Episode notes
Hosts Emma Claussen and Hannah Weaver join the narrator for one last search for lost time, rejoicing with him as he finds it by stumbling on a paving stone in the courtyard of the Princesse de Guermantes's house, and dreams about the book he finally knows he can write – if he can only live long enough. The shadow of mortality is cast not only by the Great War, which ends some time before this 'regaining' of lost time, but in the iconic 'bal des têtes' scene in which the narrator suddenly notices that he and everyone else he knows has gotten older as time has passed. We giddily discuss…
Podcast
Proust Curious
Emma Claussen and Hannah Weaver · Arts & Books · English
Proust Curious is a podcast about the experience of reading À la recherche du temps perdu – all seven volumes. Written between 1906 and 1922, published between 1913 and 1927, Marcel Proust’s cultural touchstone is an object of enduring fascination and, let’s face it, intimidation. Hosted by Emma C
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E8 · 10 Dec 2024 · 45 min
Beyond the Recherche
Join your hosts Emma Claussen and Hannah Weaver for a bonus episode discussing the lasting influence of Proust on today's literary culture. We discuss memoirs, translations, and the transformative power of Proust, particularly two books that profoundly influenced our reading: Laure Murat's Proust, roman familial (forthcoming in English as Proust, A Family Romance) and Maria Stepanova's In Memory of Memory. Plus, we reveal what we appreciate in friends in our final round of the Proust Questionnaire.
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E6 · 25 Nov 2024 · 56 min
The Fugitive / Albertine disparue
This is the volume of Albertine's disappearance, first from the narrator's home, then from life, and finally from the narrator's memory. Hosts Emma Claussen and Hannah Weaver contemplate Proust's extended meditation on oblivion, love, jealousy, grief, and death. We discuss the careful rhythm of the volume, the transitory nature of the self, and the proliferation of doubles and specters. We travel to Venice, which for once disappoints us more than it does the narrator. Plus, we answer the question, "What is your favorite occupation?" Join us as we search for lost time and remember things…
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E5 · 11 Nov 2024 · 57 min
The Captive / La prisonnière
Having returned to Paris with the narrator, hosts Emma Claussen and Hannah Weaver enter the claustrophobic and surveilled world of the household he has set up with his object of obsession, Albertine. In concert with the narrator, we ask: What does it mean to love someone? How (or to what extent) can we know anybody? How could jealousy be the key to understanding time? Plus, we'll answer the question, "What gift of nature would you like to have?" Join us as we search for lost time and remember things Proust. Resources: Proust Questionnaire…
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E4 · 28 Oct 2024 · 54 min
Sodom and Gomorrah / Sodome et Gomorrhe
Join hosts Emma Claussen and Hannah Weaver for the fourth installment of Proust Curious. Perhaps more than the previous volumes, this volume really has an overriding theme: sexuality, and particularly homosexuality. The book comes back time and time again to the narrator's fearful but obsessional interest in homosexuality, which swings violently in tone from condemnation to detached amusement. It worries over the tangled relationship between jealousy and love. But it also turns a page in the calendar of feeling as a physical action leads the narrator to remember his beloved, dead grandmother…
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E3 · 14 Oct 2024 · 54 min
The Guermantes Way/ Le côté de Guermantes.
Hosts Emma Claussen and Hannah Weaver enter the glamorous and bleak world of fin-de-siècle Paris through the ironic gaze of the narrator. With new access to the chicest salons, their witty denizens, and their gauche intruders, the narrator finds himself a spectator at the drama of social interaction – even as his beloved grandmother grows sick and dies. We talk about the advent of new technology (the telephone) and hot debates (the Dreyfus affair). As he enters the world of salons, the narrator uncovers the relativity of truth and the hypocrisy of society through the lens of the Affair, the…
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E2 · 30 Sep 2024 · 52 min
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower / À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs
In the second episode of Proust Curious, hosts Emma Claussen and Hannah Weaver slog through the narrator's first love on the Champs-Élysées and emerge onto the dazzling shore of Normandy, where he travels with his grandmother. We notice that Proust begins to introduce concepts critical to the project: the ongoing tussle between habit and novelty, the social kaleidoscope, the subject matter of art, and the essential perspectivalism of all human relations. We dissect a passage about toenails, classical statuary, and living nymphs. Plus, we'll answer the question: "What is your favorite…
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