Page: Completed Within a Budding Grove

Pages Read Since Last Post: 534

Books Read Since Last Post: Paul Cartledge, Thermopylae; Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

If it were not for the fact that The Guermantes Way is even longer than Within a Budding Grove, I would be pretty pleased with myself right now: about half the reading since my last post was done today. I completed my grading earlier this week, so I spent all of today curled up with M. Proust as the snow fell outside. It seemed odd to be reading about a summer holiday during a nor’easter.

I liked this better than vol. 1. It is wittier, and Proust’s writing is remarkably vivid (as when he describes a woman emerge from an elevator “like a doll coming out of its box”). It is still grossly overweight; I know it’s quite deliberate, but even so … I read a bit, get bored, and then he writes something like the astral tables bit which means I have to go on.

I think that Will’s idea of saving vol. 3 until Jan 1^st is a wise one. I’d like to read something else for a while too.

Du temps perdu, perdu

Days reading Proust: 30 (ish)
Page: 450 (WABG)
Pages Read Since Last Post: 946
Books Read Since Last Post: Swann's Way, The Princess Bride

Belated greetings from a fellow traveller down the way of Swann. I shall summarise my position briefly.

Having started Swann's Way once earlier this year I went into this with my eyes open, but even so I have been surprised at how slow, not to say soporific, the task at hand can be. I have lost count of the number of times I have come to, Proust in hand, confused and unaware I had even drifted off. Fortunately I have not yet done so on public transport.

However, I have become firmly convinced that the endeavour is worthwhile. Currently three quarters of the way through Budding Grove, I am struck by the fact that since not much happens but is described in (occasionally excruciating) detail, the reader builds up a kind of false memory of the narrator's experiences. Quite bizarre but not something I have ever experienced in a book before (and possibly quite difficult to explain, for which apologies).

Although I fear my own writing style has begun to suffer from the disease which appeared to afflict M. Proust, to whit the regressive comma, the only known cure for which is a cold shower, a stiff brandy, and a large helping of Hemingway, that grizzled old sea salt dog, whose terse stylistics so changed us, indeed the very face of literature, forever.

And breathe.

After Swann's Way I had to take a palate cleanser of The Princess Bride. Highly recommended, both for this purpose and in its own right.

Then straight back into Budding Grove, which I have found to be both much slower going than the first volume and much faster, the cameos in the dining room in particular have flown by. The illusion of things actually happening seems to do the trick for me; it has now been some time since I have had to put the book from me in exasperation at the narrator's apparently infinite ability to think about things too much.

And perhaps those moments in the book are only so unbearable because I recognise parts of myself in there...

Although since starting this post some days ago I have in fact lost my copy of Within a Budding Grove (worn and dog-eared as it was starting to get) and so will have to buy another one if I am to finish by year's end. I feel it would be somehow inappropriate to appropriate a fellow Proustonaut's copy for my own ends.

Forcing the pace

Books Read Since Last Post: 13


W. Dalrymple, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857
K. Desai, The inheritance of loss
R. Gunesekera, Monkfish Moon
_____ The Sandglass
E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol.4
M.M. Kaye, The Far Pavilions
R. Knox, A historical account of captivity in Ceylon
C. Muller, The Jam Fruit Tree
V.S. Naipaul, In a Free State
_____ A bend in the river
_____ An area of darkness
M. Ondaatje, Running in the Family
R. Prawer Jhabvala, In Search of Love and Beauty


Not a long post. Just to update on my reading while away. The standouts for me were Gibbbon (who is as good as he is meant to be, though in many ways superceded), Dalrymple and Genesekara's Monkfish moon. All excellent. I was disappointed by Desai and Naipaul, especially An area of darkness.


I sense an impasse developing on the progress of vol 2; so I suggest that we aim to all be wrapped up by Christmas, and recommence on New Year's day. I can think of no better book to read hungover and on limited sleep than Proust....

Can I also suggest we discipline ourselves to post at least every 3 weeks on progress thereafter, even if none has been made.