188.普鲁斯特：The role of the madeleine and tea

Reader86

The role of the madeleine and tea
FROM THE THING
Madeleines with Tea
What exactly is the meaning of the madeleine and the tea in all this? Let us first take a closer look at the madeleine. Interestingly enough, an earlier version of the famous madeleine scene reveals that it was initially not a piece of madeleine but a piece of toasted bread (pain grillé), that Marcel dipped into his tea, which then reminded him of the biscuit his grandfather would offer him at breakfast when he was a child.[1] Clearly, Proust later on changed his mind and chose to use a madeleine in this scene instead. Considering the meaning of la Madeleine as both the Catholic saint Mary Magdalene as well as the church with the same name which Proust had been familiar with from a young age, a more religious meaning of the madeleine was perhaps intended.[2]
Just like in Marcel’s theory on recalling memories, it is in Catholic sacraments that objects from ordinary daily life play a key role in symbolic acts. In the sacrament of the Eucharist for example, "bread" and "wine" are the main objects that symbolize the body and blood of Christ respectively. At the beginning of the novel, we can read a short reference to this when Marcel compares his mother’s face to a Communion bread (host) when she kisses him goodnight, as he writes ‘…when she had bent her loving face down over my bed, and held it out to me like a host for an act of peace-giving communion in which my lips might imbibe her real presence and with it the power to sleep. [1]
In a similar way, the madeleine scene seems to share the same rituality and order of actions as the Eucharist.[2] After all, much as the priest who offers communion to the communicant, it is Marcel’s mother who offers him both the tea and a piece of a madeleine. Following this, the priest’s ritual statement of unworthiness “Domine, non sum dignus”, shows when Marcel first refuses his mother’s offer but then accepts it. Then, like the priest’s breaking of the bread and drinking of the wine, it is described how Marcel brings to his lips a teaspoon of tea in which has been softened a piece of madeleine.[3]The ritual nature of the madeleine scene is further suggested when Marcel tries the madeleine and the tea three times in his attempt to recapture and better understand the sudden moment of exquisite joy he felt when tasting the madeleine and the tea.[4] Finally, this process culminates into the sudden recollection of his memory of the village of Combray: ‘And suddenly, the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass) my aunt Léonie used to give me when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane.’ [5]
The same rituality of the madeleine scene can be further explained against the background of the popularity of Japonisme in Proust’s times, that brought along a focus on tea ceremonies, and is also reflected in the figure of Odette Swan, who is slinking in kimonos and furnishes her apartment with Japanese lanterns and silks and Chinese porcelains.[6] In the madeleine scene, we find that Proust compares the cup of tea with a porcelain bowl filled with water as a japoniste metaphor for bringing to consciousness his involuntary memories: ‘(…) as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden (…) and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.’ [7]
Similar to the Catholic ceremonies, the Japanese children’s game represents the transformation of ordinary objects (paper bits) into a new order of reality.[8] It is from this point onwards that also Marcel’s memories will slowly start to form the building blocks of the novel. The importance of this whole process lies in the growing conclusion which he draws from this: that he should not only seek, but also create, to create a new reality from his recollected memories and past experiences: a piece of art.

https://thingsthattalk.net/en/t/ ... -and-memory/details

Reader86

过去48小时内，世界上多国同时发生货币与贸易政策转变，先是中国与法国石油公司完成首笔以人民币进行贸易结算的液化天然气，紧接着沙特批准了该国加入上合组织也包含其中的贸易联盟，接下来就是是北京和巴西敲定了以2国货币进行贸易结算的协议，最后则是东协10国财长和央行开始展开放弃美元、欧元和日元的会议

Reader86

Edmund Wilson said "[Proust] has supplied for the first time in literature an equivalent in the full scale for the new theory of modern physics."

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.c ... 1547/readers-guide/

Reader86

Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. Time is a central concern for Proust, appearing first in the title and last as the final word of the novel. What is his vision of the past? Does he have a vision of the present? The future? Can the Narrator be said to be living in the past? Is he like the White Queen in Through the Looking-Glass, with "jam tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today"?

2. The renowned translator of Proust, C. K. Scott Moncrieff, originally grouped the opening section of In Search of Lost Time under the title "The Overture," which includes two famous passages, the good night kiss and the evocative taste of the madeleine. Does this seem apt? If so, how might this fifty-odd page beginning prefigure what will transpire later? What would you expect to follow, given that an overture usually introduces the main themes of a musical work? What does it suggest about Proust’s conception of literature and music?

3. The episode of the good night kiss strikes some readers as odd or contradictory: the Narrator’s need for a kiss seems almost infantile, while his power of observation seems extraordinarily precocious. Considering that he is sent to bed at eight o’clock, how old do you think the Narrator is? Is it significant that his father suggests the Narrator be given the kiss he craves, whereas his mother is reluctant, saying "We mustn’t let the child get into the habit . . ."? Is the fact that the Narrator succeeds in getting the kiss he wants a good thing or a bad thing? Why?

4. "The whole of Proust’s world comes out of a teacup," observed Samuel Beckett. Indeed the episode of the madeleine dipped in tea is the first (and most famous) of numerous instances of "involuntary memory" in the novel. A recognized psychological phenomenon triggered by smells, tastes, or sounds, involuntary memory vividly reproduces emotions, sensations, or images from the past. Why do you think readers and critics universally consider this scene to be pivotal? What does the Narrator think about the experience of involuntary memory? What might its function be in the scheme of In Search of Lost Time?

5. Another emblematic theme involves the recurring "little phrase" of music by Vinteuil that catches the ear of Swann at the Verdurin’s salon and steals into his life. How do Vinteuil’s compositions stir both Swann and the Narrator? In Proust’s scheme of things, is music a higher art than painting or writing because it can produce involuntary memories? How does involuntary memory affect writing and painting? Is it unrelated to art except as a necessary catalyst?

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6. In "Combray" we are introduced to the Narrator’s family, their household, and their country home. Since Paris is the true heart of upper-class France, why do you think Proust chose to begin In Search of Lost Time elsewhere? What do we learn from the Narrator’s description of his family’s life and habits? Is the household dominated by men or by women? Does the Narrator’s account seem accurate, or is it colored by his own ideas and preoccupations?

7. A madeleine dipped into a cup of tea first impelled Proust into the "remembrance of things past." Though Proust was a gourmet in his youth, in the final years of his life he subsisted mainly on fillets of sole, chicken, fried potatoes, ice cream, cakes, fruit, and iced beer. Consider how food and culinary happenings – from meals at the restaurant in the Grand Hotel in Balbec to dinners at La Raspelière and the Guermantes’s in Paris – form an integral part of the work.

8. Swann’s Way and the Guermantes Way are presented as mutually exclusive choices for promenades, with Swann’s Way given primacy of place at the novel’s outset. Where, metaphorically speaking, does Swann’s Way seem to lead? What are the aesthetic signposts and milestones the Narrator points out? What does the landscape around Combray represent?

9. "I want my work to be a sort of cathedral in literature," Proust once said. In his description of the area around Combray – and in many other places in the novel – the Narrator describes churches, and particularly steeples. Indeed, Howard Moss cites the steeple as one of Proust’s most important symbols. In religious architecture, the steeple represents man’s aspiration toward God, and by inference toward Art, the Proustian religion. What else might it suggest? Does it have a counterpart in nature?

10. Proust and the Narrator share an appreciation of gardens and flowers – Proust himself was eager to visit Monet’s celebrated garden – and in a sense, all Combray can be seen as a garden. What associations does this evoke? How does the Narrator respond to natural beauty? What do flowers mean to him? How do we know?

Reader86

11. Proust’s work is filled with "doubling" – the most obvious being the identification of the author with a fictional self of the same name but with somewhat different characteristics. Is Swann a double of the Narrator? What qualities do they share? In what ways do they seem different? What is the importance of the fact that Swann is a Jew?

12. Louis Auchincloss questions the use of a fictional first person named "Marcel," who is but isn’t Proust. Marcel claims that he is neither a snob nor a homosexual, yet he is obsessed with both. Would Proust have strengthened Marcel’s viewpoint by making it that of the young social climber that he himself so clearly was? Did he enhance or detract from Marcel’s credibility by casting him as one of the few heterosexuals in the book? Does it matter that Marcel regards "inversion" as a dangerous vice? Did Proust?

13. "Swann in Love" might be thought of as a dress rehearsal for the Narrator’s own performance, and Swann’s passion for Odette establishes a model for various other love relationships that appear later in the book. Proust believed that all emotions and behavior obey certain psychological laws. E. M. Forster maintained that "Proust’s general theory of human intercourse is that the fonder we are of people the less we understand them – the theory of the complete pessimist." Do you agree? How does Swann’s love affair reflect this? What conclusions does the Narrator draw from his perception of Swann’s experience? In what way does this differ from Swann’s own view?

14. The Balbec sequence of Within a Budding Grove gathers a group of the novel’s principal characters, many for the first time: Robert de Saint-Loup, the Baron de Charlus, and Albertine, to name three of the most important. Others begin to emerge in their true significance, like Elstir the painter. Why do you think Proust chose to bring them together in Balbec? In what ways does Balbec echo or amplify Combray? Is the little "society" of Balbec a preview in microcosm of Paris?

15. While writing In Search of Lost Time Proust often rummaged through his vast photographic collection of Belle Époque luminaries as a means of stimulating his memory. "You could see that his thoughts were following a kind of underground track, as if he were organizing everything into images before putting them into words," recalled his maid Céleste Albaret. Indeed, the Baron de Charlus, in Within a Budding Grove, speaks of the special importance of photographs in preserving an unsullied moment of time past, before it has been altered by the present. Discuss how Proust used photographs in the story – just as he exploited the technology of trains, cars, and airplanes – as symbols of passing time.

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16. In his landmark essay on Proust, Edmund Wilson praises the broad Dickensian humor and extravagant satire that animate vast sections of In Search of Lost Time, yet he goes on to call it "one of the gloomiest books ever written." Can you reconcile Wilson’s remarks?

17. Critic Barbara Bucknall maintains that "no Proustian lover really cares at all for his beloved’s feelings." Is this true? Would the Narrator agree? Would the author? Are there any happy or satisfied couples in In Search of Lost Time? Or is love in Proust inevitably a prelude to misunderstanding?

18. "Proust’s stage [is] vaster than any since Balzac’s, and packed with a human comedy as multifarious," said Edith Wharton. Discuss Proust’s depiction of the elaborate hierarchy of French society – from the old nobility of the Faubourg to la haute bourgeoisie, from rich and cultivated Jews to celebrated artists – that forms the great backdrop to In Search of Lost Time. What cracks appear in the aristocratic world of the Guermantes that make us realize it is slowly crumbling? What forces stand ready to propel Mme. Verdurin and her bourgeois salon upward on the social ladder? In recording this change is Proust, in fact, chronicling the birth of modern society?

19. The title Sodom and Gomorrah functions on many levels. What does it suggest about the nature of society? What new areas does it open up? How does the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah relate to Proust’s characters? Since the very nature of In Search of Lost Time involves looking backward, should we expect a parallel between the Narrator and Lot’s wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt?

20. Critics agree that Sodom and Gomorrah opens a new phase of In Search of Lost Time. If the first three volumes represented the Overture and the first movement of Proust’s great composition, with Balbec as an interlude, then the second movement begins here. What seems different? In what ways have the Narrator’s preoccupations changed? Are these changes reflected in Proust’s style or tone?

Reader86

21. The Narrator’s explicit initiation into the nature of homosexuality occurs while he is waiting in the courtyard of the Duchesse de Guermantes to observe the pollination of her orchid, from which he is distracted by Charlus and Jupien. What is the effect of this particular juxtaposition? Since flowers and insects have already been established as symbols of eros in nature, is this a veiled comment on the "unnatural"? Is the Narrator observing the two men in the same way as he observes the flower? Is his unconcern with being a voyeur connected to the writer’s role as an observer of the world in all its aspects? Edith Wharton found the scene offensive and deemed it a lapse in Proust’s "moral sensibility." Why?

22. Many crucial sexual scenes in Proust, including the one just mentioned, are witnessed through the "lenses" of windows, which become a commanding metaphor in the novel. Consider how Proust first introduces the window device by way of the magic lantern slides in Marcel’s bedroom at Combray. How are windows analogous to Proust’s notion of viewing life through a telescope, an instrument that propels images through dimensions of both space and time?

23. The Captive and The Fugitive show the Narrator acting out his own version of the grand passions he has observed so keenly and dispassionately in others. But when it comes to his own affairs, Howard Moss says that the Narrator’s greatest lie is that he is objective with respect to Albertine. To whom is the Narrator lying, the reader or himself? Is he aware of his lack of perspective? If he is mistaken about one of the most important relationships in his life, can readers trust his observations about other subjects and people?

About this Author
Born in 1871 in the Parisian suburb of Auteil, Marcel Proust led an active social life in his youth, penetrating the highest circles of wealth and aristocracy. He suffered from severe asthma, which worsened as he grew older, and his illness prompted him to withdraw from society and devote himself to writing. Swann’s Way was published in 1913, and only three more volumes of the six-volume novel were published in his lifetime. The second, Within a Budding Grove, won the Goncourt Prize and brought Proust instant fame in 1919. Proust died in 1922; the subsequent volumes were published posthumously.

Reader86

The madeleine moment – or Proust effect – the writer went onto explain, concerned “the ability of memory to be invoked involuntarily when it had been previously blocked”. It was inspired by À la recherche du temps perdu, a novel by Marcel Proust, one of the most celebrated French authors of the 20th century.

Reader86

Scent of a Memory and the Proust Effect
Trigger your memorable memories using scent

By Dan
October 15, 2020




Some smells trigger memories from a particular time in your life. For instance, does the aroma of freshly baked brownies always bring back memories of your best friend’s mom’s cooking? Or when you walk by the local pool and smell the chlorinated water, do childhood summer memories flash through your mind?

How can we remember vivid memories when we smell something we consider nostalgic? This phenomenon is called the  “Proust Effect” — after the novelist Marcel Proust wrote about childhood memories triggered by the aroma of freshly baked madeleine cakes — this process was once thought of as purely involuntary.

But this memory process doesn’t have to be involuntary. We can hack the process of memory formation to our advantage. By proactively using scent daily in our lives, we can intensify experiences and fortify memory formation, helping to make life a richer and more enjoyable experience.

Memorable moments make us who we are. Our mind’s interpretation of events shapes our world experience, and present-day stimuli act as doorways to our past. They connect us to all we cherish and the people we hold dear. Unfortunately, time and age can rob us of our ability to recall those memories.


Writing it down can help with memorable memories

The Science of Memory Cues

Whenever we experience something, our brain (specifically, the hippocampus) encodes sensory details (such as sounds) as part of memory formation. These sensory details are wired into our brains as memory cues. When you re-encounter a cue, it triggers the associated memory — along with the thoughts, feelings, and emotions you initially experienced.

We can use our understanding of this process to purposefully manage memory formation to benefit ourselves in the future and easily recall our memorable memories when we want to look back.


woman holding bottles of flowers

How Scent is Different from Other Sensory Cues
We all know what it’s like to hear a song that triggers feelings and memories. However, scent is unique in its ability to trigger particularly vivid memories. Why?

For most of our senses, information processing starts at the sensing organ (such as our eyes), then moves to the brain’s ‘relay station,’ the thalamus, which in turn sends each signal to the relevant sense-processing area (for example, the visual cortex in the case of sight).

Scent signals bypass the relay station and go directly to the olfactory bulb's processor site. This means that, unlike our other senses, there is no intermediate activity between sensing and processing. Scent-based experiences are enhanced and more enriched.


Christmas scented candle

Maybe Christmas scented candles give you memorable memories from christmas
The Special Connection Between Scent and Memories
Scent’s ability to trigger vivid and emotional memories is partly due to the close connection between the scent processing center (the olfactory bulb) and the parts of the brain responsible for emotion and memory — the amygdala and hippocampus, respectively.

According to Afif J. Aqrabawi and Jun Chul Kim, “The olfactory cortex in particular shares exclusive anatomical connections with the hippocampus due to their common evolutionary history.”

There may be more to aromatherapy than many of us think! Evolution has made the scent a high priority. Only 3% of our genes are involved in forming the 1,000 olfactory receptors we possess. In 2004, Doctors Buck and Axel won a Nobel Prize for explaining how these receptors enable us to recognize 10,000 different scents.


Two Clear Glass Bottles With Liquids

Richer Memory Formation

You can use scent to build more memorable memories. The next time you do something you enjoy, think about using scent to ingrain the memory deep in your mind.

Say you’re going on a vacation. Pick a scent — an essential oil, an herb, or a perfume — and designate it as the ‘special scent’ for your adventure. Regularly avail yourself of the scent throughout your travels. Later, sometime after returning home, break out your ‘special scent’ and see what happens. Memories — and the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that went with them — will wash over you, taking you back and helping you to relive the experience. Try this technique with special events, people, and anything else you want to remember.

Want to eternalize your memorable memories? Preserve them forever at My Stories Matter for free.

Dan
Hi, I’m Dan, the COO. I love dogs (especially mine), whiskey, and Muay Thai. I enjoy reading anything, including nutritional information, dissertations, and research papers.

https://www.mystoriesmatter.com/ ... y-and-proust-effect

Reader86

Day Six: Swann's Way, pp. 60-73

Saint-Hilaire is time recaptured itself, so that later, glimpsing "some hospital belfry, some convent steeple" in Paris reminiscent of the church in Combray, the narrator will "remain there in front of the steeple for hours, motionless, trying to remember, feeling deep in myself lands recovered from oblivion draining and rebuilding themselves."

https://proustproject.blogspot.c ... s-way-pp-60-73.html