Passages of Bohème

Part II foregrounds the Red Sea anecdote in contrasting emancipatory narratives: in Murger’s story of Marcel’s painting, in Kierkegaard’s pursuit of a life result, and in Puccini’s La Bohème. The anecdote, being about a painting produced contrary to expectation, offers an explanation. What is the relation between expectation and explanation? What are the modern stakes in the social patterns of art’s production? The many ways of social critique are worked through contra the nasty prejudices of anti-Semitic complaint. Chapter 4 reads Murger’s scenes for la vie de bohème given their constant invocations of the Red Sea Passage. What and who was included and excluded from the life? Far from recommending the life, Murger undercut its possibility before its passage even began. What the chapter’s end reveals about the Red Sea painting proves what the chapter argues first: that no masterpiece could be completed by an artist living for the sake of la vie de bohème.