Addendum

I did forget to mention in a earlier post two experiences of my ex's that also help me withhold judgment: His watching his mother die from a brain hemorrhage as a young child, and having a bipolar father. Both make deep attachment nearly impossible for him, I think.

These aren't excuses for his behavior. They're just mitigating circumstances---the likes of of which I've never come close to experiencing. And ultimately, since it doesn't matter what my judgment of him is, there's no point wasting any more breath or thought on it. A recasting of the Guermantes's et alia's irrelevant judgment of others.

(How petty I am: Not that he's in the same league as a Beethoven!)

GW: pp.486-494

Various views of literary correspondence. The musical and literary tastes of M. de Guermantes. Mme d'Arpajon and poetry. The Duc de Chatellerault and the footman. The literary tastes of the Duchesse de Guermantes; her views on Hugo.


So perhaps the overarching theme of this entry is judgment by the unqualified, or unqualified judgment by the unqualified.

Marcel, the Duc and Duchesse, the Princesse of Parma, and a few other of the elite (including the Duc's recently dumped mistress...) are having dinner and discussing some artists---they get around to Beethoven, Wagner, Hugo, Flaubert. The reviews are not favorable. Beethoven is old-fashioned, Wagner 'insufferably long-[winded]' but 'occasionally intriguing', Hugo lacks taste and is unintelligible, and Flaubert is untalented because we can read in his correspondence that he found writing difficult....Eye roll.

Of course it's silly for me to defend these artists, since it's unnecessary, since Proust is in our (?) corner here. I am curious, however, to what extent these artists were part of the canon (to what extent 'the canon' was a notion) in the late 90s when the episode takes place and even in late teens and early 20s when it was written down. Schnabel's recordings of the Beethoven sonatas, which helped them gain popularity, weren't finished until 1935; Wagner's Tristan ('occasionally intriguing'!) is one of the most influential pieces in history in that it, in a sense---though one could argue the move toward atonality and liberated dissonance was inevitable, led to the demise of classical tradition music as a popular genre....I know less about the reception history of the writers. If anyone can illuminate this, leave a note.

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Oh, and I love how Oriane has to slip a comment in about Gambetta's correspondence to show she's progressive. This woman is such a backdoor bragger. The more I think about it, the more she seems like the 1890s's version of Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock. (I love you Jane Krakowski.) She (the Duchesse) is the superstar of her time---an aristocrat. She is hypocritical, melodramatic, needy, snipes when she's not the center of attention. She is, however, unlike Jenna, truly intelligent. Both are so distressed they can't be good, so I should really lay off them.

//

(Oriane pecks again at the unfortunate M. Bornier's hygiene...jerk.)

We get more of the sorrow of Oriane's life: She badmouths Mme d'Arpajon under her breath, calling her a bluestocking and a bore, and giving those as the reasons the Duc has abandoned d'Arpajon as his lover---when really the truth is worse: Marcel knows Basin (a French diminutive? I don't know enough about French...) has simply dropped her because he's taken a different lover. In the next breath, Oriane one-ups Mme d'Arpajon---by giving her own views of Hugo---and quoting two of his poems! Who's the bluestocking and bore now? She's perhaps a bit better read that Jenna Maroney....but no less hypocritical or absurd.

Once again I'm struck by Oriane's contradictions. Proust writes of her as embodying the aristocracy, being consummately French, have great intelligence, country charm---and intermixes all these horrible little vignettes that really make her seem like the worst kind of acquaintance---one who alternately sings your praises and denigrates you. I suppose the effect of Proust's alternately praising and denigrating her (by reporting her actions with all their warts) is a critique of French aristocracy generally (?): She is the embodiment of French aristocracy; she is fascinating; she is horrible.

Mme de Brissac (a random woman...) says something that summarizes the way Proust writes about this group of people (though she's referring to Hugo): '...he seeks [ideas] in hideous things. It was he, in the end, who accustomed us to ugliness in literature. There's quite enough ugliness in life as it is. Why can't we just be allowed to forget it while we're reading?'

Well...ugliness is interesting.

Das Wiedersehen

My book is back at my disposal. My house has a new roof.

Delay

Sorry, Readers! My book is part of a crime scene: We've had rain and the roof leaked. Some ceiling plaster fell onto the book (which was on my headboard), and my landlord insists that I leave it all there til he can get back into town and have a look at it....Proust withdrawal.....

Local vs. Global

It's an odd feeling to have after reading 2 and 3/4 long, painstaking novels that there is no global purpose---no plot, no moral. That the sum of the parts is no more than the parts, or that morals and plots are so numerous that no overarching structure emerges. (Though clearly...I've not yet regained time, so my opinion may be worthless.)

A la recherche du temps perdu seems to be an entirely local story. Its observations and anecdotes obtain their full force without much reference to other sections, books. The work can be read in minute snatches (say just before falling asleep). Maybe my thoughts on this will change as I read further.

Certainly Proust seems less concerned with this...meta-coherence than many modern authors are. For example, W. G. Sebald (who is as close to Proust's intellectual heir as I've read) in The Rings of Saturn drops so many hints in the first 10 pages about silk (sericulture's the 'topic' of the book's last section) that on readings other than the first his writing can seem almost heavy-handed. His whole book is bound up (sorry about the pun(s)) in this manner.

This is grasping: Perhaps part of the point of the books is the local nature of life, the importance of experiencing and realizing the depth of every moment, sensation, memory as it occurs? The importance of deep analysis of the seemingly insignificant? Maybe. It seems more that he was just a rushed artist.

By which I do not mean that that is not one of the primary thrusts of the book. Just that Proust might have striven for those kinds of threads from section to section, book to book---a work's self-referential instances of involuntary memory---if he had had the time to finish the final parts of the book and revise the whole. Though I'd be the first to allow that it may be that I just haven't perceived them, either because I've not finished the books, or I'm not an attentive enough reader.

Proust communicates this meaning through his exhaustive analysis of the tiny (his life is about making mountains out of molehills)---not by the fact that he doesn't link up these analyses.

GW: pp. 475-486

The Duc's mistresses; Mme de Guermantes's relation to them. Late arrival of M. de Grouchy. The Duchesse's unkindness to her footman Poullein. Her sarcasm about her cousin Mme d'Heudicourt, about the dramatist Bornier.

I'm struck by what nasty people the Duc and Duchesse are...not that I don't sympathize with the Duchesse, despite my comment last time that I was tired of her posturing (which gives no sign of ceasing).

I guess I never noticed how much all the infidelity Proust writes about must hurt those people who get cheated on...

He comes right out and says: "Despite these outward appearances...the Duchesse did not have an easy life." And that she "has no illusions left to shatter." I think the reason it's been such a blind spot for me is that Oriane is depicted as being so worldly---having no illusions: She's never fazed, even when she must take up the Duc's spent mistresses as friends...acquaintances. And since Proust is an outside observer, not her therapist, he can never know definitively her emotional pain. Perhaps this is where some of her nastiness begins. It explains at least in part why she and her husband are so cruel and disrespectful to the people they know. I find their rudeness and name-calling (at a dinner party, no less!) unimaginable. If my parents (who else throws dinner parties I attend....?) spoke of their 'friends'---though I think the Guermantes couple are islands, utterly alone, and have no real friends---in such a manner, I would spend as little time as possible with them...

And so much of this bad situation comes from two sources: The Duc's not controlling his appetites (whether he can't or won't doesn't affect the outcome), and his and his wife's vanity. He manipulates her into being witty at social functions---witty here meaning cruel. He twists the knife---and she is the knife.

//

The way the aristocracy treat each other and their 'inferiors'---servants and artists and those less bright, here---is just so depressing. (Well, maybe not depressing---cautionary.) I just hate seeing smart people make bad decisions. They're all so smart and so unaware. They treat advantage---intellectual, monetary, et c.---as a zero sum game. They're so distressed they cannot attend to any needs but their own (as in the episode with Poullein).

I had a boyfriend who was simply at the mercy of his illness(es). Depression, anxiety, lack of self-control, a large libido, and certain kind of sexual disfunction are a mix that really prevent a person from being good to others. (In my own defense, he was so deceptive it took a very long time to discover these qualities.)

The Guermantes and those who orbit them are complicated people. We can't know them as thoroughly as to know their deepest psychological problems (though maybe Proust will prove me wrong), so we can't abandon all compassion when judging them---and to learn from someone requires judgment: We must judge what to accept, what to reject, and what to suspend judgment on. By judging with compassion I mean we should avoid the harshest judgments because we can never be sure our information is complete.

I think I don't hate the Guermantes. I think I don't hate my ex.

GW: pp. 469-472 (Arbitrariness in politics)

Let's look at the political use of arbitrariness in two polarizing topics (in the US), one hard, one soft.

Global warming:

There is virtually no disagreement in the scientific community (the only community with the expertise to observe and prognosticate about this kind of thing): The average temperature has gone up about 8C since 1900. Anthropogenic CO2 has increased dramatically. There is precedent in the climatic record for high atmospheric CO2 content and higher temperatures, as well as a model for the effect. Therefore most scientists believe global temperatures will continue to rise unless CO2 is mitigated. The effects of warming (if it continues in the future) will not be (as they have not historically been) trivial---almost no one tries to rebut that.

Yet there is a great deal of "debate" in the US on the matter. A March 2010 Gallup poll (see link below) shows that between 2008 and 2010, the percentage of people who think the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated has risen from 35% to 48%. The percentage who believe they'll see the effects of warming in their lifetime has fallen from 65% to 53%, and the percentage who believe they'll never see the effects has risen from 24% to 35%. The poll is a bit simplistic, of course: It allows those polled to interpret "effects" as they choose; it makes no distinction between anthropogenic warming and warming due to some other trend.

Granted---some of the debate in this country is on how to respond to a complicated issue, which really does require a fair amount of thoughtful debate. But the poll points up that, though scientific attitudes have not changed (see for instance Wikipedia's "Scientific opinion on climate change" or the BBC's recent self-censure for false balance on this topic), public attitudes have shifted much. This has not happened in the absence of demagoguery.

The reasons, I think, that people believe their doctors when they're told to eat less saturated fat and get some exercise but don't believe their climatologists when they're told to drive less are roughly twofold: 1.) Urgency and 2.) The tendency to allow emotions to rule what we believe.

I'm not so cynical as to suggest that the (more frequently) conservative position---the denial of global warming, or at least its seriousness---is merely a reaction to the progressive position, to more starkly define their allies and enemies. (Progressives do tend to pay more attention to scientists (cf. evolution as standard curriculum).) But I do think that people are willing to believe almost anything when it fits into their existing belief system tidily. And denying global warming is easier to do when you abhor taxes and believe businesses should self-regulate.

Gallup poll: http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/americans-global-warming-concerns-continue-drop.aspx

//

Abortion:

Here my own beliefs are far less formed, so perhaps this topic will be more...palatable to my readers on the other side of the aisle.

When it comes to the termination of human fetuses, scientific opinion is not (yet?) relevant. Religious ethics cannot (so baldly) be the basis of federal law. Secular ethics can reach no agreement on the matter. Most conservatives believe abortion is bad, bad enough to believe in banning it outright. Most progressives believe abortion is bad, but not bad enough to supersede the rights of the mother.

The crux of the issue: When does life (in the human, not the paramecium sense) begin? That I can't answer and won't try.

I do want to point out that, in a certain sense, the positions of the two mainstream parties seem transposed, given what one might expect from their first principles. Republicans often speak of self-reliance, of non-interference; yet in this sphere, they're willing to intercede on the behalf of a helpless...organism. Republicans don't hold life so sacred that they're unwilling to execute criminals. I assume that it is (often religiously-derived) sympathy for the innocent that causes them to reject abortion. (I think the reason this sympathy stops short of condoning many social programs is an unfair judgment that all people are responsible for their own lives: Addicts lack will. The unemployed are lazy. Et c.)

Democrats, on the other hand, are quite willing to intercede on the behalf of the needy (which I think derives from some odd notion of fairness and ecumenicalism), almost uniformly oppose state execution (and by extension, the ending of all life?); yet they're willing to allow what some certainly call murder. Interpreted in the most flattering light, this allowance is perhaps an abstention from judgment; in the most unflattering light, it's a willingness to kill what's inconvenient.

I really do have a great deal of sympathy for both sides of the abortion debate (even though I don't have equal sympathy for their reasoning). And I think that if you are careful not to be a slave to feeling, both sides can be defensible. However, it is quite easy for a religious politician to rile his---or given recent developments, shall I say her?---constituents---it's hard talk about "killing babies" without a flood of emotion. So this issue is very easy to manipulate: The religiously inclined are whipped one way, their opponents on other topics are whipped another with some weaker emotional sauce about civil liberties and a fair bit of simple polarization.

Most of us, as participants in a representative democracy, as a result of the savvy political representation of arbitrary positions and the rough duality of beliefs that has both led to and arisen from our two-party system, are little more than leaves in a rushing river.