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.