Remembrance of a Proust Lecture

Oops! The lecture has come and gone. Not likely I would have come all the way from Foxborough. Once, in the depths of a Chicago winter very much like the current one (cold, cold, cold), I dragged my significant other through the snow to a lecture at Northwestern University about Proust.

My god, was it cold!

The professor said we should all read Proust. And I came home and did. From cover to cover.

And here I am again, years later. Sort of bogged down with the Duchess of Guermantes and the narrator's not very subtle (today we would call it stalking) arranging to run into her on her walks and business about town. Just reading the magazines and newspapers that come into the house is daunting, and then there's the books. But I am making progress.

Oh yes! The lecture: http://philostream.blogspot.com/2008/02/philo-event-8-philosophy-and-literature.html

Isn't he handsome in a European professorial kind of way? I have a Frenchman in my latest novel, Festival Madness, which I'll start flogging soon.

Alors,

Odette

Marcelle & Odette are BAAAAACK!

Marcelle Proust is posting again.
http://marcellepwrites.blogspot.com/2007/08/crise-de-foie-hache.html

I'm so happy that Friday is cat blogging day. Who knew?

I've been away at a class reunion since Thursday, a BIG in terms of years class reunion--on the high plains of Colorado. I did not bite into a hamburger at Crane's Cafe and have the past come back. Ye Gods, what a frightening thought. I did open memory's jar. What is amazing is that we all remember such different things. For example, no one remembered Shirley Brandt singing "Found A Peanut." How could they forget?

We tooled around Denver and took in the new (and old) wings of the DAM (Denver Art Museum). Liebeskind is the architect for the new wing. It soars like a mountain, and I liked it a lot. The Western Art exhibit was great. A couple people missing, but eventually they may correct that. Two nice restaurants, one white tablecloth, the other Mad Greens. Mad Greens had salads that couldn't be beat, and a wine bar and a patio. I don't know if they took notes from the MFA in Boston, but both restaurants are good and even the less expensive is sophisticated. We like that.

A Mexican dinner on the patio Thursday night. You can go home again, but it won't be the same. And you will see everything with new eyes. New eyes are good eyes.

Northern Colorado sure ain't Balbec or Paris or even Boston. But it hath its own charms. Hey, how about Sarkozy vacationing in New Hampshire. Getting a bellyful of the press who don't really care if he wants to be left alone.

Another mention of Proust in this interesting blog. The blogs mentioning our guy Marcel never cease to amaze.

http://thisrecording.wordpress.com/2007/08/05/in-which-have-i-given-you-too-much-of-myself/

Back to reading Proust tonight.

Odette