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.
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