Albertine

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani discusses Albertine mainly through the scene of her appearance at Balbec. In the 2016 sessions ("Que faire ?", "Marx Plage", "Hegel Plage"), he places her within the band of young girls. She emerges from this group on the jetty, and he presents her as the narrator's future great passion12. What he focuses on then is the moment when a single figure stands out from a group. In 2022, in a session on aesthetics and politics, he reads her gaze as reflecting the historical and collective world that makes her individual life possible3. For him, what seems most personal thus points back to collective conditions. In 2026, in "De Platon à Proust", he returns to the details of the scene: the dark-haired girl with plump cheeks pushing a bicycle, whose gaze the narrator meets4. From one session to the next, he returns to this appearance and this gaze rather than to the story of the passion itself.

1. 1Marx Plage 1/21 Feb 2016 · 11:03
2. 2Hegel Plage 5/52 Feb 2016 · 36:42
3. 3Dominique Pagani - Qui se cache sous les surfaces ? Esthétique et politique20 May 2022 · 1:18:11
4. 4De Platon à Proust - Lectures à vifs6 Jul 2026 · 13:45

Summary produced automatically from 5 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.