In Session: In Search of Proust's Lost Time
Teaching Marcel Proust’s masterpiece À la Recherche du temps perdu is frequently described as “undeniably daunting” and “notoriously difficult.” A University of Virginia professor even called the task of teaching Proust to undergraduates “almost an impossible one.”
Nevertheless, MHC Professor of French Catherine LeGouis tackled the classic in her spring seminar, and nine intrepid souls signed up for a reading load that makes Anna Karenina look light. Not only did all students cover 1,200 tightly packed pages, en français, but two attempted all seven volumes of the Recherche.
And they liked it!
"His questions and conflicts about love and sufferance, the numerous descriptions of the subconscious and memories, and his sensationalism make Proust one of the most complex writers I have read, and I find the timelessness of his work inspiring and intriguing,” said Lauren Ray ’09. French language assistant Delphine Reminiac relished the books’ “exquisitely detailed” nature and said “the most rewarding experience in reading this work is the strange and beautiful sensation of living through my own past and memories.”
One afternoon, the class was analyzing book four, Sodome et Gomorrhe, and the discussion ranged from the nature of sexual encounters to the intricacies of the French class system. References were as disparate as Tolstoy, the Bible, and Brokeback Mountain. LeGouis speaks rapidly and precisely, gesticulating with her hands and drumming her fingers on the desk while waiting for students to respond.
And they do respond, with thoughtful comments delivered in mostly confident French.
In teaching Proust, LeGouis revived a French Department tradition carried on for decades by professors David Ellison and William Bell. LeGouis provides historical context, explains perplexing passages, and helps students notice recurring themes and interconnecting patterns throughout the massive work. “My goal is for them to read Proust seriously but comfortably, knowing that the ultimate aim of the course is their own pleasure for years to come,” said LeGouis. —E.H.W.
Learn More about the Course on Proust’s À la Recherche du temps perdu
Professor of French Catherine LeGouis, on her own history with reading Proust:
Proust is not my specialty (I do mostly nineteenth-century French and Russian comparative literature) and I had never read it in its entirety, although like most educated French people I had read the most popular parts of it. But I started to read it from beginning to end a couple of weeks after 9/11, when I picked up the complete one-volume edition of the Recherche in a Paris bookstore at a time in my life when all my values felt deeply shaken. I read it every morning for thirty minutes during the following eight months.
Then last year, while on sabbatical in Moscow, having already decided to teach this course, I reread the whole Recherche again, this time using the annotated four-volume Pléiade edition; this worked out really well. I never left my apartment without one of these smaller volumes in my bag, reading on the subway, or standing in lines, or waiting for people. This time I made it through the whole thing in six months, and I got far more out of it, not only because of all the scholarly notes, but also because I discovered Proust's amazing sense of humor, which shows up in almost every sentence.
But reading Proust as I went about my business in Moscow had a very Proustian unintended consequence: I embedded into my reading of the text innumerable instances of involuntary memory, so that now, rereading it for the third time as I prepare my classes, I keep associating various passages with, for example, waiting for a friend at the Kropotkinskaya metro station, or standing in line at the Eliseevsky grocery store on Tverskaya street.
Professor of French Catherine LeGouis, on teaching the course:
Quarterly: An article by a University of Virginia professor claimed that "it is difficult to imagine a modern literary style more off-putting to American undergraduates of the 21st century" [than Proust's]. Yet your students clearly find it enjoyable, funny, and meaningful to their contemporary lives. How, as a professor, have you tried to help these connections happen?
LeGouis: First of all, one mustn't underestimate Mount Holyoke students; they never cease to amaze me. I showed them that the Recherche reads like an almost universal catalog of the human emotions that we share. I also work at helping the students appreciate Proust's all-pervasive humor, wry, subtle, sometimes cynical; but mainly, love, loss, ambition, jealousy, and the struggle to grow up haven't changed that much.
Quarterly: Is this the first time you have taught Proust? (I know that Proust was a tradition earlier in the department's history.)
LeGouis: Yes, but I certainly hope it is not the last! I plan to keep developing this course and also hope to draw more 5-college students into it.
Quarterly: What's your estimate of how much of the Recherche all your students will have read by semester's end?
LeGouis: They are reading almost all of Swann in Love and Sodom and Gomorrah, and all of Time Regained, the last novel, which sums up the whole Recherche but in light of the destruction of the world of the previous six novels, since World War I has now taken place. They are also reading enough of the other four novels to have a sense of how all the main characters evolve. This comes to 1,200 of the 2,400 tightly-packed pages of the single-volume Gallimard edition.
Quarterly: What do you see as your most important role as professor in this class?
LeGouis: Teaching the students to see the recurring themes and interconnecting patterns. For example, in the segment we were examining in class last Thursday, whereas the explicit description of homosexuality was something new, by now the students have become adept at noticing recurrent patterns such as self-protective digressions immediately following emotionally loaded moments, or Proust's attention to the way time affects relationships.
Student comments on the Proust class:
~Lauren Ray ’09, French and English double major
Q: You mentioned that the books make you think about how things have changed since Proust's day. Could you give me a couple of examples? And is it hard to relate to Proust's prose because his world was so different from yours?
A: It is interesting to see how things have changed, and yet how the underlying ideas Proust addresses have remained the same. Through reading Proust under the guidance of Professor Catherine LeGouis, I have seen the timeless nature of his writing in terms of the themes and issues he addresses. In our class discussions as well as in our own personal readings, we bring together our interpretations and Catherine's explanations in order to understand the work in terms of when it was written and what issues [people] faced then, as well as what it means to current readers. Though the situations have changed and we currently are not sitting in parlors in Paris or the French countryside, we still are faced with many of the same problems.
Proust was a radical writer in his time. He blatantly addresses homosexuality in the Recherche, which was extreme in his time, [but] seems more commonplace to modern-day readers if they don't take into account the historical background of the work. He writes on anti-Semitic sentiments, which along with homosexuality, seem to tie in with greater ideas of identity and self-acceptance, as well as many others.
I had not found it hard to relate to Proust, for though the situations and times have changed, he addresses his topics in a way that makes them generally oriented and timeless. His questions and conflicts about love and sufferance, the numerous descriptions of the subconscious and memories, and his sensationalism makes Proust one of the most complex writers that I have had occasion to read, and I find the timelessness of his work inspiring and intriguing.
Q: The Recherche is rarely taught to undergraduates. Based on your experience, do you think it should be taught?
A: It is a very daunting task to take on teaching Proust to undergraduates and I am also very glad that I have had the opportunity to take this class. Proust’s Recherche is one of the works that I have constantly heard about and desired to read, but not really had the chance or the courage to take it on by myself, since most people say its one of the most complex books written. This is a very difficult read, especially in a foreign language, but also a very rewarding one, even for undergraduates, where, with the instructor's more knowledgeable assistance, we can begin to scratch the surface of the Recherche.
In reading Proust, I find the beauty of his language in the novel breathtaking and motivating me to read onward and discover his ideas overflowing throughout the text. The fact that Proust is so bursting with a plethora of idea is daunting, but also incredibly engaging and intriguing. I like the idea of an undergraduate course as a time to explore Proust for the first time and then use that to take a deeper and more lengthy look later on.
Catherine LeGouis told me after the first meeting that this course was not to absorb all of Proust and his ideas, but to let them bounce off you and experience him. That is one of the aspects of her teaching that I truly enjoy, that she makes reading our classes an interactive experience and shows us ways in which to understand and relate to the text, not only through our own current lives, but [also] through other great works by Joyce, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc. It is truly an eye-opening class to a challenging work that makes me feel like I have a starting point to take off from to further take on reading and understanding Proust. I would recommend it, for I have found great pleasure in not only the class discussion with Catherine, who brings so much to the table, but also because of the sense of satisfaction and enjoyment I feel when reading his complex and beautifully crafted thoughts. At points, it just astounds my mind with everything that this one book contains!
~Delphine Reminiac, French Department language assistant
Q: Being French, had you read the Recherche before this?
A: I had read the first chapters of the first novel of La Recherche but was too young to appreciate the nostalgia that is so beautifully illustrated by Marcel Proust. The more I read it, the more I'm convinced he is one of the greatest writers in the French language and that the Recherche is truly a masterpiece.
Q: Even though you're reading Proust in your native language, attempting to read all seven volumes of the Recherche is a huge undertaking in one semester. Will you finish? How many hours a day do you spend reading Proust?
A: The Recherche is extremely dense and the reading in this class is certainly more difficult than that in my American literature [course]. It is really important to keep up with the reading, and it takes me anywhere from one to sometimes even four hours a day. I expect to read them all, and I definitely plan to reread them at some point in my life.
Q: Does reading all the books of the Recherche make a difference in your understanding of Proust?
A: Though it is so difficult to get through all the books, I am very glad to have had the opportunity to read them all. And, yes, it does make a difference to read all the Recherche, because one novel is really far different from another. Proust's work is exquisitely detailed, and by reading the entire work one realizes both the evolution of the narrator and his characters; they are not static but living human beings. For example, Proust introduces new and seemingly insignificant characters in one novel which in another are fully developed. Another example, we see in the third novel the death of the narrator's grandmother, but the narrator doesn't come to terms with her death until the fourth novel.
Q: Is the Recherche commonly taught in French universities?
A: La Recherche is commonly taught in French universities, but rarely the entire thing. However, above all, the most rewarding experience for me reading this work is the strange and beautiful sensation of living through your own past and memories.
~Christine Yieleh-Chireh ’08, French and international relations double major
Q: You mentioned liking the way Proust connects to the real world of today. Could you give me an example?
A: Proust in La Recherche talks about a few love relationships, and two of the axioms that guide his story telling that I've found particularly interesting and very much applicable to the present are:
- The one who loves the most is the one who suffers the most.
- Love and suffering are inseparable.
Q: The Recherche is rarely taught to undergraduates. Do you think it should be taught?
A: Based on my experience so far, there has been good reason not to teach it at the undergraduate level in its entirety. I however think that it could be taught in smaller chunks. Say have just one class be about one of the novels. Yet I think so much will be lost by not having the remainder of the novels to enhance some of the points he emphasizes or the evolution of the characters we encounter.
Q: What makes the many hours you put in reading Proust worth the effort?
A: The satisfaction of being able to participate in class discussions and the feeling of community that we've built by being the "daring" group of students who are reading this daunting book.
~Leslie Feeney ’08, romance languages major with emphasis on French
Q: Does being French help you understand the historical/cultural aspects of the Recherche better than an American student would?
A: The Recherche is a challenging book, whether French or not, mostly because of the style of writing. I admit that even being [French], the beginning was pretty confusing because it is written in stream of consciousness. You try so hard to focus on understanding what it is going on that you miss the details. A few years ago, I had started reading the first book, but quickly gave up because it got too confusing. Now on a second read, things are a lot clearer and certainly Mme. LeGouis' teaching methods are of great help.
Besides the language, you mentioned historical and cultural context: I love being transported into a "romantic" Paris. The way he talks about and literature shows passion. He doesn't describe Paris as much, but just knowing that he walks on the Champs Élysées, at the end of the nineteenth century/beginning of the twentieth century, makes me imagine a Paris that I do not know. As for the customs, it is interesting to see how much they have changed in appearance only. Aristocratic families of today, I am sure, are just as "picky snobs" as they once were, the adolescents still as precocious...
Q: What, to you, is most important or memorable about this course?
A: I am glad I am taking this course for many reasons. First of all, having previously taken a whole course on Les Misérables with the same professor, I knew what I was getting myself into. Second, I am able to say, proudly, that I have read almost all of the Recherche (other classes impeding the privilege of reading it fully), something most French people have not done, at least not the average French. And thirdly because Proust is an author that merits more attention. Once you understand his methods of writing, his ways of thinking, the reading is easier. Plus in a small group such as ours, it is definitely easier.
