The Cities of the Plain

This blogger has done such a wonderful summation of the Proust volume that I have been struggling to get "into" that I am all enthused.  Just have to get through one more dull party.  Ole!

Here is the link.  Gosh.  Why can't I summarize my novels thusly?  And isn't that a cool painting of Proust?


http://www.litkicks.com/ProustIV

Wondering.

It's Holy Week--time to read about Proust's visit to Tante Leonie

An alert blogger's post reminded me of some of the best passages in Proust, as the narrator and his family visited Tante Leonie for Holy Week.

No hawthorne's blooming in Foxborough yet, but the forsythia is coming and I have garlic plants, put in the ground last fall, that are peeking out of the garden soil, as are the tulips, those the rabbits haven't eaten, jonquils, and (now blooming) crocus.  Spring is so exciting.  I feel my blood rising with the maple sap which apparently rose early and outfoxed everyone.  The spring peeper's broke into their shrill chorus early, too, and the chipmunks came out of hibernation.  Birds pairing off.  Love it! 



Here is the Great Proust Blog 
and an lovely web site, too.  


The Other Odette

Proust and Euphemisms

The blogger in the link below takes exception to one of Proust's "euphemisms," but I really liked it because Proust  didn't use whatever the  current euphemism was (and there were probably many).  Instead Proust used something very specific to Swann and Odette, something with meaning to them, and I thought that was an example of his greatness as a writer. 
Has anyone noticed, by the way, that "hiking the Appalachian Trail" has become a NEW euphemism, and that in our times, these new expressions come facing at us before the ink is dry. 


Here is the blog link: 


http://readingwithmytwin.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/euphemisms-101/


A cattleya is an orchid, (shown above, and look at Google images if you want to see hundreds), and Odette always wore one on her decolletage. 


The other Odette, who doesn't wear flowers but likes to grow them. 

All Things Proust, Both Large and Small

I found a web site that gives Proustian facts in a nutshell.  The brief, most unProustian of answers about the great man.  I am amused.  


Here is the link. 


http://answers.encyclopedia.com/question/marcel-proust-jean-santeuil-296239.html


I have been too busy writing and preparing and delivering a Toastmaster's speech to read anything except the daily papers and The New Yorker.  One of these days I'll get caught up. 


Seeing a new play in Boston tonight.  Last night we went to a New England Pen event at Upstairs at the Square.  Harvard Square, of course.  In a moment of Proustian recollection, my Significant Other and I  were discussing how the square had changed since our early years in Boston, and I thought, also, of the changes to Central Square and Kendall Square  (my old stomping grounds).  All three squares would be nearly unrecognizable to anyone coming from the past. 


The past weighs heavily, like the lead x-ray apron. 


Odette