Jennifer Egan read Proust

I was in the audience today at the Boston Book Festival, when Jennifer Egan talked about reading Proust.  Apparently she, like many, had tried and failed once Swann and Odette had married and gone on to more domestic scenarios.  She actually read Proust with a book group and IT TOOK THEM FIVE YEARS!  She said five babies were born in  the years the group read Proust.  But they finished.  It is taking me about that long on my 3rd reading, because life intervenes and I had to stop and read about Spain to prep for a trip to that fabulous country. 

Egan also mentioned that Proust's thoughts about time influenced her Pulitzer Prize novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad.  

The Festival enjoyed glorious if windy fall weather, but not yesterday's pounding rain.  Copley Square teemed with readers, writers, publishers and all those who are part of the business of writing and books.  Unfortunately,  there was only one food vendor, and man does not lived by grilled cheese alone.  Last time I went by, there must have been two hundred people in line.  The sparrows in the park were out in force to scrounge for treats, as were the pigeons.  The way the pigeons wheeled around and took flight reminded me of the pigeons swooping around the Parador in Carmona.  Spain had many doves, too, and swallows and some handsome magpies which I haven't seen for years.  Pigeons seem to have a collective flock instinct that I find interesting.

The suburban trains in both directions were crowded, unusual for a Saturday.  Nothing like the little train that took the dinner guests to the Verdurins.    Pigeons may exhibit the same behavior, but trains schlepping folks into Boston have nothing in common with the Verdurin's little band.

I will be reading Proust again hoping to get through Sodom and Gommorah before winter cometh.                                                                                    

Have you ever had "a visit from the goon squad?"

The Other Odette                                               

Proust's Overcoat

I have been at a writing conference in San Francisco and was able to pay a visit to the City Lights Bookstore, a place I have craved to see since I was a freshman in college and was introduced to the poetry of Ferlinghetti and some of the "Beat" writers.  I even became a lifetime member of a short-lived coffee house called "The Outside."  


City Lights lived up to my expectations--how often does THAT happen?  My significant other, my son and I all bought books.  Guess what one of my selections was?  Proust's Overcoat.  Written by Italian journalist and writer Lorenza Foschini and translated by Eric Karpeles of Paintings In Proust authorship,


I read Proust's Overcoat on the long flight home, and found it enchanting.  It is the story of one man's obsession with Proust and his effort to salvage Proust's writing and possessions after his death.    Obsession can be a good thing.   


Some nights I do read a few pages of Cities of the Plain and am enjoying it.  The Verdurin's dinner parties are somehow livelier than the Guermantes, don't you think?  And the little band of girls continues to  intrigue us as the narrator spends another summer at Balbec. 


Do pick up a copy of Proust's Overcoat.  Unlike his masterpiece, this book is 128 pages, some of them photos.  You won't still be reading it six months from now.  Hmmm.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing? 


Odette

Madam Verdurin

A blogger with a take on one of Proust's great characters, Mme. Verdurin.

http://bestofnow.blogspot.com/

And another blogger must be reading about the same party that I am. Pages and pages. Show don't tell. Well, maybe sometimes telling would not be a totally bad thing.

http://delta-november.livejournal.com/91240.html


Didn't take Proust to Chicago. Too tired to read most nights, due to overly large dinners with overly much wine and spirits. Lovely, just not conducive to a long read before bedtime.

Odette

Proust online in English and French

http://cvillewords.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/searchable-proust/

Proust available in English and in French online! This looks like a great web site and I want to check some of the weird translations of menu items from the French to the English.

Last night I read more of the narrator's first formal introduction to Albertine, a shape shifter if there ever was one, at least in his head. The little band is interesting, with their golf clubs and their bicycles. They sound almost- - - liberated. He assumes they are mistresses of bicycle racers. Ah, the bad assumptions we all make. And of course Marcel is not exactly athletic by any standards, au contraire! And they know the artist Elstir in a kind of casual way, the way locals know each other in Nantucket. Elstir admits being a past habitue of the the Verdurins' soirees, and I loved what he said to Marcel about it. I'll quote when I remember to drag the book down to the computer's area.

Onward,

Odette