636)
- Gisele (637)
- 9
- Days with the girls
(643)
- Francoise's bad temper
(649)
- Balbec through Elstir's
eye's (651)
- Fortuny (653)
- A sketch of the Creuniers
(656)
- The mobile beauty
of youth (662)
- Friendship: and abdication
of oneself (664)
- Twittering of the
girls (666)
- Letter from Sophocles
to Racine (671)
- A love divided among
several girls (676)
- Albertine is to spend
a night at the Grand Hotel (695)
- The rejected kiss
(701)
- The attraction of
Albertine (702)
- The multiple utilization
of a single action (707)
- Straying in the budding
grove (716)
- The different Albertines
(718)
- 10
- End of the season
(724)
- Departure (728).
Summary
for 1
The narrator
leaves Paris for a holiday in Balbec, Normandy.
Summary
for 2
A superb description of a
summer holiday at the Grand Hotel, and of the daily rituals among the
guests.
Summary
for 3
The
narrator begins to notice a number of the young maidens in the area.
Summary
for 4
The
narrator becomes friends with Robert de Saint-Loup.
Summary
for 5
Charlus
has a fondness for young men, but decides to not approach the narrator,
who seems to be unaware of the potential advance.
Summary
for 6
The
narrator has further get togethers with his friend Bloch.
Summary
for 7
The
narrator first notices a group of 5 young women, whom he apparently
gets to know fairly well later.
Summary
for 8
The
narrator begins to meet and know the young women, particularly Albertine,
who is quite different than the narrator - she is much more a free spirit,
interested in sports.
Summary
for 9
The narrator
finally is ready to kiss Albertine and she won't let him. At least he
tried!
Summary
for 10
A brief cutoff.
The summer is over and the arrangements to leave the resort at Balbec
and return to Paris are described in only a few pages.
Summary
for 1
The narrator
leaves Paris for a holiday in Balbec, Normandy.
Quotations
for 1
"Now the memories of
love are no exception to the general laws of memory, which in turn are
governed by the still more general laws of Habit. And as Habit weakens
everything, what best reminds us of a person is precisely what we had
forgotten (because it was of no importance, and we therefore left it
in full possession of its strength)." [p. 300]
"Within us, rather,
but hidden from our eyes in an oblivion alone that we can from time
to time recover the person that we were, place ourselves in relation
to things as he was placed, suffer anew because we are no longer ourselves
but he, and because he loved what now leaves us indifferent." [p.
300]
"As the delineation
of our minds of the features of any form of happiness depends more on
the nature of the longings that it inspires in us than on the accuracy
of the information what we have about it." [p. 306]
"We invariably forget
that these are individual qualities, and mentally substituting for them
a conventional type which we arrive by striking a sosrt of mean among
the different faces that have taken our fancy, among the pleasures we
have known, we are left with mere abstract images which are lifeless
and insipid because they lack precisely that element of novelty, different
from anything we have known, tht element which is peculiar to beauty
and to happiness." [p 318]
"So it is that a well-read
man will at once begin t yawn when one speaks to him of a new 'good
book', because he imagines a sort of composite of all the good books
that he has read, whereas a good book is something special, something
unforseeable, and is made up not of the sum of all previous masterpieces
but of something which the most thorough assimilation of every one of
them would not enable hime to discover, since it exists not in their
sum but beyond it." [p. 318]
"As a rule it is with
our being reduced to a minimum that we live; most of our faculties lie
dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is
to be done and has no need of their services." [p. 319]
Comment
for 1
The section
has some memorable moments, describing the coming dawn, the chance meeting
with a milk-maid, and his disappointment with Balbec. Also, the asides
with a psychological comment are quite accurate.
Summary
for 2
A superb description of a
summer holiday at the Grand Hotel, and of the daily rituals among the
guests.
Quotations
for 2
"But
everyone else in the hotel was no doubt behaving in a similar fashion,
though under different forms, and sacrificing, if not to self-esteem,
at any rate to certain inculcated principles or mental habits, the disturbing
thrill of being involved in an unfamiliar way of life." [p. 349]
"For
at heart the old lady would probably have discovered, in attaching to
herself (and, in doing so, renewing herself) the mysterious sympathy
of new people, a charm which is altogether lacking from the pleasure
that is to be derived from mixing only with the people of one's own
world, and reminding oneself that, this being the best of all possible
worlds, the ill-formed contempt of others may be disregarded."
[pp. 349-50]
"And
at night they did not dine in the hotel, where, hidden springs of electricity
flooding the great dining-room with light, it bacame as it were an immense
and wonderful aquarium against whose glass wall the working population
of Balbec, the fishermen and also the tradesman's families, clustering
invisibly in the outer darkness, pressed their faces to watch the luxurious
life of its occupants gently floating upon the golden eddiew within,
a thing as extraordinary to the poor as the life of strange fishes or
molluscs (an important social question, this: whether the glass wall
will always protect the banquests of these weird and wonderful creatures,
or whether the obscure folk who watch them hungrily out of the night
will not break in some day to father them from their aquarium and devour
them)." [ pp. 353-54]
"...
my tendency to put myself in the place of other people and to re-create
their state of mind ..." [p. 357]
Comment
for 2
I enjoyed
this chapter - it captured life in the Grand Hotel rather well. It also
highlighted the class distinctions of Paris when removed to the countryside.
Summary
for 3
The
narrator begins to notice a number of the young maidens in the area.
Quotations for 3
"She said ... it [painting
flowers] was a delightful pastime because, even if the flowers that
sprang from the brush were nothing wonderful, at least the work made
you live in the company of real flowers, of the beauty of which, especially
when you were obliged to study them closely in order to draw them, you
could never grow tired." [p. 393]
"... since the beauty
of human beings is not like the beauty of things, and we feel that it
is that of a unique creature, endowed with consciousness and free-will..."
[p. 397]
"So that, if there were
no such thing a habit, life must appear delightful to those of us who
are continually under the threat of death - that is to say, to all mankind."
[p. 398
Comment
for 3
I am beginning
to really enjoy the book for the richness of his memory, and the incredible
detail that he provides to every single little event that he recalls.
Summary
for 4
The
narrator becomes friends with Robert de Saint-Loup.
Quotations for 4
"In later life we look
at things in a more practical way, in full conformity with the rest
of society, but adolescence is the only period in which we learn anything."
[p. 423]
"In the human race,
the frequency of the virtues that are identical in us all is not more
wonderful than the multiplicity of the defects that are peculiar to
each one of us." [p. 437]
"Undoubtedly, it is
not common sense that is 'the commonest thing in the world'; it is human
kindness." [p. 437]
Comment for 4
This section introduces another
character as a friend of the narrator.
Summary
for 5
Charlus
has a fondness for young men, but decides to not approach the narrator,
who seems to be unaware of the potential advance.
Quotations for 5
"With a regard for accuracy
which I retained until I had reached the age at which I realised that
it was not by questioning him that one learns the truth of what another
man has had in his mind, ... " [p. 464]
Comment for 5
It is difficult to reconcile
the narrator's niavete about homosexuality with his general perceptiveness
of people, unless he is being very proper and circumspect in his telling
of his memories.
Summary
for 6
The
narrator has further get togethers with his friend Bloch.
Quotations for 6
"... that in the state
of mind in which we "observe" we are a long way below the
level to which we rise when we create." [p. 476]
"... makes one too desirous
to live, makes one suppose too high a standard of intelligence, in the
obscure circles in which people know only "without actually knowing".
[p. 477]
"It is the propitious
miracle of self-esteem that, since few of us can have brilliant connexions
or profound attainments, those to whom they are denied still believe
themselves to be the best endowed of men, because the optics of our
social perspective make every grade of society seem the best to him
who occupies it and who regards as less favoured than himself, ill-endowed,
to be pitied, the greater men whom he names and calumniates without
knowing them, judges and despises without understanding them."
[p. 478]
"Self-centredness thus
enabling every human being to see the universe spread out in descending
tiers beneth himself who is its lord...." [p. 479]
Comment for 6
This section reinforces the
negative impression one has of Bloch, as seen through both the narrator's,
as well as Francoise's eyes.
Summary
for 7
The
narrator first notices a group of 5 young women, whom he apparently
gets to know fairly well later.
Quotations
for 7
"...
these rapid decipherings of a person whom we momentarily glimpse exposing
us thus to the same errors as those too rapid readings in which, on
the basis of a single syllable and without waiting to identify the rest,
we replace the word that is in the text by a wholly different word with
which our memory supplies us." [p. 515]
Comment for 7
We are introduced to a few
new characters, the group of energetic girls, and although the narrator
is painfully slow at making their acquaintance, we are given a number
of hints that he eventually gets to know them fairly well.
Summary
for 8
The
narrator begins to meet and know the young women, particularly Albertine,
who is quite different than the narrator - she is much more a free spirit,
interested in sports.
Quotations
for 8
"We
do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey
through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one
can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come
at last to regard the world." [pp. 605-6]
"...
he carried tactlessness to a pitch that was almost maddening."
[p. 610]
"Pleasure
in this respect is like photogrraphy. What we take, in the presence
of the beloved object, is merely a negative, which we develop later,
when we are back at home, and have once again found at our disposal
that inner darkroom the entrance to which is barred to us so long as
we are with other people." [p. 617]
"Thus
it can be only after one has recognized, not without some tentative
stumblings, the optical errors of one's first impression that one can
arrive at an exact knowledge of another person, supposing such knowledge
to be ever possible. But it is not; for while our original impression
of him undergoes correction, the person himself, not being an inanimate
object, changes for his part too: we think that we have caught him,
he shifts, and, when we imagine that at last we are seeing him clearly,
it is only the old impressions which we had already formed of him that
we have succeeded in clarifying, when they no longer represent him."
[pp. 619-620]
"How
can you expect a lot of unfortunate candidates to know what to say when
the professors themselves don't agree." [p. 640]
"Our
memory is like one of those shops in the window of which is exposed
now one, now another photograph of the same person. And as a rule the
most recent exhibit remains for some time the only one to be seen."
[p. 642]
Comment
on 8
The
narrator is beginning a most unlikely friendship with a young lady who
appears to be the exact opposite of himself in terms of personality
and interests. He is amazingly shy and tentative, particularly as there
is also talk of courtesans and gigolos as if they were a common phenomenon.
Quotations for 9
none
Comment
on 9
I
continue to find aspects of the narrator's "overly sensitive personality"
grating. I was releaved to see him attempt to kiss Albertine.
Quotations
for 10
none
Comment
on 10
This
was an unnusually short section!
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