Finally, another interesting Proust Blog

Jacqueline Rose on Marcel Proust

This Jacqueline Rose blog has some interesting food for thought.  Of the more provocative:  Proust's novel is a "feminist Gothic horror story. "  I don't actually know what this means apropos Proust, but I'll think about it.  The other perhaps revolutionary thought is that "the 'intermittencies of the heart' section of Volume Four: Sodom and Gomorrah is the greatest ever piece of writing on grief."  I am still reading the Sodom and Gomorrah section of Proust, stuck there, is possibly a better description.  Will try to find the passage.  I believe Proust has a big anniversary this year with Swann's Way, but I have to look this up, too.

Here in Foxborough, we just came through the mother of all storms with 27 inches of snow and huge drifts and all public and private transportation shut down for a day.  Lots of citizens still without power in the cold and tonight, rain is predicted to add insult to injury.

The weather was always nice in Proust's Normandy, wasn't it?  I don't even recall too much rain in Combray or Paris, but there must have been some.  It is society that is turbulent, not the weather.  

I'm still reading the work, M. Proust's Library. Alas, there has been reading and writing to do that has nothing to do with Proust as well as writing and rewriting.  I produced a short story that has been submitted to an anthology.  No idea if they'll accept it, but it was a novella that I had to smash down into a short story, never a fun process.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed writing it, although it consumed November, December and January, which is difficult when one has holidays and house guests.  No wonder Proust has been consigned to my nightstand stack of books.

Follow this just discovered link to interviews with people who actually knew Proust. BBC program of Proust topics




Onward,

Before the snow really came down.  Now one cannot see out the window for the drifts.

Odette, the other one

M. Proust's Library

New Proust book alert!  M. Proust's Library by Anka Muhlstein, Other Press, 141 pages, $19.95 

Joseph Epstein has a long, knowledgeable review of the book in the November 17-18 (2012) Wall Street Journal. 

Epstein mentions, what many of us know, that "no one should read Marcel Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' for the first time."  This is a clever way of saying that the second reading is much more meaningful (you know the characters and the scope of the book) and are ready to get the deeper meaning of Proust, the humor, the art, music and yes, the books Proust mentions.  

We would be cultured and well-educated if we read all the classics that Proust read.  I do encourage you to find the review and better yet, to buy this book, as it looks like an excellent addition to anyone's Proust library. 

I am still dipping into Proust from time to time, but other required reading and  life, have conspired to slow this process down.  The long winter, I tell myself, will be perfect for some Proust reading. 

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers.  Off to get the turkey stuffed and into the oven.


Odette