The facts, s'il vous plait

Always poking around, looking for Proust "stuff."

Here is a vanilla site that gives the facts of Proust's life and a list of his works.

http://classiclit.about.com/od/proustmarcel/p/aa_mproust.htm

I have put Proust aside (again) to catch up on the New Yorkers. There is not enough time in the day for reading and writing and cooking and exercise and all the tasks of modern life. My grandmother worked much harder than I do, but I believe she had more leisure. Do we fill up leisure and then complain of no time? Yes?

Did Proust manage time? Yes, when he withdrew from the world and wrote his great work he managed time very well, because he finished his work. Just barely. If he had been gallivanting around in society, the work would not have been completed. Is writing a "leisure" activity? Some would say yes.

In this electronic life of ours with email and instant messages and cells and all of our wonderful hideous gadgets it's hard to categorize what is leisure and what is work. I have to confess that lately, I've no idea.

Tomorrow I must make a pie crust. Thursday is pie day. I'm concocting an apple pie with dried cherries soaked in scotch whiskey. Not my original recipe, but you must admit it sounds quite temping. We are calling it apple pie with drunken cherries. The apples are Golden Delicious and cost so much they are indeed Golden Delicious.

A long way from Proust, but maybe not. I always wonder how the educated American taste buds would react to a meal from Proust's time, when the food all came from someone's garden and was grown without chemicals and additives and the poultry ran around in the yard eating bugs and what have you. We would probably reel from the delicousness of it all. Swoon at the chicken. Savor the the flavorful veggies. With Francois keeping a sharp eye on us.

Onward,

Odette