The Year of Reading Proust discussion

A better book title?

Naughty and hilarious. :-)

Giggling :D

Since this is the 'random' thread, I'll say it here as there's nowhere else to say it. It's not really a spoiler at all but (view spoiler)[pour l'amour de Dieu, la Recherche ne s'agit pas des gâteaux! (hide spoiler)].

Joshua wrote: "Since this is the 'random' thread, I'll say it here as there's nowhere else to say it. It's not really a spoiler at all but [spoilers removed]."

The book is not about madeleines?

In case anybody gets a bit lost with the plot, here is a good summary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwAOc4...

I guess I can change the title, too. Probably because I created it.

Kalliope wrote: "In case anybody gets a bit lost with the plot, here is a good summary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwAOc4..."

It's true - the girl with the biggest tits did summarize 'Prowst' the best...LOL!

Another one from the Underground NY Public Library!



And it looks like The Modern Library version, doesn't it Proustitute? (click to enlarge)

I'll look for it.

Yep.

[image error]

Proustitute wrote: "I like this one best as he's nearly at the end of volume 3: he's halfway through the Recherche. Love it."

Nah, he's cheating and reading the Synopsis!

I know because I've done it. :-)

The contest is a fun idea!

Proustitute wrote: "@Liberty

That sounds like a great idea!

I wish we had more publisher support for this Proust-a-thon to lend more motivation. Alas, it's just us."


One possibility is a blog that follows this group. Maybe a "weekly dispatches from the front lines" kind of thing. Once you're outside of GR, exposure goes up significantly.

Is the Recherche a helpful literary prescription for a serious book reader suffering deep clinical depression? Sadie Stein at The Paris Review recommends it (among other works) for its life-affirming qualities:

Life-affirming? Well, there are two things, really: inspirational sentiments and sheer beauty of language. War and Peace, Huckleberry Finn, The Dead, Middlemarch, Disgrace, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, A Sentimental Education, The Brothers Karamazov—all these are books that reaffirm, for me, something essentially optimistic. Others—Children of Gebelawi, In Search of Lost Time, One Hundred Years of Solitude, most any Faulkner, The Magic Mountain, Things Fall Apart, The Tale of Genji, Moby-Dick, The Orchard, Pedro Páramo—will simply awe you.

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/20...

Should we invite this depressed reader to The Year of Reading Proust?

Why yes, of course we should, and we have. See the comment from Catholic Proustian in the above-linked post.

i like the photo contest idea, even if it's not a real contest. if we upload them to the group's photo section and/or put them in a group tumblr and/or pinterest page, it would be really fun to see what it looks like in december 2013.

Proustitute wrote: "David, assuming catholic Proustian is you ..."

Yes, I am the same. And, yes, what a faithful friend is he, who, with gentle irony, unravels the illusion of our unhappy self:

So that we can never be certain that the happiness which comes to us too late, when we can no longer enjoy it, when we are no longer in love, is altogether the same as that same happiness the lack of which made us at one time so unhappy. There is only one person who could decide this -- our then self; it is no longer with us, and were it to reappear, no doubt our happiness -- identical or not -- would vanish.

Genet began to write his first novel, Our Lady of the Flowers, after reading the opening pages of Proust's Within a Budding Grove. Genet was in prison and he arrived late in the exercise yard for the weekly book exchange; as a result he was forced to take the one book all the other prisoners had rejected. And yet once he'd read the opening pages of Proust he shut the book, wanting to savor every paragraph over as long a period as possible. He said to himself; "Now, I'm tranquil, I know I'm going to go from marvel to marvel."

~ Edmund White

This is from a 2011 Chilean drama Bonsái. The romance begins with the two leading characters lying to each other about having read Proust.

Narrator Neville Jason talking about his unabridged recording of In Search of Lost Time http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG14r4...

Seems like a really interesting guy, would love to have tea with him!

Proustitute wrote: "Over at Twitter, in order to advertise the group and get more people interested, I've been using the #Proust2013 hashtag.

If you use Twitter, feel free to use it when speaking about group-related..."

And let them know they can use more than 140 characters in their discussions here... ;)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/...

Proustitute wrote: "Anna Weiner in The Paris Review on a summer of listening to ISOLT:

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/20..."

I will be listening to it too... Decided to get the 111CDs with the French version. It is supposed to be very good. I am really looking forward to it...

Not sure where the place is to say this, but we just had a couple dozen new members join the group in a rush. I think we may have been mentioned or recommended in another group (Brain Pain?).

So. Welcome to all our new members!

Thanks for the welcome. I learned about this group through mention by several (I think) members of the 1001 Books group.

I noticed that. My inbox was going crazy with new member requests!

Proustitute wrote: "Yes, thanks to Brain Pain (and Jim) for spreading the word about the group!"

De rien. We actually read In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower in the BP group, which was a spill-over read from another group. You'll likely pick up a few more members from the BP group over the next few days. The members are dedicated to reading challenging Literary fiction, and ISOLT certainly sits up at the top of that list!

This morning, in a lecture at the Thyssen Museum, we were shown Vermeer's "View of Delft" and the corresponding quote with the famous "petit pan de mur jaune" from Proust was read to us. I was SOOOO excited...!!!

Proustitute wrote: "http://mkimarnold.tumblr.com/post/344...

A short but sweet blog post on reading Proust for the first time."

That was a great insight that I can relate to.

I saw this too. :)

I couldn't figure out who actually drew those pictures. Was it the guy's grandfather?

Apart from Monty Python's summary, there is also this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdIZUo...

I read Madame Bovary a couple of years ago and have read one of the Ruskin essays so felt somewhat ready to start ISOLT a bit early as I know I will eventually fall behind.

I have to say that reading it in bed when the house is quiet and the work of the day is done seems like the best time to read this, at least for me. I find that the long passages are calming and provide sweet images with which to close my eyes and drift off to sleep. I am looking forward to getting to know the characters and spending time with them at the end of each day.

The chats in this group are so great that I can't wait to finish the review and book I'm currently working on to join in on the reads, as much as I love the current book.

I experienced your point just last night.

I promise that I will close the book for the night when I am losing hold on the magic!

This won't work if reading strictly the schedule (unless, I guess, you read super fast), but I found I liked to intersperse each volume of the Recherche with something light and easy. To take a breath before launching in again.

My copy of Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time arrived today. So glad to have learned about it here - my appreciate of Proust will increase tenfold!

Yes it is. As I said in the other thread, I know so little about art, although it's not as if I've never seen anything. But the book just opened up to Rembrandt's The Money Changer. I had a hard time turning the page. ;-)

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "My copy of Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time arrived today. So glad to have learned about it here - my appreciate of Proust will increase tenfold!"

Yes, this is a wonderful book. I also got it but have not started it yet.

Hitchens on Proust

I was browsing through some old documents and found I had saved the text from this link.


http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/...

Hopefully some will read and enjoy as I did!

(Just don't tell anyone that it was saved in my documents at work :D )

Thanks, Nick. What is work for, after all, if not ignoring and reading online magazines :)

Homeless, but reading Proust.

Dave the Grass Mower claims you need to read Proust standing up.
For some reason.

And we conclude with a German (I think?) woman reading Proust in bed.
http://vimeo.com/40348102

Apropos of nothing: how annoyed I will be if all the crazies are right about the Mayan calendar, and the world ends on the 21 December. We won't even have arrived in Combray!

Joshua wrote: "Apropos of nothing: how annoyed I will be if all the crazies are right about the Mayan calendar, and the world ends on the 21 December. We won't even have arrived in Combray!"

I'm guessing if that is the case you won't be anything, including annoyed.

Joshua wrote: "Apropos of nothing: how annoyed I will be if all the crazies are right about the Mayan calendar, and the world ends on the 21 December. We won't even have arrived in Combray!"

I first heard the Mayan thing about 10 years ago and the version I heard is that only 2/3 of the population will die - so that means there will be at least 150 members of this group remaining to read ISOLT. Gives me hope....

Jason wrote: "
Dave the Grass Mower claims you need to read Proust standing up.
For some reason.
"

This brilliant piece:
http://therumpus.net/2009/05/to-sit-t...

Jason wrote: "And we conclude with a German (I think?) woman reading Proust in bed.
http://vimeo.com/40348102"

Librocubicularist.

I was sitting at my computer at work reading email and listening to my music when I felt suddenly overwhelmed by memories of my youth; of course, triggered by the music from my playlists.

In the same instant that the memories coursed through the core of my being, I realized that only 179 pages into Swann's Way, I am suddenly so intensely aware of my own "Proustian" moments.

Have others also noticed this intense awareness of your own sensory memory triggers after beginning Proust? I have always had these triggers, some I embrace and others avoid like the plague but it was a more unconscious process than it seems to be now. I feel like Proust's meticulous depictions of his narrator's memories have somehow swirled up my own memories and the triggers, when I encounter them, strike me like lightning.