Our Visit to Illiers-Combray

Our family visited France this summer, and -- in an act of utter selflessness for the benefit of the Proust reading group, of course -- we made a pilgrimage to the town Proust called "Combray."

It was a gorgeous day, and I am happy to report that Combray (actually Illiers, now renamed Illiers-Combray) more than lived up to our expectations.

What follows are some photos of Aunt Léonie's house, the Méséglise way, the Guermantes way, the steeples of the church of St.-Hilaire. Even the Narrator's beloved hawthorns make an appearence!

So come along with us...

How nifty to have a real location from your childhood (the village of lliers, which Proust visited only occasionally between the ages of 9 and 15) go so far as to hypenate its name, on the centenary of your birth, to reflect your fictional recreation of it! This sign strikes me as a very specific example of Proust's theme of the enormous power of the imagination to transform the world around us.

Here is Aunt Léonie's house, seen from its enclosed garden.

This is the dining room (my thoughts went to those Saturday lunches the Narrator mentions, which, when changed to an earlier hour than usual, 11 rather than noon, made the whole day seem fresh and promising).

The living room. Note the security, wearing bright orange, keeping a sharp eye on the visitors (who, curiously, never stopped moving).

The kitchen, where Francoise would have worked on her creations (cold beef in aspic anyone?).

Aunt Léonie's bedroom.

Proust's bedroom, the scene of the goodnight kiss!

The view out Proust's bedroom window, looking down on the garden. We can imagine him gazing at the grown-ups having dinner below, while silently pleading for his mother to come upstairs.

The salon and writing room on the ground floor.

The colored-glass window (mentioned by the Narrator).

The gardens along the Méséglise (Swann's) way.

The Guermantes way?

The gardener's cottage (perhaps this is the cottage near to where the Narrator first encounters Gilberte?).

Hawthorns!

The children decided to crush hawthorn berries and spread them on their cheeks... to frighten Mom and Dad.

Fun!

Adeline, beginning her novel.

Renée,  finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. Above the garden lay a vista of wheat fields.

The steeples of the church of St.-Jacques in Illiers-Combray (St.-Hilaire in the novel). Notice the two steeples, which the Narrator describes as merging into one as they recede from view.

A helpful sign for parents of young children destined to write 4000-page novels based on the walks they took on this path. No doubt it dates back to the 1880s when Proust would have visited.

 

Comments

[Lucie]

Thanks for the photos! It really does look like I imagined it would.

[Diane]

Beautiful and romantic scenery. It seems Europeans have a secret of persverving beauty that we in America are hard pressed to appreciate, learn and accomplish. Great shots of the children too! Fun stuff!

[Heather]

Ah the dangers of seeing the 'real' Combray. Oh my precious mind pictures! How they fade like a dream when faced with waking reality...(and what lovely photos of that reality).

[Marcelita Swann]

I keep returning to your vist to Illiers-Combray...the children echo Marcel and Robert's curiosity, surrounded by nature. It's also rare to see a photograph of a nearby wheatfield.

"Adrien Proust used to lead his sons Marcel and Robert south of Illiers, out towards Vieuvicq and Tansonville, passing 'fields of wheat undulating under the sharp wind that seemed to arrive in a straight line from Chartres.'"
http://www.proust-ink.com/proustiana/guermantes.html

"...the Guermantes way with its river full of tadpoles, its water-lilies and buttercups, formed for me for all time the contours of the countrysides where I would like to live, where I demand above all else that I may go fishing, drift about in a boat, see ruins of Gothic fortifications and find among the wheatfields a church, like Saint- Andre-des-Champs, monumental, rustic and golden as a haystack; and the cornflowers, the hawthorns, the apple trees that I still happen, when traveling, to come upon in the fields..." Volume 1 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Marcel Proust; Lydia Davis.

"A passing breath of air, more fragrant than the rest, seemed to bring me a message from her, as, long ago, from Gilberte in the wheatfields of Méséglise."
"The Guermantes Way" by Marcel Proust (Modern Library)

Naturally, your "Reading Proust in Berekley" is one of my favorite blogs. Sadly, not one of our Eastern reading groups serve wine, but I think a member of the Proust Society in Boston (Hollie Harder's led groups at the Boston Athenaeum) visited last year and came back with tales.

I recently visited Illiers-Combray, but felt a desire to return to your memories...to see my own.

[Tom]

Marcelita, I'm so glad to hear that you return to the images of Illiers-Combray -- and to the blog. Are you currently reading (or rereading)? We are taking a two month break from our reading group over the summer, and I am finding that I am missing it more than I expected. Somehow reading Proust has become a kind of unlikely ballast in my life, and without it I am reeling back and forth between books on physics (Krauss' "A Universe from Nothing," Smolin's "Time Reborn"), Tolstoy's lesser novels (just came to the strange conclusion of "Family Happiness") and, last night at least, the poems of Emily Dickenson. Keep writing in, and convince those Eastern Proust groups to loosen up!

[Marcelita Swann]

Tom,
I am re-reading, in both New York and Boston; two groups in each city, where I meet the most interesting readers (through their eyes....).

Thinking my fellow Boston-Proustian may have attended Mark Calkin's group at the Mechanics' Institute Library instead of yours.
(I believe your group is "closed" and only for parents.)

So excited that you are finishing "The Fugitive" and will soon be transformative territory, "Time Regained," or some have claimed.

This Thursday will be an electric night in New York, as Harold Pinter's "The Proust Screenplay" will be read for the first time in public-in America.
http://www.92y.org/Event/Pinter-PROUST.aspx

Just watched Percy Aldon's film "Céleste." Hard to find, with English subtitles, but my favorite of all the features. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hVEjVdLH78
Also, look for the short film, "La Part Céleste." http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xstb5t_extrait-2-du-film-la-part-celeste-de-thibaut-gobry_news (Part 2/3)

Either of these would be appropriate for the group's grand farewell.
This is why I am in so many groups, no farewells....we just return to "Swann's Way." ;)

[Tom]

Marcelita, our group is not closed and certainly not parents only! If you can extend your Boston-New York axis to make the triangle point of Berkeley, please join us for a meeting. Thank you for those links -- I will check them out. It is true, we are beginning to wonder how best to commemorate the last meeting, which I believe will be this May. We may watch a Proust-themed film. Or we may simply have a dinner and reminisce.

[Marcelita Swann]

Tom~
What a journey!
I found your closing words bittersweet.
"I will miss you all. Thank you so much for being so passionate, so painful, so genuine, so dedicated, so kind, so fierce, so intelligent and so delightful a group of human beings as we grappled with this novel."

Will you continue to keep this reading blog online for future Proustians?
It's such a treasure....not unlike "performance art." ;)

Please reassure Florence that Marcel Proust valued a genuine friendship.
“I am not one of those who think that friendships, however rare they may be, should be easily gathered or discarded along the way." MP

Oh, if interested, your group members may wish to become "passive participants" in a Proust event in France, on July 4, 2014, with Laurence Grenier.
http://proustpourtous.over-blog.com/2014/05/cherche-proustiens-looking-for-proustians.html

If you ever visit New York, with or without your charming children, a cup of tea is waiting.
So grateful,
Marcelita Swann

[Tom]

Thank you Marcelita! We are having withdrawal pains. I find that even my notes in the margins of Woolf's The Voyage Out are filled with references to Proust ("Just like Odette!").

Please stay in touch and let us know of Proust events like the one on July 4. And if you are in the Bay Area, let me know. I would love to have you over for a cup of tea out here as well, and hear about your far-flung explorations in Proust... and how you came up with your name… All best, Tom