Marcel Proust Archives - Wolfie Wolfgang

Wolfie in Paris 2025 – 2026 Part Eight – au revoir.

Colin Bell — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 18:43:00 +0000

Arts ancient and modern, some sight-seeing and two great writers’ beds

I’ve been looking through the photographs of my two trips to Paris, in June and July 2025 and then again in February this year, as I bring my eight Parisian blogs to a conclusion. It’s been like going on holiday all over again – take a look over the previous ones and see how this ever fascinating city, deserves its reputation at the most visited tourist attraction in the world. I have visited its great art and exhibition galleries, the Opéra Bastille, the jazz club, 38Riv, and the miraculously restored cathedral of Notre-Dame for an organ recital, and, of course, as this is Paris, I visited a number of splendid restaurants and cafés. I never went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but I often saw it out there as I walked round the city.

They say the best view of Paris is from the top of the Eiffel Tower – if you don’t want to see it all the time.

Palais de Tokyo

Palais de Tokyo, 1937, Museums of Modern and Contemporary Art

Echo Delay Reverb – American Art, French Thought – an accessibly cerebral exhibition exploring the relationship between French writers and philosophers and American artists from 1970 to the present, with installations, photographs, videos, sculptures, sound works and a collection of archives, highlighting the figures, institutions and publishing houses that played a key role in the dissemination of French-language ideas in the United States. Plus a retrospective exhibition of the works of sculptor Melvin Edwards (1937 – 2026).

Homage to the Poet Leon-Gontran Damas, 1978-1981, by Melvin Edwards

Adeoli Goacoba, 1988, by Melvin Edwards

Drips and Drabs, 2009, by Fred Wilson

Untitled (n°142), 1982 by Cindy Sherman,

Street Fashion: Basic Gay (from the series Gay Semiotics), 1977, by Hal Fischer

Meleko Mokgosi, Spaces of Subjection: Imaging Imaginations I, 2022

Two Cubes, One Cube Rotated 45 Degrees'(1986) by Dan Graham

Within the Veil, a grammar, 2025, by Caroline Kent

Institut du monde arabe (Arab World Insitute)

Institut du monde arabe (Arab World Institute), 1987, Architect Jean Nouvel

Trésors sauvés de Gaza (Treasures Saved from the Gaza Strip ) the pieces in the exhibition come mainly from the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève which, since 2007, has stored over 500 works belonging to the Palestinian National Authority, artefacts that have been unable to return to their homeland.

Walking round Paris

Tuileries Garden

Sacrée-Coeur Basilica

The Conciergerie Museum and the Pont Neuf

St Valentine’s Day street scene

Pont Neuf

Sur le Pont Neuf

Palais Garnier, (Opéra Garnier), 1875, architect Charles Garnier. Now one of the two theatres, with Opéra Bastille, of the Opéra National de Paris. These days The Garnier is used mainly for ballet, the Bastille for opera.

Grand staircase inside the Palais Garnier

Gallerie Lafayette Haussmann, 1893, architects Georges Chedanne and Ferdinand Chanut.

For all the grandeur, le shopping is still le shopping.

From the roof of the Galerie Lafayette Haussmann

Haussmann’s Paris

Back to Le Marais

Saint-Paul métro station is an eight minutes walk from the apartment in Le Marais where I stayed on both trips to Paris, and now it feels like home.

Encore Le Marais!

My local café, La Petite Place, is just round the corner, and my dojo, the little park where I do my martial arts practice is at the end of my street. This whole area is definitely my patch.

Round the next corner is the Musée Picasso Paris,

and at the other end of my street is the Musée Carnavalet, the History of Paris Museum, which tells the dramatic and world-changing history of the city itself in numerous rooms of well-curated objects and art-works.

I didn’t realise until I visited here that the museum is custodian of all the furniture from one of my hero’s Marcel Proust’s bedroom, which is famous because most of Proust’s masterwork, the novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), was written here, literally on this bed, between 1913 and 1937. He wrote in bed, not because he was a lazy near-do-well, even though he was often misdiagnosed as a hypochondriac, but because he was a life-long sufferer of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a still uncurable genetic disease of the connective tissues.

The furniture was moved here from Proust’s last home in Paris, the apartment where he died in 1922. The building is now the Hotel Elysée Union, 44 rue Hamelin, 16e, Paris.

Proust’s last home, 44 rue Hamelin, 16e, Paris, now a hotel.

If we remember only one passage from Proust’s novel it is the so-called madeleine moment when he dips a small madeleine cake into his tea and he’s immediately overwhelmed by what is known as involuntary memory. After visiting Proust’s bedroom, I had to experience my own madeleine moment in a nearby café.

I can’t claim to have been overwhelmed in the same way as Proust was, but I was flooded with memories of reading the whole of his wonderful novel, the longest ever written, at around 1.3 million words, one of my life ambitions fulfilled around ten years ago. Here’s that passage in French and English:

“And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray… my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane.

No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me.

And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was me.”

“Et tout d’un coup le souvenir m’est apparu. Ce goût c’était celui du petit morceau de madeleine que le dimanche matin à Combray… ma tante Léonie m’offrait après l’avoir trempé dans son infusion de thé ou de tilleul.

Mais à l’instant même où la gorgée mêlée des miettes du gâteau toucha mon palais, un frisson me parcourut, attentif à ce qui se passait d’extraordinaire en moi.

Il m’avait aussitôt rendu les vicissitudes de la vie indifférentes, ses désastres inoffensifs, sa brièveté illusoire, de la même façon qu’opère l’amour, en me remplissant d’une essence précieuse : ou plutôt cette essence n’était pas en moi, elle était moi.”

Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922)

Still in Le Marais, and near to my apartment, is the grandest, the leafiest and the oldest square in Paris, Place des Vosges. If there’s room on the grass on a pleasant summer’s day, it’s a lovely place for a picnic. Sometimes though it can be a bit cheek by jowl.

In the far corner of the square, under the arches was the last home of France’s most famous novelist, Victor Hugo, he of Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame fame. The building is now the Victor Hugo museum. If, like me, you are a geek in these things, a visit to the great man’s house is a must.

He lived, sumptuously at the end of his life here at No. 6, Place des Vosges. I thought I’d pay a visit.

Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885)

It did feel spooky, in a good way, to walk round this beautifully preserved apartment, with its high 19th century decor, on a day when the museum was almost empty. It really did feel like Victor Hugo could have walked in at any moment. His writing quill was in place on his desk and I could imagine him writing Les Miserables here with just the ticking of a stately clock to break the silence.

And then there was his bedroom with the grand four-poster bed where he died 22 May 1885. I have to admit that I felt a shiver down my spine.

The passing of large personalities leave its mark, I believe, and I could definitely feel some of his charisma still lingering here over his bed.

Victor Hugo on his deathbed, 1885. Photograph taken by the pioneer photographer Félix Nadar. (1820 – 1910)

Nadar’s son, Paul, accompanied his father to take this photograph and, in 1928, he gave this eye-witness report to the film-director Carlo Rim (1902 – 1989):

“Hugo laid out on his great big four-poster bed, his nightshirt and pillow all wrinkled, his hair on end, his rather large nose not yet emaciated by death. An old worker sleeping peacefully after an honest day’s work. My father had not wished to carry a lot of material. Victor Hugo’s deathbed photo was taken by nothing but daylight and lamplight… The last time his face was lit was by the sun… This shot, taken by my weeping father, may well be his masterpiece… ”

So that is about it for my memoir about two of my visits to Paris since June 2025. Looking back at the photographs has allowed me to return to a city that I hope to revisit regularly and often from my home on the other side of the English Channel, or as they say in France, La Manche.

Back in the Le Marais apartment, after all that walking, I fancied a little lie-down, but after visiting the death-beds of two writers, I hesitated before closing my eyes. Au revoir Paris, et merci.

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Out in my Lewes garden – rain or shine.

wolf01 — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 08:56:00 +0000

We’ve been having a superb summer here in Lewes, UK and my small urban garden has repsonded appropriately with garlands of flowers and vibrant greenery. I’ve been reduced to a bit of dead-heading, some fruit picking and the odd bit of weeding.

Otherwise, I’ve allowed myself to sit back and enjoy it while I get on with my Kindle journey through Marcel Proust’s In Search Of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu) – I’m now half way through the punultimate volume and I too have lost track of the time.

I should have been doing my summer pruning now that my David Austin roses have finished their fist flush but it is all done with amazing speed and efficiency and now presents a fine hedge awaiting next months second batch of flowers.

This is all thanks to my danger-seeking neighbour, Harvey, who has bought himself some ferocious-looking electronic cutting gear including a hedge-strimmer which did my job in seconds. I decided that I would experiemtn with this method after reading that even David Austin says we can do it. It certainly cuts down on the several hours I usually spend cutting stem by stem with my secateurs. It was not a good idea anyway to prune the roses while I’m on anti-coagulant Warfarin tablets because my roses, love them as I do, are unforgiving with their thorns and, these days, my scratches turn into real flows of blood.

So my thanks to Harvey and I can return to my Proust – nothing like the peace and tranquility of n English garden on a hot summer afternoon.

Then, of course, well after so many weeks of sunshine and high temperatures, the inevitable happened. Thunder, lightning and torrential rain. Then again, that can be fun too.

I shan’t be sitting out here again today, I suspect.

Watering the garden might be unnecessary too.

Warm rain on a summer morning is pleasant enough but that lighning has to be watched.

I made a hasty retreat indoors but then it was time I went back to my computer to get on with my own writing.

I’m sure the sunshine will be back and then I shall try to resume my work alfresco.

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Marcel Proust’s rudeness and Lazarus’ shock are the themes for my two newly published Fibonacci poems.

wolf01 — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Maybe we don’t take madeleine cakes enough with weak black tea. I’ve only had the proper French version of these little cakes once but I can see why the French novelist Marcel Proust (1871–1922) rated them so highly in his massive seven volume novel In Search of Lost Time ( À la recherche du temps perdu). In the first volume of the novel, Swann’s Way (Du côté de chez Swann) (1913), the central character, Marcel, experiences what’s known as involuntary memory when he tastes one of the cakes dipped into his tea. It opens his memory to scenes of his childhood which begin the epic and apparently sprawling work that is the longest novel in any language. I’m currently on the third volume The Guermantes Way (Le Côté de Guermantes) (1920/1921) – I’m reading it on my Kindle in the English Moncheiff/Hudson/Kilmartin translation but also, from time to time, comparing the text with the original French which is, sadly, above my reading abilities. I hope to finish this self-imposed but highly enjoyable project by the end of the year.

Why are you telling me this? I hear you ask. Well, some time ago, I decided to write a Fibonacci poem about the Proust’s madeleine cake incident, imagining what he might have said to me if we were to have met. I’m afraid I imagined our meeting as being uncomfortable and, on his side, rather sneering in the manner occasionally taken when French intellectuals talk to the English.

Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

I liked the idea of writing an extremely short poem in the Fibonacci arithmetical system in answer to the epic-writer Proust’s imagined put-down. At the weekend, the poem, Time Past, along with another of my new Fibs, was published in Musepie Press’s 17th issue of the excellent Fibonacci journal, The Fib Review.

If you’d like to read my poem, here’s the link:

http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/colin_bell1.html

The Raising of Lazarus, c. 1609 by Caravaggio. Museo Regionale, Messina

The second Fibonacci poem is Lazarus. It is also about my memory of a vivid moment. Lazarus was the man Jesus brought back from the dead in one of his most dramatic miracles. I had often wondered what it must have actually felt like to find yourself relaunched into life in such a startling way. The thought returned to me once when I was being discharged from hospital after a serious illness. Here’s a link to my poem:

http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/colin_bell2.html

My thanks, once more, are due to Mary-Jane Grandimetti, the editor of The Fib Review, for choosing to publish my work yet again. I have had poems in this publication thirteen consecutive issues. I’m now putting my mind to writing some more poetry in this style where the syllable or word count has to correspond to Fibonacci’s sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34. Maybe you should have a go too.

———————————————————————————————–

STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love

The post Marcel Proust’s rudeness and Lazarus’ shock are the themes for my two newly published Fibonacci poems. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

I’ve taken to my bed like Marcel Proust

wolf01 — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 16:26:00 +0000

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) – altered image by Donald Langosy

I’ve taken to my bed with the ‘flu and, mostly, it’s been an unpleasant affair and I’ve not been nearly as productive as that most famous bed-loafer, Marcel Proust (1871-1922) who lay propped up in bed all day writing the later sections of his seven volume novel À la recherche du temps perdu.

Proust’s handwritten manuscript for À la recherche du temps perdu

It doesn’t do for neat writing as you can see in Proust’s bedroom style – messy. He might have had even worse handwriting than mine. I’ve done some writing in my notebook but I may not be able to read my handwriting when I recover.

I started out in this bedroom exile with just some drugs and a glass of water but as I’ve begun to feel better, it’s felt right to use my bed-ridden state the Proustian way and to continue my reading of his massive novel on my Kindle (In Search of Lost Time translated by Monchrieff/Kilmartin/Enright, 1992).

I think Proust got up in the evenings for some gentle socializing so, continuing in Proustian style, well, I have to get into the spirit of the book, the last couple of evenings, after finally finishing one of his extremely long sentences, sentences that can meander along with many sub-clauses for page after page, after finding a final and much needed paragraph ending, I’ve descended to the bottom of the house for some other medicine, discovering that a fine full-bodied red wine in front of a log fire can produce all sorts of pleasant sensations.

I hope that this style of recuperation will work and that I shall feel better long before I get to the end of Proust’s 4215 page epic.

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Walking cross-country to an Italian Beach with Marcel Proust, Cecilia Bartoli and Joni Mitchell

wolf01 — Fri, 05 Jul 2013 11:02:00 +0000

I was constantly tempted to explore the countryside when I took in the view from my roof garden of the house that I rented for my holiday in the Italian village of Gabicce Monte in Emilia-Romagna -tempting though it was to stay in the tranquil environment of my own space. Trips to Italy have to take in the art galleries, the architecture, the food and the wine, naturally, to say nothing of the sun and the sea, but the countryside is also pretty spectacular. So I came down from my rooftop to explore the national park of San Bartolo that lay there at my doorstep.

The temperatures were hot for an Englishman and, being car-less, the journey had to be taken on foot but, as I’ve discovered since having to give up driving, it is at walking pace that you really see the countryside in its many details but I tried to keep out of the sun as much as possible by walking on the shadowy side of the paths and roads sheltering under my trusty hat.

I had seen from my roof that there was another beach on the other side of these hills, one that looked a great deal more interesting than the rather tame resort atmosphere of Gabicce Mare. I had decided to find it in this wonderful part of Italy where vast areas of green open out onto Adriatic blue.

The weather had turned hot just before I arrived in Italy after the whole of Europe had been suffering from a miserably cold Spring but there were compensations now because the countryside looked fresh and green.

The green was punctuated with dashes of yellow from the many bushes of broom that were in full flower while I was there.

Part of the way was by footpath but I also joined small and mostly empty winding roads where the only people I saw were passing and necessarily fit cyclists.

Now, in gaps between the trees, I could see the Adriatic Sea in the distance looking somehow more blue because of the green.

Then more cyclists who may be challenged by these hills but who usually greeted the straggling English pedestrian with a friendly “salve!” or even the less formal “ciao!”

This road is known as the Strada Panoramico Adriatica and is a great favourite for competitive cyclists and up here in the hills, they were more of them than walkers.

I was perfectly happy at my gentler pace even though I was more than a bit envious of the fitness these cyclists showed tackling the unforgiving hills in this heat. I was tempted to come back another year and to see how well I could cope. You can tell that cylcling is a big deal in these parts because and the other end of this road, as it descends into Gabicce Mare, there’s a lively example of graffiti cyclisti.

Walking though allowed me to stop and to admire the wild flowers that were still growing in abundance along the sides of the road. Another advantage of being in Italy on the cusp between Spring and Summer.

The small gardens that I passed showed just how casually cultivated plants grow in these parts too like this cliff top rose garden that gave me my first view of my beach destination at Vallugola Bay.

On another day I was to see the beach from out at sea where I could put it into geographical context and see that it really was far from the madding crowd.

Now, though, I was ready to lie back on one of those sunbeds on a beach that was still remarkably free of tourists considering the perfect weather.

Italy does beaches well and, even though this was a relatively remote spot, civilised comforts were easily hired. Inevitably, as this is Italy and we weren’t near any towns, most of the sun-worshippers had arrived by motorbike.

I deserved a little lie down so it was just a question of booking my space for another pleasure that brings me every year to Italy – lying by the sea on long sunny days.

First though I needed one of those rather smart umbrellas.

Much better.

Then it was really only a matter of self-indulgent relaxation. It took me a long time to discover the pleasures of lulling around on beaches but now it’s become an annual necessity. All I needed was some good coffee, a little shade and my now indispensable Kindle reading machine where daily copies of The Times of London and the The York Times were delivered by clicking a button.

My main reading experience this holiday was the great epic À la recherche du temps perdu – In Search of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past) by Marcel Proust (1871-1922) in the English translation by C.K. Scott Monchrieff. A massive novel (or really seven novels) written between 1909 and his death in 1922.

So not very Italian, this great French masterpiece that studies memories involuntarily brought into our conscious state by moments such as the famous incident early in the series when the author tastes a madeleine cake with his tea. When finishing the book, the notoriously nocturnal Proust spent three years mostly lying in bed during daylight hours writing. I thought it was appropriate enough then to read it lying down even if I was allowing more than a bit of daylight onto my skin.

Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922)

The morbidly nocturnal Marcel Proust was remarkably unlike the two charmingly lively salvataggi (life guards) at Vallugola beach but reading his languorous, long-limbed prose in such a setting, I could imagine Monsieur Proust lying out there on one of those sunbeds conjuring images of moodily timeless Summer days.

Proust is a good awakener of our senses and it was not long before I was drawn to the pleasures of swimming in warm Southern European waters.

It isn’t really very surprizing that human beings like hanging out on beaches.

Soon I was venturing in, delighted to find that the water had been prepared by some mythical butler to the perfect temperature. If only our sea was like that in England.

Adriatic Sea, I’m missing you already.

So there it was, the sun, the sea, some coffee and my Kindle. What else could I possibly crave? Well, music of course. Luckily I had my iPod with me stocked up with holiday listening.

This year it was the always inspiring Joni Mitchell and, new to me, her powerfully moving and very beautiful album Turbulent Indigo (1994) (my Summer project is my own private Proust and Mitchell festival). Those of you who know might think I’m dodging “the light like Blanche Dubois” but then, I’m reading Proust so no apologies. Turbulent Indigo will now, in true Proustian style, conjure up images of Italian beaches. I had to have some Italian music with me too though and the exciting Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli came up with the answer just for me when she released her thrilling new recording of what is possibly my favourite opera: Norma (1831) by the Sicilian composer Vincenzo Bellini (1801 -1835).

Vincenzo Bellini (1801 – 1835)

It might not be perfect (what is?) but Cecilia Bartoli’s version of this glorious music is genuinely thrilling and, also as Proust would expect, Bellini’s aria, Casta Diva, about the Moon will now always remind me of bright golden sunlight on warm Italian waters. More Italian experiences next week.

Cecilia Bartoli

Meanwhile, I’m getting into gear for the imminent publication (in October) of my novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

You can already pre-order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love

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