Page: n/a
Pages read since last post: 178
Days reading Proust: 150 (16, 64, 29, 16, 7, 4, 14)
Books read since last post: 0
Students' theses and dissertations read since last post: 4
Just quickly to declare my own completion. If M Garrood gets full bonus marks for finishing in the middle of the French countryside outside Paris, then I feel I should at least get half marks for finishing it whilst ill in bed this morning. I'm sure that my malaise has been brought on by the number of students demanding my attention in the past week.
I will post some thoughts on this volume and the novel as a whole at a later date when the dust has settled. For now, it's back to marking dissertations, which, whilst probably written late at night decidedly lack the allure of M Proust's mellifluous prose.
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...
7 comments:
Congratulations. I suggest we await El's completion, and - who knows - a Proust celebration could accompany my birthday drinks
Many thanks. What news from M Smith? What are your plans for the Friday evening prior to your birthday? If we are all free I could descend on you with my Proust DVDs and a bottle of fizz.
Dull if not dire news from my quarter, am still mired in the end of Fug, so to speak. Wouldn't say am losing heart but am perilously close. Think I may be going through the Proustian Wall so infamously spoken of by marathon runners. Certainly couldn't give much of a toss about Marcel/"Marcel" any more!
Amusingly, I was exploring the Proust/marathon analogy with my sporty brother recently. I thought it was a fair comparison - and a similarly smug experience for more literary/less athletic types until he pointed out that no-one gets a medal for finishing Proust. Perhaps you would like Will and I to come round to your house and cheer you on in the final stages? Instead of lucozade and jelly babies we could hand you cups of lime blossom tea and madeleines.
That might help. Perhaps we could get some medals struck? And, congratulations to you both, apologies for my ungracious self-absorption in my previous post. The book truly is having an effect! (I tell myself)
As far as this comparison goes; it's noteworthy that some people just don't finish the marathon because they don't put the effort in. One could - on this extension of the analogy - call M. Haynes the Jade Goody of the Proustathon, though that would perhaps be harsh.
Harsh indeed.
In fact, as I recall, Ms Goody did manage to drag herself along for 18 miles before collapsing. So, although one could safely assume this feat occurred at a somewhat leisurely pace, scaling up it would nevertheless equate to ~2500 pages of Proust i.e. early stages of Cap. Rather puts Alexis' effort in the shade.
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