An Astrological View of Marcel P
Astrology is one of those subjects which arouses equal amounts of scorn and belief. Believers swear by its efficacy and accuracy, but nay-sayers pooh-pooh it, arguing that it is all a matter of gross generalities, that anyone could fit into the qualitites proscribed for the signs. In the interest of settling this question, the veracity of astrology, I asked one of my oldest friends, Miss Vicky Pelino, to cast Proust's chart, and see how well the stars could describe him. Miss Vickie was unfamiliar with Proust's life, and hasn't yet read his work. Her interpretations, as a result, did not involve any skewing of possibilities. Anyone who has read a biography of Proust can agree, however, that what she found in his chart is a surprisingly accurate description of the nature of this extraordinary man. She began by saying that his birth sign is Cancer, and that Cancers tend to be patient and moody. Cancer is the sign of the mother, and as a consequence it is a difficult one for men. Readers of Proust and his biographies can attest to the fact that his mother figured massively in his life.
I must also quote from a staple of my household library, The Coffee Table Book of Astrology, edited by John Lynch, regarding the "evolved" Cancer type: "... a master of many moods. The whole gamut of emotion lies open to him; he can feel, and make others feel, joy, sorrow, compassion, horror and despair as no other type can, seizing the imagination and holding it by the power of his imagery and the intensity of his own feelings. The past and future are as real to him as the present. His memory is retentive, and the history of his own nation, family or class is immensely important in his eyes. He is the teacher par excellence... His style is picturesque, vivid, often dramatic, and he continues to deliver and redeliver his message, changing and adapting his form while preserving its essence, until he until he succeeds in arrousing the attention of his audience and kindling its enthusiasm... Public speakers of all kinds are found under the influence of this sign, as also... literary men who have a strong personal hold over their readers..." But this, of course, is only one of those broad generalities sneered at by the detractors of astrology. Three other things figure prominantly in the astrological nature: which planet was rising at the moment of birth, the position of the moon and the planet in midheaven, at the very top, twelve-o'clock spot on the chart. In the case of Proust, he has an Aries rising, and the moon in Taurus, with Saturn near the midheaven. Aries rising in the house ruled by Aries, the house of the self, makes for a forceful personality. The position of Neptune near the ascendant distorts the forcefulness, and makes for a dreamier personality that utilizes charm to exert social controls. The moon in Taurus indicates a very feminine nature, patient and longing for stability. Saturn is a difficult planet to have at the midheaven. "Saturn is the Lord of Karma," Miss Vicky said. "There's a kind of heaviness about it, oppressive, tough stuff. Restrictions, limitations, and a very deep, but very narrow perspective, not the broader universal view, but an intense focus."
"A thermometer was fetched...We had no need to leave it there for long; the little sorceress had not been slow in casting her horoscope."
The Guermantes Way
Proust was, of course, a forceful personality. He utilized everything at his disposal to climb up the social ladder, and then to escape from it in order to hide and write. To move up in society, he had tremendous charm, effusive and extraordinary correspondence, great wit, and the psychological control that the physically weak can exert on those prone to guilt or compassion. Later in his life, when he knew he must withdraw from the vacuous life of the Fauburg St. Germaine in order to accomplish anything, he used his health to absent himself without alienating the hostesses who had brought him into it. As for the moon's position, he was homosexual, and so not manly in the ordinary sense. Only a patient man could have put in fourteen years writing a single book. And the longing for stability is indicated by his willingness to live at home until both his parents died, the necessity of maintaining a residence that meets all the requirements of his eccentric health regime, and the familial relationships he developed with his servants. Neptune in the first house suggests a tapping into the universal subconscious, but perhaps a sickly person with lagging physical dynamism, sulky, childlike and very sensitive to criticism. As is mentioned in the gun article on page xx, Proust was so sensitive to criticism that he emerged from his sick-bed to duel with the columnist who wrote a scathing review of his first book.
Pluto in the first house is open to interpretation. Since Pluto was only discovered in this century, astrologers have not had much time to deliberate all the aspects of this planetary positioning. The generally accepted implication is transformative, particularly of the self, and on the deepest levels. Anyone who has ever made it to the end of Remembrance can tell you that the Marcel who began life as a jealous child transformed into the man who realized the waste of jealous energy, and gave it up to become a writer instead. In the third house, the north node of the moon in Gemini, in the house ruled by Gemini, underscores communication, and indicates a strong destiny to write. "This," said Vicky, "is like a 'beauty mark' in a writer's chart." It also suggests a sentimental soul, and if Proust were not sentimental, he certainly gave that impression. The sun, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune all appear in the fourth house. These planet indicate a highly imaginative dreamer, psychic impressions, an extremely strong, if not incestuous, attachment to the mother and the home, and good aspects for writing, as they suggest vivid imagination and deep psychological insight. The house of love and relationships, the fifth house, is devoid of any aspects at all. Vicky asked me if he had been married, or had any children. "No," I told her, :He was gay, and most of his infatuations were with straight men, so he had no big relationships to speak of."
"Okay," she said, "No marriage, no children, no relationships, so no planets in the fifth house, and no problems there." Venus is not particularly happy in the sixth house, the one ruled by Virgo, where it is quite repressed. It brings about an analytical soul obsessed with work, service and health. Mars in that house suggests ambition, intensity, the urge to protect and defend. It gives energy and passion, but this seems to be repressed in the physical realm, and left to the service of his work and health. In the seventh house, the house of partnerships, once again there is nothing. Together with the fifth house's emptiness, it spelled a solitary life for Proust. Of course, particularly in the last half of his life, this is exactly what he got. And in the eighth house, that of sex and death, not a single planet appears; not only was he to have a solitary existence, but a sexless one as well. The ninth house is the house of exploration. In this house, Marcel was plagued with two things: the south node of the moon (things he shouldn't do) and that Lord of Karma, Saturn. Clearly, travel became one of the things that he shouldn't do. And philosophically, his was a difficult life; he had grown into a person of standing in society, and yet he was to discover the vacuousness of the society that had embraced him, and expose it in his work. His exploration of humanity was vast, deep and alarming, because there was not a single flaw he hadn't uncovered. His sense of humor saved the day, making his writing funny, while at the same time relentless in its honesty. Considering the truths he revealed, it is no wonder that he had become a recluse, destined to lead a solitary and sexless existence.
"Our lives are in truth, owing to heredity, as full of cabalistic ciphers, of horoscopic castings as if sorcerers really existed."
The Guermantes Way
The last three houses in his chart are devoid of planetary influences. These three are the most impersonal of them all. The tenth, career, of course contains nothing because he never had one. The eleventh, universal brotherhood, seems an unlikely position to be filled in the life of an alleged snob and a recluse. And the twelfth, the house of spirit, remains equally uncluttered. In these three positions, once again, there may be nothing in them, but that also means that there were no problems in these areas either. I stared with confusion at the two charts Vicky had given me, Proust's and mine. I had expected to see something that might explain why I became so fascinated with this man, of all men. As Vicky described the various aspects of my own horoscope, one thing did become fairly clear: it was the presence of the transformative Pluto in Leo, the sign of love, appearing in the tenth house, that of career and success in the public mind. Proust gave me transformative knowledge in that ultra-sticky matter of love. It was when I had arrived at the end of Time Regained that my life really changed. After a life full of misery over the ends of loves, Proust pointed out to me that the breakups that made me miserable in the past was virtually inexplicable in the present, that other loves can appear and make one miserable all over again in some fresh way. There is no point, I realized, in suffering so hard and long when love is gone, as it is a waste of time. It doesn't mean that the deleriously happy moments of new love are pointless, only the desperation when it doesn't work after all. What a healing! I was truly transformed. It was this lesson of Proust that made me want to start writing about him more than any other. I have written many things in my life, some of which have made me more money than this beloved magazine, which sinks me deeper into debt with horrifying regularity. But nothing I have ever done has planted me more firmly in the public eye, or made me so many friends all over the world. I must thank Pluto for this fortuitous appearance, and Proust for having transformed me; I just wish I'd read him sooner.
P Segal
