Friday, 27 June 2008
Calling all Proustians
TECHNO-ART Time I did another of these: pointing out allusions to technology in novels, plays, paintings and - more remotely - music. I am also on the verge of re-reading Proust. Now I seem to remember a passage in "A la recherche..." in which the narrator takes a ride in a car but it could take weeks, if not months, to come upon it in a cover-to-cover read-through. Can anyone with a better memory than me (or in possession of a sneaky Proust concordance) narrow it down?
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2 comments:
The passage, which I suspect you are looking for comes, I think, in Volume Vlll, Sodom and Gommerah, of the Scott Moncrief translation. As I no longer possess it - having, mea culpa, replaced it with the Folio editions with the aforementioned translation updated by Terrance Kilmartin and revised by D J Enright - I cannot be absolutely certain. According to the synopsis which I still possess there is an account of Marcel's expeditions with Albertine by motor-car from Balbec, and some reflections on the virtues of the motor car ( Chapter III, I think, page 182. Albertine, you may remember had taken up painting and Marcel accompanies her on various trips. The episode begins ...with the words "... I ordered to my eventual undoing a motor-car from Saint-Fargau...
A few pages on Marcel reflects on the difference between the car and carriage, which he had driven in with Madame Villedeparis on a previous visit to Balbec.
A marvellous feat either of memory (How apt!) or rapid fact-finding. Thank you. Once I'd posted the query I suddenly remembered "the little train" but, if I'm not mistaken, that is seen as an agent of change and of social cohesion rather than a techno-entity.
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