Page: 280
Pages read since last post: 280
Days elapsed reading Proust: 27 (23, 4*)
Books read since last Post: 1 (R.Graves, I Claudius)
Volume II is a joy. I did not get reound to picking it up on Saturday, realising - with a somewhat downcast heart - that it is about 100 pages longer than Swann's Way. However, once started, I am finding this volume simply magical to read. It helps that, although not quite the tight, fast moving plot we have been promised, there is a sense of movement. That said, it's best parts are not those of pace and plot, but the long meditations, like the section on Bergotte c.page 150. There are some splendid one liners as well, which I have momentarily misplaced, but may collect later.
I also think I have a better idea about how to read this now. Like some of the mammoth Russians, though not long C19 British authors, these are books that really require immersion over sustained blocks of time. One needs to luxuriate in the language and the narrative (such that it is). I suspect that part of my problem with Swann in love was not giving it enough attention, though I maintain it is inferior to Combray and especially to this volume.
Incidentally, deep immersion is not the best approach to I Claudius which - though still excellent - I would have said works best when read in a more fragmentary way. Otherwise, it feels a little too short. Caligula's reign, for example, I remember from last time as being a long drawn out nightmare, but the section is actually quite short, especially when read through on one morning. Nonetheless, a great book.
My cup overfloweth.
Tuesday 30 October 2007
Monday 22 October 2007
Ready to bud
Books read since last post: 5 (G. Garcia Marquez, In evil hour, D. Lodge, The British Museum is falling down, J.Bauby, The diving bell and the butterfly, P.Auster, Travels in the Scriptorium, M.Mazower, Salonica [almost])
I am no longer sans Proust. My copy has this minute arrived on my desk. We can begin again. I propose that we defer the start until Saturday 27th October. I'm going to regret the following sentance in the context of the book we are reading, but time is here not relevant. We'll go by days in our own time zones.
I have not missed the Proustian action over the last week and have been luxuriating in short books, as is evident. As a perfect antidote to Proust I would recommend the David Lodge, which is short, funny and British. It was most welcome. The other novels could be skipped, especially the Auster, and Salonica, while interesting, is also a bit repetitive, overlong and has a tendency to double back on itself - Budding Grove here I come.
On an aside, I think the leaderboard notation ought to be as follows:
Murray: 16 days (16,0)
Haynes: +3 (19,0)
Garrood: +7 (23,0)
Forgive the noughts; they are the incomplete vol 2 tallies to be updated as we go. I propose we periodically update as people complete volumes. Let battle commence on Saturday.
I am no longer sans Proust. My copy has this minute arrived on my desk. We can begin again. I propose that we defer the start until Saturday 27th October. I'm going to regret the following sentance in the context of the book we are reading, but time is here not relevant. We'll go by days in our own time zones.
I have not missed the Proustian action over the last week and have been luxuriating in short books, as is evident. As a perfect antidote to Proust I would recommend the David Lodge, which is short, funny and British. It was most welcome. The other novels could be skipped, especially the Auster, and Salonica, while interesting, is also a bit repetitive, overlong and has a tendency to double back on itself - Budding Grove here I come.
On an aside, I think the leaderboard notation ought to be as follows:
Murray: 16 days (16,0)
Haynes: +3 (19,0)
Garrood: +7 (23,0)
Forgive the noughts; they are the incomplete vol 2 tallies to be updated as we go. I propose we periodically update as people complete volumes. Let battle commence on Saturday.
Tuesday 16 October 2007
Delving into a Budding Grove
Books read since last post: Starter for Ten, David Nicholls; How Proust Can Change Your Life, Alain de BottonUnsurprisingly, the de Botton makes more sense having actually read some of ALRDTP. Not his finest hour - that would be the glorious Essays in Love - but enjoyable nevertheless, and worthwhile for the account of the single awkward meeting between Proust and Joyce alone, whereupon each denied any knowledge of the other's oeuvre.
The start date for Within a Budding Grove has been set provisionally for this coming Saturday (20th October). Coinciding, perhaps, with an English triumph in Paris of the rugby union variety. Our restart, however, remains at the mercy of the irksome industrial action by postal staff (postal workers seems an inappropriate term). M. Garrood will advise on Friday as to whether his copy of volume 2 has successfully negotiated the backlog.
Monday 15 October 2007
Bring it on
Page: 513 (Swann's Way complete)
Pages read since last post: 120
Days elapsed reading Proust: 23
Books read since last Post: 1 (M. Marqusee, Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the spirit of the sixties)
One down. I finished Swann this evening, perhaps fittingly in a university lecture hall, waiting for the lecture to start (which it did, late). I must confess that despite my earlier condemnation of Swann in love, the ending was rather good. I still contend that the section is about half as much again too long, but the ending struck was wistful in just the right way. Seen from this side of reading it, I am remembering Swann in love fondly - though I am in no hurry to reread it. Conversely, I'm not sure what to make of the short final section. The recurrance of the pattern established in the previous section with the narrator and Gilberte lacks subtlety (and does make me think that Proust is overly cruel to his protagonists, who appear to spend their time being unhappy when they have the thing they desire), and the whole thing meanders a bit. This last may strike people as an absurd criticism of Proust, but it seems all a bit pointless, though through the medium of some Googling, I think the point may be revealed in the second volume.
As an inside, I do not have the second volume as it is being held up by the postal strike (I think). I will advise on arrival, but don't expect it before the end of the week. I would suggest Saturday as the new start date. In the meantime, I suggest a guessing game for completion of the sextet, both in total number of days and in chronological time: I'm not sure we'll keep our cracking pace, but my thoughts are that we'll hit completion in June next year, and I think that the winner will come in at 110 days.
Pages read since last post: 120
Days elapsed reading Proust: 23
Books read since last Post: 1 (M. Marqusee, Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the spirit of the sixties)
One down. I finished Swann this evening, perhaps fittingly in a university lecture hall, waiting for the lecture to start (which it did, late). I must confess that despite my earlier condemnation of Swann in love, the ending was rather good. I still contend that the section is about half as much again too long, but the ending struck was wistful in just the right way. Seen from this side of reading it, I am remembering Swann in love fondly - though I am in no hurry to reread it. Conversely, I'm not sure what to make of the short final section. The recurrance of the pattern established in the previous section with the narrator and Gilberte lacks subtlety (and does make me think that Proust is overly cruel to his protagonists, who appear to spend their time being unhappy when they have the thing they desire), and the whole thing meanders a bit. This last may strike people as an absurd criticism of Proust, but it seems all a bit pointless, though through the medium of some Googling, I think the point may be revealed in the second volume.
As an inside, I do not have the second volume as it is being held up by the postal strike (I think). I will advise on arrival, but don't expect it before the end of the week. I would suggest Saturday as the new start date. In the meantime, I suggest a guessing game for completion of the sextet, both in total number of days and in chronological time: I'm not sure we'll keep our cracking pace, but my thoughts are that we'll hit completion in June next year, and I think that the winner will come in at 110 days.
Friday 12 October 2007
Lagging behind
Page: 393
Pages read since last post: 27
Days elapsed reading Proust: 20
Books read since last Post: 3 (P.Roth, My life as a man, P.Theroux, The Mosquito Coast, M.Simkins, Fatty Batter)
Congratulations M Haynes. As you will both see, my delays continue. I keep getting distracted by what have been generally disappointing books: Roth clever, but fragmeted, Theroux just a bit silly and pointless and Simkins dishonest, though fun. I am returning to Proust this weekend, as well as trying to get an essay out on Prosopography so we may have no need to wait till the 8th.
On a final plea, can we largely not include work books, unless they are interesting. I'm pretty certain neither of you are interested in my recent work reading: Can the market deliver - funding public service television in the digital age, and A. Peacock, Public Service Broadcasting without the BBC. And I have excluded Byzantine reading as well: thrillers such as A.Cameron (ed.), Fifty years of Byzantine Prosopography and a series of books about databases.
Oh, and Swann in love is still really tedious, but I can see the end now.
Pages read since last post: 27
Days elapsed reading Proust: 20
Books read since last Post: 3 (P.Roth, My life as a man, P.Theroux, The Mosquito Coast, M.Simkins, Fatty Batter)
Congratulations M Haynes. As you will both see, my delays continue. I keep getting distracted by what have been generally disappointing books: Roth clever, but fragmeted, Theroux just a bit silly and pointless and Simkins dishonest, though fun. I am returning to Proust this weekend, as well as trying to get an essay out on Prosopography so we may have no need to wait till the 8th.
On a final plea, can we largely not include work books, unless they are interesting. I'm pretty certain neither of you are interested in my recent work reading: Can the market deliver - funding public service television in the digital age, and A. Peacock, Public Service Broadcasting without the BBC. And I have excluded Byzantine reading as well: thrillers such as A.Cameron (ed.), Fifty years of Byzantine Prosopography and a series of books about databases.
Oh, and Swann in love is still really tedious, but I can see the end now.
Thursday 11 October 2007
The Habit of Finding Life Interesting
Page: I have just finished Swann's Way.
Pages since last post: hard to tell exactly; I have been forced to switch from the Vintage edition to the Modern Library one. The ML is, however, a rather handsome 6 volume set.
Smugness: 100%
Books read since last post: Blackwell Companion to Mark Twain. (Well, if we're allowed work books ...)
Pages since last post: hard to tell exactly; I have been forced to switch from the Vintage edition to the Modern Library one. The ML is, however, a rather handsome 6 volume set.
Smugness: 100%
Books read since last post: Blackwell Companion to Mark Twain. (Well, if we're allowed work books ...)
Wednesday 10 October 2007
Maillot jaune
Current page: Loitering betwixt and between Swann's Way and Within a Budding Grove
Pages read since last post: None
Running total of days reading Proust: 16
Other books read since last post: The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios by Yann Martel
Firstly, don't bother with the Martel. Some interesting ideas for short stories but written whilst a student... and believe me, it shows.
Secondly, and the main point of this post, some decisions regarding regulation of Proust-reading have been decided upon, by email correspondence, sadly, not on this blog. I will therefore summarise.
1. Upon the completion of a volume, the individual will pause in his search of lost time, to allow the others to catch up.
2. Proust-reading will then recommence, hopefully in synchrony, one month after the first completion (i.e. 8th November for Budding Grove), unless the remaining individuals finish sooner, in which case the new volume can begin sooner. The start date is very much a movable feast, however, providing all parties are in agreement.
3. The tally of days spent reading Proust for each individual will therefore be halted upon completion of a volume, and restarted on the new commencement date.
These rules should thus give the most accurate quantification of one's efficiency of Proust consumption, will maintain coherence in the blog and allow for gentlemanly breaks in Proust for the reading of more frivolous material, which is a good thing, providing one doesn't select the early short stories of a one-hit-wonder Booker Prize winner.
Pages read since last post: None
Running total of days reading Proust: 16
Other books read since last post: The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios by Yann Martel
Firstly, don't bother with the Martel. Some interesting ideas for short stories but written whilst a student... and believe me, it shows.
Secondly, and the main point of this post, some decisions regarding regulation of Proust-reading have been decided upon, by email correspondence, sadly, not on this blog. I will therefore summarise.
1. Upon the completion of a volume, the individual will pause in his search of lost time, to allow the others to catch up.
2. Proust-reading will then recommence, hopefully in synchrony, one month after the first completion (i.e. 8th November for Budding Grove), unless the remaining individuals finish sooner, in which case the new volume can begin sooner. The start date is very much a movable feast, however, providing all parties are in agreement.
3. The tally of days spent reading Proust for each individual will therefore be halted upon completion of a volume, and restarted on the new commencement date.
These rules should thus give the most accurate quantification of one's efficiency of Proust consumption, will maintain coherence in the blog and allow for gentlemanly breaks in Proust for the reading of more frivolous material, which is a good thing, providing one doesn't select the early short stories of a one-hit-wonder Booker Prize winner.
Monday 8 October 2007
In search of a tight forward-moving plot...
Current page: Swann's Way 513 (last page)
Pages read since last post: 273
Other books read since last post: Living Without Oxygen (Closed and Open Systems in Hypoxia Tolerance) by Peter Hochachka
I am, I feel, entitled to a measured amount of smugness in having finished Swann's Way this morning at ~ 8.45 just as the bus deposited me on Silver Street on my way into work. I now feel vindicated in having forced my way through Swann in Love on Saturday, and am pleased to report that the odd, little final section recaptures, to some extent, the glories of Combray (albeit in Paris this time around). There are also hints at some of the themes of Swann in Love, as the protagonist develops an infatuation with the indifferent daughter of Swann and Odette. The analogy of Marcel as Swann, Gilberte as Odette, and the children playing in the parks of the Champs Elysees as the salon society of the previous section is very obvious, yet surprisingly it does knit the book together rather better than I'd expected. It is hard, however, to see exactly where this is all going to go from here. We have been assured, as M. Garrood has pointed out, of a tight forward-moving plot from the novel as a whole, and some of the amazon.co.uk reviews for volume 2 hint that it lies therein.
I have now purchased Within a Budding Grove (from Waterstones Cambridge), and am poised to begin. In the interest of long-term progress, however, I may adopt a policy of punctuating my completion of each volume with something shorter and more frivolous, by way of reward. I have a limited selection available, due to the extremely gradual nature of my relocation from Oxford, however I may try out Yann Martel's curiously-titled collection of pre-Life of Pi short stories - The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios - a Hay-on-Wye purchase of some years ago... quite possibly on that very most famous of stag weekends.
Pages read since last post: 273
Other books read since last post: Living Without Oxygen (Closed and Open Systems in Hypoxia Tolerance) by Peter Hochachka
I am, I feel, entitled to a measured amount of smugness in having finished Swann's Way this morning at ~ 8.45 just as the bus deposited me on Silver Street on my way into work. I now feel vindicated in having forced my way through Swann in Love on Saturday, and am pleased to report that the odd, little final section recaptures, to some extent, the glories of Combray (albeit in Paris this time around). There are also hints at some of the themes of Swann in Love, as the protagonist develops an infatuation with the indifferent daughter of Swann and Odette. The analogy of Marcel as Swann, Gilberte as Odette, and the children playing in the parks of the Champs Elysees as the salon society of the previous section is very obvious, yet surprisingly it does knit the book together rather better than I'd expected. It is hard, however, to see exactly where this is all going to go from here. We have been assured, as M. Garrood has pointed out, of a tight forward-moving plot from the novel as a whole, and some of the amazon.co.uk reviews for volume 2 hint that it lies therein.
I have now purchased Within a Budding Grove (from Waterstones Cambridge), and am poised to begin. In the interest of long-term progress, however, I may adopt a policy of punctuating my completion of each volume with something shorter and more frivolous, by way of reward. I have a limited selection available, due to the extremely gradual nature of my relocation from Oxford, however I may try out Yann Martel's curiously-titled collection of pre-Life of Pi short stories - The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios - a Hay-on-Wye purchase of some years ago... quite possibly on that very most famous of stag weekends.
Saturday 6 October 2007
Second Life
Current Page: 175
Other books read: 1 (Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader)
Books about to be purchased today at second-hand book sale near here: Think Hay-on-Wye proportions.
Other books read: 1 (Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader)
Books about to be purchased today at second-hand book sale near here: Think Hay-on-Wye proportions.
If my first post comes a little late, it must surely be out of shame: I am languishing in 3rd place with a very paltry amount of reading done to date. I am barely two thirds of the way through Combray, but I am now on my Fall Break, so prepare to be overtaken! And yet, it seems strangely appropriate to be taking my time over this book. So far, I found the cake section the least interesting, and I can’t help but say (with one of Alan Bennett’s characters) that it might work with Fuller’s cakes, but not with madeleines. What I do love, though, is Proust’s manifesto on reading around p. 100, and his description of how the novelist’s “happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque sections, impenetrable to the human soul, their equivalent in immaterial sections, things, that is, which one’s soul can assimilate”. Bennett’s own novella (a good antidote to the length of ALRDTP) puts it so much better, though: “Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives.” In this respect, reading Proust seems like a more interesting version of Second Life (only our avatar here is an asthmatic Frenchman).
Tuesday 2 October 2007
"bores"
Current page: 366
Pages read since last post: 142
Other books read since last post: 1 (Alan Dean Foster, Clash of the Titans) & 2 halves (A history of Morocco; Roth, My life as a man)
Swann in love is really quite tedious. I cheerfully rambled through Combray, which I thought was simply lovely, even though, as we have cheerfully observed, nothing happens. However, this second section is proving a seriously debilitating slog. I have been ill for the last few days which had impeded my ability to move at any pace, but mostly, it is the tedious antics of the Verdurins. I know they are supposed to be petty minded and absurd, but do we really need 235 hundred pages (the length of many of many many good and great novels) to tell us this? We've definitely got it by now and there are a hundred pages to go, though there is doubtless some key plot to come for the inside cover assures me that the novel has a "tight, forward-moving plot" - I don't think it will be a surprise. I'm going to restrain myself on the troubles of believability of the section, which I just just find (so far) bizarre and rest content in the knowledge that I've got the bugger down to less than 100 pages to go for this section.
I'm putting my order for the second volume on hold
Pages read since last post: 142
Other books read since last post: 1 (Alan Dean Foster, Clash of the Titans) & 2 halves (A history of Morocco; Roth, My life as a man)
Swann in love is really quite tedious. I cheerfully rambled through Combray, which I thought was simply lovely, even though, as we have cheerfully observed, nothing happens. However, this second section is proving a seriously debilitating slog. I have been ill for the last few days which had impeded my ability to move at any pace, but mostly, it is the tedious antics of the Verdurins. I know they are supposed to be petty minded and absurd, but do we really need 235 hundred pages (the length of many of many many good and great novels) to tell us this? We've definitely got it by now and there are a hundred pages to go, though there is doubtless some key plot to come for the inside cover assures me that the novel has a "tight, forward-moving plot" - I don't think it will be a surprise. I'm going to restrain myself on the troubles of believability of the section, which I just just find (so far) bizarre and rest content in the knowledge that I've got the bugger down to less than 100 pages to go for this section.
I'm putting my order for the second volume on hold
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