A Place of Books: Lovecraft and Proust

Hello, friends! It's that time of day again: blog post time! I have some updates and things I have been dying to talk about, so here goes. Before that, though, let me ask, what have you guys been reading? Are there any books you'd want to see up here? Any type of discussion you'd like? Though I obviously write this blog partly for myself, as I really enjoy every part of the process, it's definitely meant to connect me with all you guys. It's nice seeing the number of views go up, but I hope for more than just numbers. I want to hear from you all, to be able to write things that you would want to read. Share with friends of yours you know like to read! I want this blog to be one like no other, a place where people who love to read can come, write about what they read, find books they might like; a place where those who don't necessarily read so much can come see what reading is all about. Reading is such a huge part of me, from the second I wake up to the second I go to sleep, and I want people who understand this obsession to see Avid Reader as I do: a place of books. And for the many who don't, I want to open this world to you, this passion, because I really believe a life of reading is beneficial and fun. This weekend I went to a one-day music festival held here in Miami, and at one point me and my boyfriend started laughing because we both couldn't believe I hadn't brought a book! I said "I should have brought one and taken a picture for my blog!" Now to libros! 

Two posts ago, I wrote a lot on In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, a little about Captain Bluebear, and even less about The Glass of Time. I didn't write about Charles Dexter Ward, but not because I lacked in things to say; I finished it! And I loved, loved it. Towards the end, it got quite scary and the reader was finally able to see the ancient, underground laboratories of Joseph Curwin that had been alluded to since the beginning of the novel. I had been a little frustrated that the studies of Joseph, later picked up by Charles, were described only vaguely, so when Dr. Willett, the family doctor of the Wards who had been diligently following Charles' case since before he even went crazy, since Charles found Joseph's papers and started his own research, broke into the underground laboratory and discovered the truth, I was excited to discover it along with him. 

Apparently, Joseph and a couple of his evil cronies "were robbing the tombs of all the ages, including those of the world's wisest and greatest men, in the hope of recovering from the bygone ashes some vestige of consciousness and lore which had once animated and informed them." (1541) He stumbles upon torture rooms; storage rooms that held those ashes; a sacrificial altar carved with unimaginable beings; even one of those beings, alive, kept in a tiny cell under the (underground) laboratory. The exploration culminates when Willett finds the storage room where these dug up ashes are kept and accidentally calls up the essence of something/someone who is later revealed to be an enemy of Joseph (by repeating a chant he had inadvertently memorized after having had ample opportunity to explore the papers and notes in the rooms and had kept repeating under his breath). After seeing the ashes start rising and forming an indeterminate shape, Willett remembers nothing more and wakes up to find the entrance to the evil lair closed shut. I couldn't put my Kindle reading this, it was so intriguing. I also liked the relationship between Willett and Charles' dad, with the poor doctor needing to face these evils not just as a professional duty, but as a duty to the Wards, who he has known since he was little and considers family. 

A few days later, after deliberating with Charles' dad, Willett visits "Charles" in the asylum. By this time, it was pretty much assured that Charles had been killed by the man who was now impersonating him, a man who had no right to exist: Joseph Curwin, come back from the dead. Some vampiric activity that had been mentioned and not explained was finally made clear to be Joseph's doing, as a way of sustenance after revival, if you will. After informing Joseph of the many discoveries he made, Willet is almost killed, as Joseph begins chanting a formula which will call forth all sorts of beings against Willett. The Doctor, however, understanding that Joseph could not be put down by human force alone, uses the counterpoint spell, learned by heart and used in the crypt. Joseph is destroyed for good, and, with the help of the "thing" Willett inadvertently called forth, his evil studies along with him.

I really recommend this creepy short novel, for though it might be slow and a bit detached in the beginning, it quickly transforms into a fast paced tale the reader cannot help but be invested in. I finished the novel feeling really bad for poor Charles, murdered for having qualms about such evil doings, and even more so for his father and doctor, two characters faced with dealings they could not understand, made to helplessly watch their beloved son and friend fall under the sway of the terrible Joseph Curwin. 

Now to talk a little about the second volume of Proust's novel, which I originally thought I wouldn't like as much as Swann's Way. I love getting to know more of the narrator, who was quite young in the first volume, but who now is experiencing love for the first time, going out into society, and showing the reader more of his world than just the bedtime drama. Also, Swann's Way really separated Swann's life from the narrator's, since the section "Swann in Love" didn't even take place in Marcel's lifetime. Now, however, Marcel is good friends with Gilberte, Swann's daughter (and Marcel's first love), and often visits chez Swann; I like this coming-together of the two narratives Swann's Way started, especially since it's great to read the commentary of Marcel who sees the Swanns, already interesting for the reader to get to know, as charming, mysterious, and exotic. These visits of Marcel often lead to wonderful discussions on human nature, motives and desires. 

Earlier I mentioned the four areas of life that the translator believes are central to Marcel's experiences in the novel: love, art, friendship, and society. I mentioned the narrator's first introduction to theatrical arts, and how his impressions suffered compared to his expectations (an important theme I mentioned before that has since resurfaced quite frequently), and, later, how those impressions were further affected by other people's own ideas. Since the beginning of Swann's Way, Marcel has greatly admired a writer named Bergotte, who also knew the Swanns and was thus filled with that special charm anything Gilberte experienced was blessed with. When eating dinner for the first time with this man, made possible by the good graces of the Swanns, Marcel comes to see that Bergotte in the flesh is not nearly as impressive as his writing. Marcel has so many impressions that he begins to expound at great length upon different theories of art: the nature of an artist, the disparity between an artist and his art, what constitutes genius (a part I really liked where genius is said to be not how great a person can be during life, but how well can that person reflect his own life), how an artist's work may reflect values totally opposing what his own lifestyle may say about his morals. Even the man's accent is explained in detail, where it originated, how it changed in Bergotte's lifetime, how it relates to his writing. I loved these pages and would put excerpts upon excerpts of it if I could, but I will only show a few. Suffice it to say that they are what make In Search of Lost Time (or Remembrance of Things Past, if that is more your style) so beautiful and timeless, if you can enjoy such musings. 

As for society, it is always great to read about the culture of a certain place and time when the reading material is of that time, as is kind of the case for In the Shadow of Young Girls (perhaps published a little after the Belle Époque, it is still right around that era). There were "at home days," where a person was expected to remain home in order to receive countless visitors, while other days of the week were for making such visits themselves, leaving calling cards in houses. No wonder Facebook and social media in general are so popular, it must always have been a human desire to see and be seen. There is a beautiful passage where Odette and the other social women in general are described in an extended image as bees, flitting from flower to flower, pollinating with their calling cards. I also love reading about the social norms concerning correspondence, propriety, dinners and teas, and, really what Proust seems to describe is how the human mind works behind it all. 

Here is a blog that is dedicated to Proust's multi-volume novel; it takes a very intellectual approach and analyzes Proust using outside sources. I've been looking at it every now and then, along with Wikipeida, as always. In one of the posts the blogger takes a scientific look at the importance of smells that are linked to and that bring up memories, a big theme in In Search of Lost Time; it explains how smells, by virtue of being "non-verbal," are immediately processed by the part of our brain that controls long-term memory. I was happy that I stumbled upon this, because I had been trying to recall something similar to it that I learned when I was in high school. I took a really interesting class called Topics in Science where we learned about all sorts of things, and one day we took a look at how the nose worked. I remember having to learn about the reproduction of the nasal cells and how certain processes allowed the smells we experienced as children to remain in our memory into adulthood. 

I will go now but I'll leave you with some quotes: 

"For, after all, my mind must be a single thing; or perhaps there is only a single mind, in which everybody has a share, a mind to which all of us look, isolated though each of us is in a private body, just as the theatre, where, though every spectator sits in a separate place, there is only one stage." (143)

"Just as the priests with the broadest knowledge of the heart are those who can best forgive the sins they themselves never commit, so the genius with the broadest acquaintance with the mind can best understand ideas most foreign to those that fill his own works. I should have thought of all this, unpleasant though its implications are: for the benevolence one encounters in the person of broad vision has its sorry counterpart in the obtuse and churlish ways of the petty..." (143)

"But genius, or even great talent, lies less in elements of mind and social refinement superior to those of others than in the ability to transform and transpose them....Those who produce works of genius are not those who spend their days in the most refined company, whose conversation is the most brilliant, or whose culture is the broadest; they are those who have the ability to stop living for themselves and make a mirror of their personality, so that their lives, however nondescript they may be socially, or even in a way intellectually, are reflected in it. For genius lies in reflective power, and not in the intrinsic quality of the scene reflected." (129)

"Faced with the thoughts or actions of a woman we love,we are as incapable as the very first physicians when faced with natural phenomena (in the time before science had come into being and shed a little light into the unknown); or, even worse, we are like a being for whom the principle of causality hardly exists, who is incapable of perceiving a connection between one phenomenon and another, for whom the spectacle of the world is as unreliable as a dream." (162)