Reading Proust Practically Everywhere

We must all have returned from our various "Balbecs" and are flexing literary muscles, unused after the summer beach reads.

Here are some fearless Proust readers with literary blogs:

http://www.litkicks.com/

http://pagesturned.blogspot.com/2009/09/new-books.html

Time to get going on volume 2. After all, I survived (barely) all those receptions and dinner parties at the Guermantes.

Paintings in Proust

A blogger with interesting thoughts about painting in Proust. I often try to figure out who "Elstir" was. He had to be one of the painters contemporary to Proust, just as Saens-Saens was likely a stand in for Vintieul. I think I have found the "petite phrase" in one of the violin/piano concertos.

http://proustreader.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/paintings-in-proust/

It would be so nice to have time to pursue all these tracks, but daily responsibilities tie me down. Maybe take an Elstir/Vintieul week and just pursue the threads? Lovely.

I wonder if the blogger knows about the book, Paintings in Proust by Eric Karpeles"?

The other Odette

Reading Proust in Paris

This blog is worth its weight in madelines if for no other reason that it helps me find interesting writing, people, other blogs, and one thing always leads to another. Serendipity, that' s what it is.

Here is a blogger reading Proust in Paris and even trying to write like Proust, a challenging experiment.

I would need a long piece of cord or string to find my way back to the subject of my sentence. How many parenthetical phrases can one string together? I noticed Proust's dialogue is stuck in the middle of the paragraph with no quote marks or any of those little grammatical tags that help the reader. You're on your own with Proust.

Read on down into the blog to find some fascinating discussions of writing, and also several beginnings of what has to become a wonderful novel. Yowza!

http://literarylab.blogspot.com/2009/09/lexperience.html

Sometimes it seems that all the bookstores are closing. In New York City there will be one less place to purchase Proust in the original French. So sad.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/longlived-french-bookstore-in-rockefeller-center-to-close/

Reading Proust on the Train

Reading Proust on the train enabled a young woman to find a literary agent. No wonder I've had no luck in that regard. I read Proust in bed late at night.

I began volume two, but only read a page before drifting off. It will be another long slog until Time Regained, my absolute favorite of all Proust's work.

http://www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=231144&town=Hampton%20Bays&n=Local%20author%20to%20read%20excerpts%20from%20latest%20novel%20at%20Sag%20Harbor%20bookstore

Maybe you should read Proust on the train.

Odeette

New England Reads Proust

An alert reader sent information about a Proust reading group at the Boston Athenaeum (private library) and a group of women in Connecticut have formed their own Proust-reading group. This rocks! Is it a movement?


http://womenreadingproust.blogspot.com/2009/08/mon-dieu-someone-has-read-all-7-volumes.html

I took Volume II off the shelf. It looks mouse-chewed and terribly worn, and I notice there's a price of $2.00 on the inside cover. Obviously from college days. Scott Montcrieff translation and hard cover. Avanti!

The other Odette

A Respite from Proust

Having finished (enfin) The Guermantes Way, I'm taking a break and finishing some other books languishing on my nightstand. One is Three Trapped Tigers, a cool book about Havana in the 50's right before Castro came to power. I'm almost through A Bright and Guilty Place, a non-fictional account of Los Angeles in the late 20's and early 30's. Corruption to the max.
Very interesting. I'm in the middle of Elmore Leonard's book of short stories, When the Women Come Out to Dance. Isn't that a great title.? Great stories, too. Anyone for baked possum?
I just finished Red Leaves, by Thomas Cook, a novel that will break your heart. I recall a few years ago when the novel was up for an Edgar Award.

Summer is the time for reading, although none of these books could be considered "beach reads." My novel is process now has 65,000 words and starts to look like a real book. I've been at it for a year. Had I been dedicated, I would have finished, but I'm also trying to find agents/publishers for three other novels, so that takes a toll of "free time," as well as all my writing groups and organizations.

It's a full life, Charlie. Who said that? No idea.

Let us imagine Marcel on the beach at Balbec, or in the dining room with his grandmother, or in town with the young girls in flower, or maybe even in Elstir's studio. Long ago, I recall resort hotels like the one in Balbec. One's bottle of wine and bottle of water on the table from previous meals, even one's napkin. Personally, I like a fresh napkin rather often. The same waiter, and pretty soon he knows one's likes and dislikes. Has that way of life vanished? I rather think so.

Everything very proper and even stylized. Last Year at Marienbad and all that jazz. We saw Mr Hulot's Holiday, which ages so well and had that same seaside flavor. I liked it ever so much, even the umpteenth time.

Onward,

Odette

At Long Last, Fini

I did it! Last night during the rain delay of the Red Sox game against Detroit, I finished The Guermantes Way, finally arriving at the scene where a dying Swann appears and the Guermantes pooh-pooh his problems and fixate on their evening plans. The Duchess, Oriane, runs back inside for the red shoes that will match her dress. The Duc, Basin, is such an upper class twit, and the entire scene is priceless, even worth the endless slog of hundreds of pages through the boring parties and receptions and upper class snobbery.

Proust really knows how to end a scene. I loved it. Now onward to the second volume. I have an ancient (ancien) copy in two volumes. It took me forever to get through the Guermantes. I wavered. I procrastinated. I read two pages per week. I became a Proust slacker. No more.

Of course, posting to the blog has been difficult with so little progress through the great novel.

August 11 is the great turnaround. Enfin!

Delirious with accomplishment,

Odette

Proust would approve

I am so close to the end of the Guermantes book, that I can almost taste it, smell it, definitely feel it. This week for sure I will finish. So long a slog. I could have walked across Spain in the time it has taken to read it. In the summer. Taking two seasons.

Speaking of smelled it, here is the story of a blogger who lost and regained her sense of smell. And the first smell that came back was . . . . but I'll let her tell her Proustian tale of smell regained. Thanks to an alert reader for the link

http://mollysmadeleine.blogspot.com/2005/12/unexpected-scent-of-chocolate.html

Thanks to one of my readers for the alert.

We were in Nantucket this week, an island I have visited since my youngest was in diapers. The island has changed and not changed, but the sunlight, the fog, the sweet smell of privet will always remind me where I am. The ferry coming back encountered "ocean swells," but not rough enough for a "Nantucket sleight ride." Google this phrase. It is Melvillian.

It's not at all like Balbec, but there are girls on bicycles and girls walking and money in the air and old boarding houses and restaurants and even artists who have been there since God was a boy. I think that in the old days, Proust would have felt at home there. No grand hotels, but a few classy resorts. Not a European experience, and not even an American experience, but the quintessential New England experience.

The other Odette

A Proustian Summer

No, alas, we aren't traveling to Balbec or wherever. Actually, I always wanted to go to Deauville, and now of course, on to San Sebastian in Spain and the Gehry Guggenheim.

Instead, we are in "staycation" mode, visiting Plymouth and the Plantation and the Mayflower, and the Museum of Science in Boston, making day trips. Blue Man Group is also on the agenda. What do you think Proust would say about Blue Man Group.? Sure ain't the Vinteiul Sontata in Mme. Verdurin's drawing room.

No young girls in flower, although the waitresses at the Plymouth seafood restaurant Cabbyshack were in the same mold, if you move ahead 90 years. Pretty and smiling and athletic-looking. I could see them on their bicycles cycling along the shore.

I tried YET AGAIN to get through the last pages of the Guermantes Way and fell asleep after two pages. This is ridiculous. I'll have to spend an afternoon and not rely on bedtime reading.

Of course Nantucket is a Proustian place, and although it has changed from the ramshackle town I first visited when I was younger, (eeek!), the sunlight and the smell of the hedges and the walk to the beach, even Main Street still hold their familiar sights and patterns. The hedge fund managers and the glitz are welcome to go away, but keep the perfumed hedges. A little seediness is sometimes a good thing. Galveston was always best when it was seedy.

Does anyone take Proust for a beach read? I wouldn't think so. Let me know if YOU do this.

Today is Thisbe's birthday. She has a new mouse and an extra ration of catnip. Wish her nine more years of the wonderful life of a cat in this cat-catering household.

The other Odette

Serendity

My old, long down web site was called "Serendipity," probably because as I surfed the web, I found many serendiptious things. Today, browsing through my "favorite" blogs, none of which I read daily, I found this interesting exchange of letters with a big mention of Proust, so go ye forth and click:

http://raymondfederman.blogspot.com/2007/12/conversation-with-miloi.html

Interesting comments about diaries and journals. I have not kept a dairy since 4th grade, and have always envied fellow writers who keep journals. Sometimes, but not often, I keep a travel journal, if the destination is particularly fascinating.

More Birthday Greetings

I just took a gander at a number of blogs purporting to be Proust blogs. Some are abandonned, others have rien to do with Proust, some are in Russian/German. It's a difficult business sorting through "stuff" on the Net. I picked up a hideous virus once, when I unwitting went to a Russian site to look up some song lyrics. Ya can't ever be too careful.

That being said, here's another birthday blog from yesterday.
http://marcelproust.blogspot.com/search/label/proust

The cherry caflouti made 8 servings, and 2 are still left. Do I hear it calling my name? Seems like they might have had a caflouti or two at Aunt Leonie's house, don't you think?

I have just GOT to finish The Guermantes Way. Just do it.

Here is a link (you'll have to scroll down) about Proust confronting (or not) his Jewish blood.
http://thisdayinjewishhistory.blogspot.com/2009/07/this-day-july-10-in-jewish-history.html

The other Odette

Happy Birthday Marcel, Wherever You Are

Maybe in Pere LaChaise, maybe somewhere else. And what a beautiful day (en fin) we have in Foxborough, MA to celebrate the occasion.

I'm making spare ribs on the grill, baked beans, corn on the cob and we'll also enjoy yesterday's cherry caflouti (hey, ya gotta have something French).

I don't know if Francois ever made a caflouti during cherry season. Maybe the family was too la-di-dah. Dunno. We are NOT too la-di-dah.

Happy Birthday, Marcel. Ah to be in the South of France today, perhaps in the hills above Nice or Cannes, perhaps in Normandy or where Proust and his grandmother summered, Balbec. Can't you just smell the briny breeze and see the young girls in flower.

Ahhhhh.

The other Odette

Summarizing Proust

July is looking good for finding literate Proust blogs. The world has not yet fled to the South of France, the Mediterrean isles, the Hamptons or onto a yacht on Long Island Sound.

What? Quel dommage! You're not going to any of those places? Helas!

When our cat took ill, we had one of those maligned "staycations" with local museums and restaurants benefitting from Chez Odette. Kitty is fine now.

The grad student blogger with a link below has actually Summarized Proust, but not of course, in 15 seconds, that can't be done. Or can it?

http://gradstudentmadness.blogspot.com/2009/07/book-notes-guermantes-way-marcel-proust.html

Could it happen on Twitter in 142 characters? Want to try?
Odette is feeling very geeky having managed to have her "tweets" show up on Facebook.

Summer Proust Blogging

Lately, I haven't found many Proust blogs worth reporting on, but here is a young blogger who reads and quotes Proust:

http://tastymorselsoflife.blogspot.com/2009/07/places-that-we-have-known-people-we.html

For a wonderful Proust essay read Travel in a Garden (link below). In Foxborough as in the rest of New England, gardens are drying out after the June deluges, unremitting and omnipresent. New England looks like England with so much greenery.

http://travelinagarden.blogspot.com/2009/07/du-cote-de-chez-swann-combray-marcel.html

Cheers!

Odette, whose Proust reading has again, alas, fallen on evil days.