tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post6590382993430089725..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Night Train (II): Marcel ProustUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-61089092762500110312010-05-14T04:49:41.469-07:002010-05-14T04:49:41.469-07:00Your Yugoslavia story brings to mind any number of...Your Yugoslavia story brings to mind any number of movies and also Graham Green's Stamboul Train. That sort of action and the phrase "you have no rights at a border" terrify me. Once we were pulled off the street and into a police station in Barcelona because (we later learned) a somewhat unbalanced woman thought we were photographing her. The police explained nothing to us during our 20 minute detention and kept poker faces until finally sharing the "joke" with us. I won't even go into our problems in Mexico City.<br /><br />I know what you mean about characteristic, identifiable brake sounds. There's nothing at all like trains at night.Curtis Robertsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-26171884304980672852010-05-14T02:59:32.123-07:002010-05-14T02:59:32.123-07:00And oh yes, thanks for the comments on the images....And oh yes, thanks for the comments on the images. The Monet: great beyond words. And the Proust proofs: well, we can see that he was a perfectionist. Indeed, how else could he have become so perfect? (That set of corrected galleys, by the way, brought, I believe, something like 664,000 pounds at the Christie's auction.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-10796550907288793872010-05-14T02:53:45.054-07:002010-05-14T02:53:45.054-07:00Thank you very much indeed, Curtis. It seems we sh...Thank you very much indeed, Curtis. It seems we share this preoccupation.<br /><br />My childhood was haunted by distant night train whistles, and the myriad imaginal vistas they brought with them.<br /><br />As soon as I was old enough to ride the Elevated downtown by myself, I began to do my own haunting -- of the (then) seven major railway terminals in Chicago.<br /><br />The very sight of a locomotive encrusted with ice and snow after a long run was enough to spark endless visions of sweeps of country I had not yet seen.<br /><br />Later I would ride certain routes, like the New York Central line up through Michigan, so many times at night that I could identify the stops, almost, from how long it took the brakes to wheeze their way to a stop.<br /><br />That fascination continued on through many years of night train travel in many countries on several continents. And would include many memorable experiences, some good, some not so good.<br /><br />The worst was probably riding through Yugoslavia in the time of Tito, leaving Greece the train was stopped in the middle of the night and uniformed police came through the compartments, checking papers. In what developed into a Kafka-comes-true episode, I was removed from the train, and, as it pulled out again on its way, interrogated at length by trackside. <br /><br />I think I was guilty of being on "the wrong side". Otherwise I cannot account for it.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-34070978172280791342010-05-13T19:11:04.902-07:002010-05-13T19:11:04.902-07:00Curiosity, and a great, lifelong interest in night...Curiosity, and a great, lifelong interest in night trains, something that is obviously widely shared, kept me reading. <br /><br />I had never seen this powerful, accurate Monet, nor the Proust galley proofs, which could comprise their own post with no words added, just a label.<br /><br />The three pieces –- the childhood/adolescent beds in the Nabokov and the Proust, one actually rolling and one with a suggestion of trains, but both very French, conjoined with Celine’s adult, sui generis, New York on Mars/Total Recall train dislocation experience, along with their associated images, of course -- are a powerful, mind-expanding combination.Curtis Robertsnoreply@blogger.com