Page: 57
Pages read since last post: 57
Days reading Proust: 97 (23,7,44,9,14*)
Number of 6 book cycles I am attempting to finish on holiday: 3
Books read since last post: 6
G. Durrell, How to shoot an amateur naturist
P.Grimbert, Secret
F. Herbert, Dune; Dune Messiah; Children of Dune; God Emperor of Dune
As you can tell, I have in effect given up on Proust and instead have read most of Dune. I have to confess to finding The Captive a little dull in execution, but I suspect I need a prolonged slog at it to rectify that. Of other reading, Secret is excellent (and short), whereas Dune is obviously long and patchy. While the first book is excellent, I now remember why I never got beyond book 4 before. Mark you, that does not appear to have stopped people banging on about its profundity. For fun though, I would recommend the wikipedia entry on the subject. What particularly irritates me about these is where science fiction critics start claiming historiographical background for their work and stress the parallels between Gibbon's Decline and Fall and various works. This parallelism seems to extend to, er, having an Empire, and it falling.
Anyway, I am taking the last two Dune books, the last two Proust volumes and the last Gibbon with me on holiday tomorrow. I aim to complete them on the various train journeys we have.
Back in a fortnight.
Sometime, late of an evening in March 2007, a regrettable decision was taken. As a consequence of this decision three friends, Dr Andrew Murray, Mr William Garrood (Member of Surrey CCC) and Dr Alexis Haynes would competitively read Marcel Proust's masterpiece A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. The aforementioned Proustanauts were later joined in their endeavour by Mr Elliot Smith, who, aided in part by a bout of pneumonia, promptly overtook them all. The saga continues...
2 comments:
Cap does need a constant slog, but is worth it I feel. Fug is simply brilliant - I'm on page 600 and can't put it down. MAJOR plot twist just dropped in around page 550 and (if the Wikipedia entry is to be believed) several more to follow - I really didn't see it coming either and having thought the book was heading down one track I've suddenly had to re-appraise my expectations. It's short, tight and you can really feel Old Marcel starting to tie everything together for a big conclusion in the next volume. The best one so far.
Have a good holiday. I've just booked flights to Havana in September so I shall be re-reading Greene and Hemingway in preparation. Given your total failure to organise your birthday, would you like El and I a la best man and chief usher to organise it in your absence?
Dune wikipedia is hilarious, just leaves me thinking we should start a rival to Scientology using Herbert instead of L Ron.
Organic mental powers bridging space and time indeed... =)
Post a Comment