July 10th is the anniversary of Marcel’s birth in 1871, and 137 years later, he is still going strong.  My latest Proust sighting occured in this book,  “The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life” by Twyla Tharp:

“When Marcel Proust dipped his petites madeleines into his tea, the taste and aroma set off a flood of memories and emotions from which modern literature still has not recovered.”

The above quote and the ones that follow are from a chapter called Muscle Memory in which Tharp discusses the form of memory retained by our bodies by a repeated physical act, in an unconscious form similar to the Proustian madeleine moment.  You know the saying that one never forgets how to ride a bike?  That’s what she means.

“Muscle memory has its uses in the creative process, perhaps more for acquiring skill than for developing inspiration.  But it’s useful nevertheless.”

So what’s the connection between muscle memory and Proust?  Well obviously, he had to learn the skill of bending his elbow to bring the madeleine to his mouth without spilling the tea in the spoon- not really. 

“…the exercise is less about muscles and more about perceiving structures and harmonies anew- from the vantage point of the author rather than the reader.”

 The exercise Tharp is speaking of is, in whatever field of endeavor you aspire to, you should choose an example or a mentor that inspires you or challenges you and emulate them, to the best of your ability.  This is where Proust comes in:

“Raymond Chandler and Proust went through a similar process when honing their very different crafts.  Chandler believed Hemingway to be the greatest American novelist of his time, and he wrote imitations of Hemingway’s style to absorb what he loved about it.  Proust went further, spending twelve years translating and annotating the writing of the English art historian John Ruskin.  He also wrote a series of articles for Le Figaro imitating the styles of such 19th century literary figures as Balzac and Flaubert.”

I think there is much value in this advice, and I think Marcel would agree with me and with Twyla. 

I have not tried to write in the style of Proust, but I have tried to paint in the style of my favorite painter, Vincent van Gogh.  Here’s an attempt, in acrylic:

And here’s an attempt in oil, in the style of Marc Chagall, on a subject and a place nearer to Proust’s world:

The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, 18 years after Marcel’s birth, which brings us back to the day, 137 years ago, that we look back to today; Joyeux Anniversaire, Marcel.

…and the only contestant to correctly respond to Question #3 was Steve, so congratulations to him and many thanks to all who participated.  Here are the questions with the answers:

1.  To what culture does the Narrator of In Search of Lost Time, during his description of his madeleine moment, ascribe this belief: “…that the souls of those we have lost are held captive…in some inanimate object…”  Celtic

2.  The Narrator never gives us a name for himself.  By what name does Albertine, just one time, refer to him?  Marcel

3.  In The Guermantes Way, the Narrator says, “Everything great in our world comes from ___________________?  Neurotics

4.  The madeleine in the cup of tea is the most famous instance of involuntary memory in the novel, but there are at least two more related by the Narrator.  Describe two more that the Narrator experiences.  Un-even paving stones, the clink of silverware, the texture of a napkin…

5.  What is the name of the character who, “…gradually declined to leave, first Combray, then her house in Combray, then her bedroom, and finally her bed…”  Tante Leonie

I am reading William C. Carter’s book Proust in Love, and while the book is well-written and informative, the dustcover picture is, shall we say, unfortunate:

Oh La La

Today, February 18th, is the one-year anniverary of this, my blog about Marcel Proust, his novel In Search of Lost Time, Paris, and anything else related (remotely or otherwise); in honor of same, here is a contest, with a prize, that I hope will appeal to readers of this blog, readers of the novel, lovers of all things Proust, and those in search of the longest sentence ever written on a blog concerning Marcel Proust, the City of Light, and literature in general but particularly,  In Search of Lost Time, which in my humble opinion is the greatest novel of the Twentieth, or perhaps any, century, though others may beg to differ; however, they may host their own contest.

The Contest!  I will present five questions, the answers to all of which may be found on these blog pages, as well as in the novel.  If you know the answers to these questions, DON’T put them in the comments, please send them to me at marimann (at) cox (dot) net.  Putting your answers in the comments discourages others, so please, email them to me.  And to be fair, don’t google and/or otherwise search the internets for answers.

The Prize!  A $25 Amazon gift certificate, for which the winner will have to send me their email to receive. 

The Questions!

1.  To what culture does the Narrator of In Search of Lost Time, during his description of his madeleine moment, ascribe this belief: “…that the souls of those we have lost are held captive…in some inanimate object…”

2.  The Narrator never gives us a name for himself.  By what name does Albertine, just one time, refer to him?

3.  In The Guermantes Way, the Narrator says, “Everything great in our world comes from ___________________?

4.  The madeleine in the cup of tea is the most famous instance of involuntary memory in the novel, but there are at least two more related by the Narrator.  Describe two more that the Narrator experiences.

5.  What is the name of the character who, “…gradually declined to leave, first Combray, then her house in Combray, then her bedroom, and finally her bed…”

The contest will end one week from today, on the 25th of February.  Remember, email your answers to me: marimann (at) cox (dot) net.  Answers left in the comments will be deleted and not entered into the contest.  Bonne chance!

Boy, is that title going to get me some hits or what??  Imagine the disappointment when the post turns out to be about Colette and Marcel Proust.  And, not, well, you know…or not so much, at least.

I recently read a book called “Earthly Paradise: Colette’s Autobiography, drawn from the writings of her lifetime, by Robert Phelps” (published 1966).  Apparently, Colette didn’t actually write an autobiography per se, but she did write a lot of what the editor, Robert Phelps, calls “autobiographical prose”- memoirs, portraits, essays- and these works are what he used to piece together this book.  And on the very first page, non, the very first sentence of the book (in the Editor’s Foreword) we have Proust invoked:

“In her own lifetime, and especially outside of France, Colette was best known as a novelist, as the creator of Gigi, Cheri, Claudine; and as such, her place in twentieth-century fiction is very high, comparable among her countrymen only with that of Proust.”

This is possibly not so surprising, in that they both excel in their ability to see and record the fine details of a person, a time, a place, an object- and in their mastery of conveying, in vivid and evocative words, these observations in a way that relates the parts to the whole.  What is surprising and interesting, at least to me, is that Colette and Marcel were contemporaries, they traveled in some of the same circles, shared some of the same friends, both lived in Paris and even met on a few occasions.  And- here’s where the Sodom and Gomorrah come in- both were attracted to members of their own sex.

Colette’s “autobio” actually contains several references to Proust, including a portrait she wrote of him in her last book, published in 1950, entitled En Pays Connu.  Here are some of her observations of Marcel:

“When I was a very young woman, he was a very good-looking young man.  Trust the portrait of him by Jacques-Emile Blanche.  That narrow mouth, that mist around the eyes, that tired freshness, both the features and the expression really are those of the young Marcel Proust.”

(The portrait by Jacques-Emile Blanche)

Years later, after the conclusion of WWI, she saw him again:

“When I saw him again in the Ritz Hotel, where he lived during the war, his illness and the passing years had already done their swift work on him.  His agitation and his pallor seemed to be the result of some terrible inner force.  Dressed in tails, standing in his timidly lighted hallway, at the heart of a darkened Paris, Marcel Proust greeted me with faltering gaiety.  Over his evening dress he was wearing an unfastened cape.  The expression of the white, crumpled shirt front, and the convulsions of his tie terrified me as much as the black marks under his eyes and around his mouth, the sooty, telltale traces that an absent-minded malady had smeared haphazardly across his face.”

That seems a very sympathetic portrait, n’est-ce pas?  Yet Jean-Yves Tadie, in his 1996 biography of Proust entitled Marcel Proust: A Life,  passes on to us this description of Marcel, written by Colette in 1895, that he says is “shocking in its disdain”:

“…I was hounded, politely, by a pretty, young literary-minded boy.  He compared me…to Myrtocleia, to a young Hermes, to a love of Prud’hon’s…My little flatterer, thrilled by his own evocations, never left me…(I did not much care for) his over-weaning politeness, the excessive attention he paid to those he was talking to…”

Sometime around 1917-1918, Colette sent Marcel a copy of her book Les Hueres longues.  Did he read it?  What did he think of it?  From reading Proust’s correspondence of the period, Tadie tells us this: 

“When Colette sent Proust Les Hueres longues, he picked out a few quotations from ten or so pages so as to compliment her on them.  This was his method for making people believe he had read a book.”

Although he pretended to have read Colette’s book and complimented her on it, in a letter to someone else he said that he found “…contemporary writers unbearable”.  One assumes he includes Colette in this assessment.  But in March of 1919, Proust read Colette’s book Mitsou, and he admitted that he cried upon reading the letter from the heroine at the end of the book.  So he must have found this short love story “bearable” reading, probably because it is a love story and because the heroine writes her so-touching letter when she realizes that her loved one, once he senses that she “belongs” to him, no longer loves her.  A theme close to Proust’s heart.

And so, to another theme close to Marcel’s heart: Sodom and Gomorrah.  This is actually the title of Volume Four of Proust’s novel, but when the original English translation was published, it was called Cities of the Plain.  It is the section of the novel that primarily deals with homosexual and lesbian activities, and presumably, Colette read it.  In 1932, in her book Le Pur et L’impur, she wrote a chapter called Sodom, and once again, we find Proust in the first line:

“Ever since Proust shed light on Sodom, we have had a feeling of respect for what he wrote, and would never dare, after him, to touch the subject of these hounded creatures, who are careful to blur their tracks and to propagate at every step their personal cloud, like a cuttlefish.  But- was he misled, or was he ignorant?- when he assembles a Gomorrah of inscrutable and depraved young girls, when he denounces an entente, a collectivity, a frenzy of bad angels, we are only diverted, indulgent, and a little bored, having lost the support of the dazzling light of truth that guides us through Sodom.  This is because, with all due deference to the imagination or the error of Marcel Proust, there is no such thing as Gomorrah.”  

And yet Tadie says that Colette was delighted by Sodome et Gomorrhe, and adds, “…(she) knew what she was talking about…”

You may be wondering what Marcel has to do with squids and neuroscientists.  As far as I know, Proust never had an encounter with a squid while on the coast at Cabourg, and probably not in Paris either.  And even though Proust was diagnosed with neuresthenia, I don’t think there were neuroscientists around in his lifetime.  Not that either of those things have anything to do with each other.  Or squids, either.

So when I saw the titles of two books that came out this past year, Proust and the Squid, by Maryanne Wolf, and Proust was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer, my interest was piqued and I checked them out of the library.  The sub-title of the squid book is The Story and Science of the Reading Brain; this gives us a clue as to why Proust is featured in the title of this book.  And with a squid.

You see, once there was this squid that wanted to learn how to read; specifically, he wanted to read In Search of Lost Time…no, not really.  Here’s the real story: Once there was an author named Maryanne Wolf and she wanted to write a book about how the human brain developed the skill of reading and the changes that being able to read make in the brain.  She says:

“In this book I use the celebrated French novelist Marcel Proust as metaphor and the largely underappreciated squid as analogy for two very different aspects of reading.  Proust saw reading as a kind of intellectual ’sanctuary’ where human beings have access to thousands of different realities they might never encounter or understand otherwise…The study of what the human brain has to do to read, and of its clever ways of adapting when things go wrong, is analagous to the study of the squid in earlier neuroscience.”

Clever, n’est-ce pas?  Actually, I think the author was probably looking for a title that was more alluring than her sub-title, one that would arouse people’s interest and cause them to run to their library to check this book out just to see what connection Proust had with squids- it hooked me, didn’t it?  Proust, squids-I’m all over that like a cheap suit.

So there really isn’t that much about Proust in this book, but there are some good quotes from him.  Here are two:

“I believe that reading, in its original essence, [is] that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.”

“We feel quite truly that our wisdom begins where that of the author ends, and we would like to have him give us answers, while all he can do is give us desires.  But by…a law which perhaps signifies that we can receive the truth from nobody, and that we must create it ourselves, that which is the end of their wisdom appears to us as but the beginning of ours.”

Notice that the quote from Maryanne Wolf ends with the word neuroscience.  Here’s a definition of that word from the Free Dictionary: Any of the sciences, such as neuroanatomy and neurobiology, that deal with the nervous system.  And a neuroscientist is a neurobiologist who specializes in the study of the brain.  Our second book is entitled Proust was a Neuroscientist.  See how it all ties together? 

Jonah Lehrer, the author, does not really mean to say that Proust was a neuroscientist, his premise is that “…when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first” and so …”[he] shows how each [artist] discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering” (from the book jacket). 

Marcel Proust, bien sur, is the artist that got to some ideas about memory and our senses role in memory that scientists are now finding a biological basis for, in our tongues and noses and brains.  Here’s a quote from Proust that Lehrer uses:

“When from a long distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinching, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.”

Jonah Lehrer writes:  “Neuroscience now knows that Proust was right…This is because smell and taste are the only senses that connect directly to the hippocampus, the center of the brain’s long-term memory…All our other senses (sight, touch, and hearing) are first processed by the thalamus, the source of language and the front door to consciousness.  As a result, these senses are much less efficient at summoning up our past…Proust intuited this anatomy”.

Well, but did we really need science to validate this for us?  Isn’t the fact that we all can recognize the truth of what Proust says, in this and in all that he reveals about us and to us in his work, to the point that we elevate this work to classic status and continue to refer to it and to its author long past it’s milieu?  (For more on this book, go here.)

One thing is obvious.  Both of these authors chose Proust’s name to feature in their books’ titles because the name draws attention; it also announces that the author has read Proust, sees things in Proust’s work that apply to today’s concern’s and science’s findings, and also that the author understands that people will want to read a book that has Proust’s name in the title.

Which leads me to reveal the title of a work I have in mind:

Proust was a Locavore. 

Today, November 18th, is the anniversary of Proust’s death in 1922.  He was born on July 10, 1871 and so was 51 years old when he died.  Not a very long life, but it lasted as long as he wanted it to- until he finished his work.  He’s buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France and when Proustians make their pilgrimage there, they leave madeleines, lilies and stones.  Why stones? Because Proust’s mother was Jewish.  His father was Catholic, though, and Proust himself never really embraced any religion.  Writing was his life and his religion.

In the summer of 1922, the Paris newspaper “L’Intransigeant” published a questionnaire that included this question:

“An American scientist announces that the world will end, or at least that such a huge part of the continent will be destroyed, and in such a sudden way, that death will be the certain fate of hundreds of millions of people.  If this prediction were confirmed, what do you think would be its effects on people between the time when they acquired the aforementioned certainty and the moment of cataclysm?  Finally, as far as you’re concerned, what would you do in this last hour?”

Marcel answered.  He had answered a couple of these questionnaires when he was younger as well, at parties where this was done as part of the festivities, and Marcel apparently enjoyed answering them.  Anyhow, Marcel answered and the paper printed his answer:

“I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say.  Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it- our life- hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly.

But let all this threaten to become impossible  for ever, how beautiful it would become again!  Ah! if only the cataclysm doesn’t happen this time, we won’t miss visiting the new galleries of the Louvre, throwing ourselves at the feet of Miss X, making a trip to India.

The cataclysm doesn’t happen, we don’t do any of it, because we find ourselves back in the heart of normal life, where negligence deadens desire.  And yet we shouldn’t have needed the cataclysm to love life today.  It would have been enough to think that we are humans, and that death may come this evening.”

Marcel did not die that evening.  But not long after, he “took a chill” and it became pnuemonia, followed by secondary infections, then an abcess in his lung which became septicaemia.  This took place over several weeks, during which time Marcel exhausted himself editing and correcting his manuscripts.  Earlier, in the spring of 1922, he’d announced to Celeste Albaret, his housekeeper and confidant for ten years, that he’d finished his work, that during the night he’d written ”The End”.  To which he then added, “Now I can die”.

Four months after answering the L’Intransigeant questionnaire, Marcel died.  His brother, Robert, had to finish editing the final manuscripts for In Search of Lost Time.  But Proust was already gaining fame and a reputation after the publications of Swann’s Way (1913), In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (1919), and The Guermantes Way (1920-21) and so he died knowing that he’d accomplished what he set out to do.  Two days after his death, the photographer Man Ray came to take his death portrait. 

A poignant confession from Celeste stays with me in relation to Proust’s death.  Sometime before he dies, Marcel said to Celeste, “…it is awful to think doctors can torture a sick person by injecting serums.  And for what?  To give his patient ten more minutes, twelve more hours perhaps, of a wretched life?  Celeste, promise me you won’t ever let them give me an injection.”  She promised.

Fast forward to the day it is obvious that Marcel is going to die.  Against Proust’s wishes, she calls his doctor and begs him to give Marcel an injection, something to give him strength, to save him.  When the doctor does so, Proust reaches out and grabs Celeste’s wrist, pinches it and says, “Oh, Celeste…oh, Celeste!”

Celeste writes that this is impressed on her forever, and that even if she wanted to, she could never drive that final cry of his out of her ears. 

“And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me…the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea”.

The above quote is the final line from the Overture to Swann’s Way and is, of course, the end of the madeleine episode.  But in another way it is the beginning (hence “Overture”) because it is the doorway through which we and the Narrator pass on the journey to recovering lost time- the doorway to the past.  In Marcel’s case the doorway leads to the town of Combray, where he, as a child, and his family spent their Easter vacations and is based on a real town in France where Proust’s family spent their Easter vacations.  This real town, Illiers, changed its name to Illiers-Combray in recognition of this, and to give Proust-o-philes a place to pilgrimage to in their search for the lost Proust.  You can read about one person’s pilgrimage (not mine, unfortunately) here.

Here’s Proust, in a photo taken by Paul Nadar, at the age of sixteen.  I placed this picture here so that we could have some image in our minds of our Narrator as he walks the streets of Combray, but immediately two problems present themselves.  One is the problem of whether or not the “Narrator”, as scholars call him, of In Search of Lost Time- is he really Marcel Proust or one of his literary creations?  Here’s what I think about that question, but much later in the novel, as the Narrator’s love interest is speaking to him, she refers to him as Marcel.  This doesn’t settle the problem, but it does give us something more intimate to call the Narrator.

The second problem is Marcel’s age at this time- we aren’t told and as my sister said as she’s reading this now, it’s a lot easier to understand his angst over getting his mother’s goodnight kiss if he’s five years old, but if he is sixteen?  Not so much.  We’ll look for clues as we go along, but my impression is that he is about sixteen.  But these are compressed memories of what is probably years of time, vaguely remembered and blurred like an Impressionist’s painting of the place, the streets and houses and church of Combray.  As Marcel himself will tell us, “…more insubstantial than the projections of my magic-lantern…”  What follows are Marcel’s memories, thoughts and feelings over these early years, in such detail and sharp remembrance as to give lie to the insubstantiality of Marcel’s “impressions”.

Back in Combray, we are introduced (formally) to Marcel’s Aunt Leonie, she of the lime-blossom decoction and madeleines.  We also learn that she, since her husband’s death, “…had gradually declined to leave, first Combray, then her house in Combray, then her bedroom, and finally her bed…”  Now, who does that remind us of?  Hmmm…oh yes, Marcel Proust!  Here is the pattern for how Proust will live out his adult life, and where our lines between imaginary literary character and autobiography again blur.  Much ink has been spilt over this question, beginning when Swann’s Way was first published and Proust vehemently denied that it was in any way auto-biographical.  D’accord, Marcel, and we’ll just pretend that we don’t see ourselves portrayed here as well.  Mais non.

The September 24th, 2007 issue of The New Yorker magazine was the “style” issue but should have been called, judging by the number of Proust sightings within (five, by my count), the Proust issue.  Not that Proust wasn’t stylish, with those lavender gloves and dashing scarves, but oddly enough, for this being the style issue, none of the Proust sightings have to do with fashion.  Or maybe that’s not so odd, since when we think of Marcel, perhaps the first thing we think is not “he’s such a fashion plate….and he can write too!”  But maybe we should, after all, he lived at the height of the Belle Epoch and mingled with the beautiful people at the beautiful places, although from reading biographies of him I gather that he was considered somewhat odd in his choices of style and fashion.  But I digress.

Not so oddly, the first two sightings are within an article about memory, or rather loss of it, called “The Abyss” and written by Oliver Sacks.  It is about a man named Clive who, after a brain infection, is “left with a memory span of only seconds- the most devastating case of amnesia ever recorded”.  The title of the article refers to a quotation from Proust that the man’s wife, Deborah, uses to describe a form of rescue from obliviousness that her husband will never experience.  The quote is from the Overture to Swann’s Way, in which the Narrator (either Deborah or the author of this article ascribes this quote to Swann, but this is a mistake) describes waking up from a deep sleep:

“…and when I awoke in the middle of the night, not knowing where I was, I could not even be sure at first who I was; I had only the most rudimentary sense of existence, such as may lurk and flicker in the depths of an animal’s consciousness; I was more destitute than the cave-dweller; but then the memory- not yet of the place in which I was, but of various other places where I had lived and might now very possibly be- would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being, from which I could never have escaped by myself…”

This rope from heaven gives the Narrator back his “personal consciousness and identity.  No rope from heaven, no autobiographical memory will ever come down in this way to Clive” (quote from the article).   “The rope that is let down from Heaven for Clive comes not with recalling the past, as for Proust, but with performance…”  Somehow, Clive has retained his ability to play Bach, Handel, Mozart and other classical composers on the piano, and this remarkable ability in the face of such profound amnesia is the focus of Dr. Sacks article.

Marcel Proust, through the course of his novel, will find the key to recalling lost time in everyday objects, sounds, smells.  This man, Clive, not only cannot find his lost time in this way, he doesn’t even know that he has lost time-except for his ability to recognize his wife (although he can’t remember that he just saw her five minutes ago) and his astounding retention of music he learns to play on the piano- he is a man without a past, reborn every few seconds to a world that contains no memories for him.   

Perhaps some things are better left “un-remembered”.  The next sighting is from Francine du Plessix Gray, in her article entitled “The Surrealist’s Muse”, about art patron and artist’s muse Marie-Laure de Noailles.  In the 1950’s, du Plessix Gray was assigned by her editor at Elle magazine to interview de Noailles, a task which “daunted” the author and one that she apparently approached with trepidation.  She was right to be fearful, when she arrived at de Noailles residence, she was stared at by de Noailles and the beautiful young man with her, their looks “distinctly tainted with malice” and full of “haughty insolence”.  Her proffered handshake was ignored. 

“As I proceeded to interview her, any trace of tolerance she might have had for me was diminished by my lack of an adequate retort to the one query she put to me: ‘Men who love Proust have short penises, don’t you think?”

The less said about that remembrance, the better.

The last two sightings are brief.  In an article about Donatella Versace by Lauren Collins, we learn that Donatella’s brother Gianni (the one that was murdered) called their family retreat at Lake Como his “Proust” place.  Because it was a quiet, peaceful place to go to think and to rest?  Or because the bedrooms are lined with cork?  We are not told, we can only imagine.  And finally, from a brief book review of The Worst Intentions (by Alessandro Piperno): “…this wickedly scathing debut novel, a coruscating mixture of satire, family epic, Proustian meditation, and erotomaniacal farce…”  Sounds like something Marcel would have enjoyed, n’est-ce pas?

Two sightings of Marcel to report today.  I tell you, for someone who’s dead, the man gets around.  I read somewhere once (sorry I can’t remember where) that Proust was probably the author most referred to by other writers whose work they’ve never actually read.  Let me assure you-  I have read the man’s work.

The first sighting was in a book I checked out from the library by that famous American author and chef, a woman who has made French cooking and Paris accessible to many of us provincials- no, not Julia Child.  The book is called The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris and is by Patricia Wells, and so, bien sur, the sighting of Marcel is along with the recipe she gives for madeleines:

“To be truly appreciated- to ‘invade the senses with exquisite pleasure’ as they did for Marcel Proust- madeleines must be dipped in tea…”  (Fourth Edition, page 225)

Here is the Proust quote that Patricia Wells is referring to:

”I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran though me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that had happened to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin…this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was me.  I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal.  Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy?  I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature.  Whence did it come?  What did it mean?  How could I seize and apprehend it?”

This experience invokes the involuntary memory in Marcel (the Narrator and/or Proust himself) that I call his madeleine moment, which leads to his becoming an author in search of time and places and people that seem to be lost, but that sometimes seem to be embodied in material objects (like a madeleine), or a certain sound (tinkling silverware on china) or an experience (stumbling on an uneven paving stone).  The above quote is from the Overture to Swann’s Way, Volume I of In Search of Lost Time, to read about the full experience click here.

Ms. Wells was on a search of her own, as she writes in this book, as she became “fixated, almost fanatical, about madeleines” and tasted dozens in her search, but only a few were “just right”.  Her ideal madeleine, hot and fresh out of the oven, has a “dry, almost dusty” taste, and while I may not use those terms to describe a fresh madeleine, I do like to let the madeleines rest awhile and develop their sweet, moist and lemony savour.  I also like them in coffee, particularly the chocolate version.  You can find both recipes here. 

Does this man look “bi-gendered” to you?  Like someone who would appeal to both woman and men- and was attracted to both women and men (albeit for different reasons)?  In a New Yorker magazine (July 30, 2007) book review by Peter Schjeldahl of a new biography of Gustave Courbet, Schjeldal says the author’s…

“…most original analysis of Courbet’s reputation in his day concerns its mixed effects on a newly ‘bi-gendered’ public.  Women were a growing constituency of readers and consumers, increasingly targeted by newspaper advertising.  Androgynous appeal became a feature of fiction from Sand to Flaubert, and onward to Proust.”

(The author is Petra ten-Doesschate Chu,  and the biography is entitled “The Most Arrogant Man in France: Gustave Courbet and the Nineteenth-Century Media Culture“.)

Proust certainly explored the androgynous appeal, or bi-gendered-ness, of himself as the Narrator and other persons within his novel, most intently that of his great love, Albertine.  Proust devotes pages (and pages) to his anguish over whether Albertine is faithful to him or not, and even worse, is she unfaithful with women as well as men.  Is Albertine bi-gendered?  Does she appeal to women as well as men?  Is she (gasp!) a Lesbian?  Go grab your copy of In Search of Lost Time (you know, the one you have been meaning to read but have never actually gotten around to), brew yourself a cup of tea, settle back with a plate of madeleines and prepare to have your senses exquisitely invaded.

When we decided to go to Paris two years ago, I “prepared” myself by reading as many French authors as I could (that’s how I found Proust), listening to French singers and trying to learn to speak French.  I had taken one semester of French way back in my first year of college (27 years ago, and I think I got a D) and since then had sporadically tried to “self-teach” myself with language tapes, but would give it up quickly.  This time I got serious.  My husband helped me supplement my language tapes with CD’s and DVD’s to use on the computer, and I gave myself lessons every day.  By the time we left for Paris, I felt fairly confident that I would be able to at least understand what was said to us in French, and maybe be able to carry on a conversation myself, as long as it was a simple conversation.   

When we arrived in Paris, a strange thing happened.  I found myself shy about using my newly acquired French.  I’m still not sure why, but I was able to understand things that were said to us, which helped.  It also helped that many French people, at least in Paris, speak some English and are not shy about using it.  We were in Paris for 6 days, then left for Italy and Andorra, then back to Paris for our remaining 5 days.  I was determined to use my French and felt more comfortable about speaking to the Parisians, so…I got my chance at the Clignancourt flea market.  We had found a fascinating shop that sold all kinds of old hardware and other miscellaneous items like chandelier parts, doorkeys as big as your hand, cut-glass doorknobs- things just piled around in bins and on the floor and hanging from the ceiling.  In one bin I found the bracelet pictured above, liked the old brass look of it and the scenes of Paris on each panel.  There was no price on it so I went to ask someone- in French.

Nearby was a man who seemed to be the owner of the shop.  I approached him and said, “Pardon, Monsieur, c’est combien?”  He took the bracelet from me, looked at it a minute, then handed it back to me and said something in French that included the words “ma coeur” (my heart) and “une cadeau” (a gift).  Not sure that I understood, I said “Pardon, Monsieur?”  He repeated what he had said, and held his hand over his heart and then extended it towards me.  I realized that he was telling me he was giving it to  me as a gift, with gratitude.  I said, “Merci, Monsieur!  Merci beaucoup”.  It was my first complete conversation in French, in Paris, and although I wasn’t sure why he’d given me the bracelet, I was happy with it and with getting over my shyness.

When we got back to our hotel, my husband pointed out to me something about the bracelet that I hadn’t noticed back at the shop.  The center panel of the bracelet says “Paris Liberation 1944″.  Apparently it was made to commemorate the liberation of Paris by the US military from the German occupation of WWII.  That explained why the man in the shop had given it to me, an American, with gratitude from his heart.  Not only was this conversation special because it was my first entirely in French, it was meaningful in being given a gift from a Frenchman to an American in Paris, with gratitude from 63 years past.

My thanks to my husband, Rod, who took the picture above (and took me to Paris).