MDDM Ch. 58 Young Nathe

[Paul Mackin]

Yes, I certainly agree that young Nathe is no young Marcel. The former might
even be considered a parody of the latter.  Not sure about this.

The theme of the pretty young country girl is found in volume I as well--from
his travels around about Combray.  Also in volume II the young girl theme is
prominent with regard to Albertine and her girlfriends, the title of the volume
of course referring the M's fascination with young girls in first bud. Of
course Albertine is very much a city, not a country, girl. The title of the
volume in English is "Within a Budding Grove."

My association of 'dairymaid' (the word itself)  with the milking of cows may
be a personal hangup. Both Pynchon and Proust refer most overly to the selling
not the production of milk However the overtones the word may have to the young
man may be important to both authors. Something like that.

P.

Clément Levy wrote:

> Paul Mackin à dit à ÒRe: MDDM Ch. 58 Young NatheÓ.
> [2002/06/18 17:17:11]
>
> > Think you might well be onto something, Clement. By way of research I
> > checked
> > the English translation of Proust and found the word 'milk-girl' rather
> > than
> > the more picturesque 'milkmaid' or 'dairymaid' is used by way of rendering
> > Proust's words.  Is this because P's narrator  emphasizes her milk-
> > selling role
> > with 'la 'marchande de lait'  rather than with what must have been her
> > cow-milking duties as well? Seems to me that the English word milkmaid (or
> > dairymaid) tends at least  slightly to connote the latter function.
> > There was,
> > and maybe still is, the  prominent tradename of "Diarymaid," which I think
> > might have pictured a girl with a cow.  Does anyone remember it?
> >
> > But more important to your point, I do think that the way young Marcel
> > sees the
> > tall beautiful girl from the window of the train  to Balbec as a concrete
> > embodiment of the dream and possibility of happiness is quite similiar to
> > the
> > way young Nathe, who knows little yet of the opposite sex,  views his own
> > milkmaids.
> >
> > P.
>
> Hi Paul, I think you got the point. The important thing is erotick in this
> figur of young girl selling milk. I did a mistake as it's in the beginning
> of the second part of A l'ombre, that the young story-teller goes to
> Balbec, but you looked at the right place. The difference lies in the fact
> that Pynchon's milkmaids or diarymaids (I don't know English as much as
> being able to understand these differences) seem to follow the Party (or am
> I wrong?) whereas Proust's one simply waits for the train to stop at the
> station.
> The young man of A la recherche still believes that any country has got its
> particular type of girls in which the whole landscape, country's flowers or
> fruits or anything that grows there are resumed. I'm not sure that the
> young MacClean is such an "esthète" (a kind of tourist aswell, don't you
> think so? there's something of the Baedeker in these types of girls for
> every place in a country).
> Didn't you remember of the Vermeer portrait, which in France we use to call
> La Laitière (milkmaid properly, I guess)?
> Good-bye.
> Clément