Monday, December 26, 2011

Re-reading Proust in Paris

An Apple guru reads and re-reads and then reads some more?  Technical manuals?  Nope, Proust.  How cool is that?  And in the original French.  My college French never reached that level.   Camus?  Oui.  Proust?  Non.

This is an interesting essay for us Proust afficionados.   Take a look.  Thoughts on Reading Proust Again

The author is right.  Proust is not difficult.   Lots of characters, but after a few reads they're like old friends.  Long sentences and no dialog tags?  Check, but one gets used it this.  I am still reading about Albertine living in Marcel's family apartment in Paris and going out every afternoon to do what?  The narrator thinks the lady is up to no good.  He's probably right.

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

In Search of "Good Reads"

Good Reads,  a web site for book lovers has a discussion devoted to Marcel Proust.  Who knew?   I never realized they were into anything except current fiction and non-fiction.  The site can be hard for a newbie to navigate, but here is the link to the Proust discussion.  Marcel Proust and Good Reads                


ISOLT is, of course, In Search Of Lost Time.  Explore Good Reads

Onward with Proust.         

Thursday, December 01, 2011

Found a new (to me) Proust book.  It looks interesting, although I am always a bit suspicious of academic writing with its long (sometimes tedious) sentences and big words, but let's not make an apriori (ha! ha!) judgement, because the book does seem readable.  Reading Proust at Oxford

The book is actually about reading in Proust.  Reading Reading Proust at Oxford? How circuitous!
 


I am still reading about Marcel and the sleeping Albertine.  Marcel isn't reading; he is watching.  Is Albertine  like a princess who will awaken from a kiss?  Albertine is a very human girl with faults and tics.  I can perfectly understand why she lies all the time.  She probably never envisioned the (somewhat) creepy household and practically being a captive in it.  Granted, a captive in good clothes.  She has very little life.  Or does she?  The narrator is obsessed with her, suspecting her of lesbianism, but then he suspects everyone.  One gets the idea that everyone in Paris is at least bi-sexual.  Maybe they were.  What do I know? 


Suspicions and imagination run rampant in the narrator's mind.  That's what happens to a writer.  He can't stop imagining.  What if?