"Should I call this book a novel? It is something less, perhaps, and yet much more, the very essence of my life, with nothing extraneous added, as it developed through a long period of wretchedness. This book of mine has not been manufactured: it has been garnered." - Marcel Proust, "Jean Santeuil" (1896-1990, pub.1952).
Marcel Proust is the author of the largest published novel in history. Told in seven parts, Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" needs 4,215 pages to tell its story of Proust going from living in dreamworlds of his own creation, to discovering that reality deals in both far more details and blows to the conscious mind. While reflecting on his childhood (which he refers to as "lost time"), Proust unearths the gamut of emotions from disappointment and loss. While it is regarded as a difficult book (most readers recommend at least the first couple of volumes to merely grapple with his use of language), each volume is like breaking through another of the concentric circles that lead to melding minds with Proust.
Proust suffered from illness as a child and took refuge in his writing. He could have easily ascended into the upper classes on his own, but his vivid imagination and lack of commitment prevented this. (Proust best illustrates his wanting to be accepted by the vaunted Duke and Duchess in "Things Past" only to find out they are shallow and selfish like everyone else). Between 1896 and 1900, Proust was working on a novel that would posthumously be called "Jean Santeuil." After first writing at school, then establishing his own literary magazine, Proust began with short stories (compiled in "Les plaisirs et les jours") that were the daydreams of an unhappy law student. Passage of time is key here, but so are the skies during the change of seasons, and harmony in nature. While these are typically the first waves of post-Romantic prose/poetry for nascent writers, Proust's lengthy sentences and stream-of-consciousness style are taking shape. Most notably, Proust combines three separate stories about his protagonist Honore into a slight preview of the "Things Past" novel that is coming. ("I let myself take my time; I was sometimes sorry to see time passing, but there was still so much of it ahead of me").
While some of the works in "Les plaisirs et les jours" were actually unedited, the three-volumes that comprise "Jean Santeuil" remain rough around the edges. Proust is now beginning to tell his story in these sketches of his childhood. The innocence and wide-eyed wonder regarding nature that dot both his previous work and the massive "Things Past" are central to his writing are present. However, composed in more vignette-style divisions, the passage of time is easier to digest. While "Things Past" that actually looks to blur the past, the present, and the aforementioned dreamworld in lengthy passages that pull them together, "Jean Santeuil" deals in the familiarity of our loves and lives.
Within the bounds of our commonalities, the fuzziness of memory emerges naturally. Musical pieces bring back vivid memories that are striking in their detail. Then, Proust dives further as a single smell opens the door on an entire period of his life that has been reductively packed together. This "unfolding" of the subconscious mind makes fantastic preparation for the winding journeys that are coming (especially in the famous "Swann's Way" portion of "Things Past"). Most importantly, Proust deconstructs the myth of beauty. While most post-Romantic writers are generally inspired by beauty (in that it is everywhere), Proust seems to imply that we actually seek beauty in order to unlock our own memories of the past. As it purports to "only be known as beauty when it is found," this discovery is using the past to open up new worlds.
One of the key elements of "Things Past" is Proust's sense of wandering. The sentences, while long, are structured with multiple clauses to wind up or wind down the way you might take a walk and imbibe all the elements before you. In "Jean Santeuil," he even finds nature personifying people important in his life. In the end, that might be the single most important revelation of "Jean Santeuil" - Proust chose to write about his life, his thoughts, and his philosophy about life. That line of intuition he discovered here may be a better guide for a certain seven-part novel that is common among the most daunting novels of all time.
Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
New Music This Week
JACK WHITE - Fear of the Dawn
[LP/CD](Third Man/The Orchard)
On the first of two albums this year, Jack White puts his scintillating guitar into more effects that make it sound more like a weapon he wields than ever. "Taking Me Back" is tough, stripped-down muscular funk with wild sounds and gated breaks that are truly in your face. The title cut rages in a Garage Punk direction adding theremin shrieks to the fist-pumping anthem. His guitar solo on "Fear Of The Dawn" has not sounded this visceral and cutting since "Elephant." Structured like a Blues song, White pulls the riff back and forth into the song, then his solo, then back into the song. "Fear of the Dawn" is another modern Jack White record, taking much more from Seventies Rock and Punk than usual. However, White (even with Q-Tip showing up to rap over the chugging "Hi-De-Ho") remains so inventive that "Fear of the Dawn" lets him explore the unusual.
T-BONES will be hosting JACK WHITE- FEAR OF THE DAWN LISTENING PARTY - Tonight at 11 pm. We will premiere the entire Third Man/The Orchard album and then at the stroke of midnight give you the first chance at these limited pressings on LP and CD as well as special value-adds, posters, and prizes.
FATHER JOHN MISTY - Chloe and the Next 20th Century
[LP/DLX LP/CD/CS](SubPop)
The question that always springs to mind with a new FJM album remains: "Is he taking himself too seriously this time?" Josh Tillman (a/k/a Father John Misty) always writes songs with clever Pop culture references interspersed with cutting introspection. Working again with producer Jonathan Wilson, Tillman's music is cloaked in Sixties-style echo and classic Pop techniques. The massive centerpiece "The 20th Century" is paced like a Scott Walker epic with Tillman breathing life into every line until it disappears like a puff of smoke. When the swell of electric guitar and noise ends with the sweet release of haunted strings, you are left with the feeling that this is somehow the soundtrack of a dream slipping away. Dramatic but not heavy, "Chloe" is the music of release - Tillman just gives you the details to formulate your own answer.
WET LEG
[LP/CD](Domino/Redeye)
It is finally time to talk about one of the most talked-about new artists of 2021. These Isle of Wight Indie Rockers bring back memories of Nineties Rock and that moment where bands like Franz Ferdinand found a way to cross danceable rhythms with catchy Rock. Like a new Breeders, Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers juxtapose sing-song vocals ("Wet Dream") with a terse, detached wit (the consistently bubbling "Chaise Lounge" that is now Top 20 at AAA, Alternative, and even Rock radio). One thing is for sure, their mixture of weird surf guitars and terse rhythms is poised to win them a big audience with this long-awaited release.
REISSUES THIS WEEK
BOB DYLAN - Bringing It All Back Home/Highway 61 Revisited/Blonde on Blonde
[LP](Legacy)
If you must choose just one period of Dylan for intense study, may we suggest the change to "Electric." This is Dylan going from the "spokesman for a generation" to actually changing Rock N'Roll for the next twenty-plus years. In just 15 months, these three albums nearly lost Dylan his entire (and very devoted) Folk following in one fell swoop. However, remember this is the man who wrote "The Times They Are A-Changin.'"
In January 1965, Dylan entered Columbia's Studio A in New York City and began toying around with an electric band under the guidance of producer Tom Wilson. On August 28, 1964, Dylan met The Beatles. With that launched a new effort to unite Folk and Rock. Through the process of melding these two, Dylan played with a host of different musicians including three young members of Ronnie Hawkins' backing band, The Hawks - Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, and Garth Hudson. As they worked out the songs, they worked out the problems. The earlier known recording for the sessions sounded like a "Fats Domino workout." That motif would likely result in the Chuck Berry-ish rumble that became "Subterranean Homesick Blues." In addition, Dylan's lyrics would become less anthemic and more stream-of-consciousness. "Maggie's Farm" would funnel the "protest songs" of early Dylan into a new Bluesy shuffle, while "Outlaw Blues" was even more gritty. Still, the second side returns to acoustic Dylan but with a more far-reaching surreal lyrical style ("Mr. Tambourine Man" - recorded by The Byrds and released in April 1965 would mark the breakthrough in Folk/Rock).
What followed was a whirlwind tour where the new Electric Dylan was unleashed on audiences at the Newport Folk Festival (Pete Seeger was so disturbed by the noise, he threatened to cut the cables with an axe) and solo concerts where Dylan and his backing band (dubbed The Band) were booed offstage to cries of "Judas!" Truly, these events while shaking Dylan's foundations (he almost quit in May 1965), a 20-page outpouring of verse became Dylan's highest-charting single yet - "Like a Rolling Stone" (#2, July 1965). The success of the song opened up even more people to listen to August 1965's "Highway 61 Revisited" a more clear, concise, and visceral version of Dylan's rugged, blues-based Folk/Rock. With an entirely new band, Dylan and producer Bob Johnston resequenced several of his newer songs (sometimes in fast, sometimes in slow versions) to capture the energy that Dylan wanted. "Highway 61" is much darker and pensive than "Bringing It All Back Home" as he goes for that raw train rumble ("It Takes a Lot To Laugh, But It Takes a Train to Cry") as well as a foreboding piano ballad ("The Ballad of A Thin Man"). While most of his recent songwriting eschews (or conceals) its politics, Dylan closes out the album with the end of an empire picaresque "Desolation Row."
A six-month tour with The Band and Dylan's marriage followed. The shows began to take shape around both an Electric set and an acoustic set. Producer Bob Johnston saw Dylan becoming more prolific and brought him to Nashville in Feb.1966 to record with top-notch sessioneers. What they tried to record in New York with The Band, needed fresh ears. Dylan demanded the baffles between the players be removed, and their intimacy of all playing together at the same time in that small room provided the magic for the double album "Blonde on Blonde." With recording going right up until its release in June 1966, "Blonde On Blonde" is seminal Bob Dylan and probably the ultimate starter album. If "Bringing It All Back Home" was Dylan's formulation period, and "Highway 61 Revisited" was the distillation of his ideas, then "Blonde on Blonde" is the perfect summation of Electric Dylan. A mixture of ballads ("I Want You"), Blues ("Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat"), and rambling Folk plunging into stream-of-consciousness ("Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again"), "Blonde” remains definitive Dylan even if these songs are as frequently cited or covered. Johnston brought musicians with the energy Dylan needed and the songs became cohesive in creating his long-sought-after "Wild Mercury Sound." Released on June 20, 1966, "Blonde on Blonde" was released after a then-rare (now common) three single leadoff. On July 29, 1966, Dylan crashed his motorcycle near his home in Woodstock, NY. His convalescence and recovery will lead to a lengthy period of seclusion and nearly eight years off the road. "Electric Dylan" simply became Dylan. With these three albums, Dylan changes us all.
