Albertine Sleeping

I just read the section of  Proust where he goes on for pages about watching Albertine sleep.  Very lyrical and touching, really.   Albertine is still mysterious to me, and also to the narrator.  But one can see her in Balbec with her jaunty cap and nose in the air on her bike.   Those girls who he found so fetching, and now one is asleep in his bed.  This is a wonderful passage. 

Reading a bit of Proust off and on before bedtime.  Albertine comes and goes.  He refuses to accompany her but he is suspicious of her errands.   He consults the Duchess for clothing ideas for his mistress.  What a crazy life.                        

Happy Thanksgiving to my readers who celebrate Thanksgiving, and if you don't, well, pause a minute and consider your blessings:  relatives, friends, hearth, work, hobbies, nature, sports, whatever gives you succor and pleasure.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Romancing the Past

Does back to school make you nostalgic?  Proust readers may identify with this columnist's take on nostalgia and the past.

Romancing the Past

Still Reading Proust

I pick up The Cities of the Plain sometimes before bedtime and read a few pages.  The narrator is back in Balbec, and Albertine blows hot an cold and lots of stuff about the "liftboy."  I'm waiting for an evening with the Verdurins to unfold soon. 


Another Proust reader comments in his blog:  http://zukointheworld.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/still-reading-proust/


"Still reading Proust"  is a state of being.  The summer passes apace, with trips, house guests, gardening, bird watching and lots of meals on the grill.   
It's amazing to think that Proust and his friends never knew the delights of a meal cooked over charcoal, nor did a lot of people until The Thrill of the Grill hit us.  I knew someone who used a hibatchi and grilled steaks and teriyaki meat sticks many, many moons ago.  My parents cooked trout in a cast iron skillet over a campfire, trout they had caught just hours before.  I never expect to taste trout like that again, but if I did, surely there would be the Proustian experience of Sweetwater Lake and the funky cabins and the wood rat who worried so that my Dad (the tenderest of tender hearts) would harm her and her babies.  He took the wood out of the box and left the critters be. 


The trout was dipped in a mixture of cornmeal and flour and probably friend in bacon fat, maybe Crisco.  How far away those days of my childhood are. 

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

Life As Lived By Proust

This blogger has a fascinating take on Marcel's relationship with women, and I think he's right. Consider the Duchess de Guermantes.

http://blog.guterman.com/2009/09/15/on-observing-vs-living-life/

Kiss A Cloud

More Proust readers are popping up. Maybe the hawthornes are in bloom. I have to confess that this is the time of year I most often think of Proust's blooming hedges.

http://kissacloud.blogspot.com/2009/04/swanns-way-by-marcel-proust.html

There is a great chain of Proust readers, and when one says adieu to Marcel, another introduces herself. We are all ages and nationalities, and we all love Proust. It's not a religion, exactly, but we all carry the torch.

The other Odette

Goodbye, Proust from Thailand

The destination, one hopes, was worth the journey. Finishing Proust is a huge accomplishment.

http://court-merrigan.blogspot.com/2008/12/end-of-era-goodbye-proust.html

Completing Proust

Cast your eyes on the perfect madeline from this New York bakery. On the very big occasion of the blogger's friend's having completed his reading of Proust. Zowie!

http://escape-to-new-york.blogspot.com/2008/10/10112008-oh-madeleine.html

I read some pages last night. The narrator is finally leaving the party with Charlus after causing the hostess some angst and treating us to a horrible scene between St. Loup and his poor sweet mother. That bad Rachel. Stupid, smitten St. Loup, like all of the lovers in Proust, his head is in the sand up to his shoulders. And all the lovers are unfaithful. It's quite awful, really, and very, very good. And even our Odette, AKA Mme. Swann was with once with Charlus, the narrator remembers, thinking of a troubling scene from his boyhood.

What goes around is certainly coming around. And back around.

Odette

Reading Proust Takes Preparation

Who knew?

http://thelawsofnightandhoney.blogspot.com/2008/04/amry-on-proust-i-preparations-for.html

An interesting new book is out, an autobiography showing that Proust, and others, really can change your life:
http://louisferrante.com/index.htm

and finally, a poem:
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/kipple&article_id=12320975