AWOL

Page: 209 (out of 743).
Pages Read Since Last Post: 209
Books Read Since Last Post: (3). A. R. Burn, Penguin History of Greece, Melville, Billy Budd, Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf’s Nose, & various Dilbert books)

Gentlemen,

My apologies for my prolonged absence from the blog. If only it signaled that I was deeply engrossed in WABG, but alas it merely signifies the fact that I’ve been making pretty slow progress through it too. I’m not sure if the true Proust experience can be obtained a few pages at a time, but there’s little option right now.

I had been hoping to make some pretty impressive progressive over Thanksgiving, but instead I have been grading papers and attending antique fairs. Middle age has apparently struck early, but I’m loving every minute of it.

I know we’re not supposed to declare work books, but I would thoroughly recommend Lee’s splendid book on biography (which, at 115 pages or so, has much to recommend it to people on the Proust quest). Proust even gets a mention there: Lee notes that Claire Tomalin’s biography of Pepys compares the two figures a lot. I must confess that Proust could well do with some Pepysian escapades, and I was hopeful when Bloch introduces the narrator to brothels, but nothing else has materialized so far.

I’m certain that my previous comment reveals my complete ignorance of what is yet to come in the novel, but I am rather enjoying reading a novel where the outcome remains something of a mystery.

I anticipate further slow progress until the end of the semester (only 2 weeks away).