2017: Our Year of Reading Proust discussion

How do folks envision this working in terms of discussion? Curious as I've never done this before! thanks. Lori

Don't we have a reading schedule somewhere? I remember it started in January...not much else. I've already begun "Swann's Way"; about halfway through, but I'll be happy to pause.

OK: how we did it before. Tackled questions about the story; offered insights/questions about the characters & action; examined critical essays; those of us lucky enough to have visited Illiers-Combray posted photos & comments..

Really, it was how I used to run my class discussions; say anything you like, just keep it (fairly) clean & not spiteful.

Hello, newbie here. Looking forward to the discussion. Have read the first 40 or pages and enjoying it so far.

can we post threads for each of the weeks and then just post there when we finish the sections? I'm hoping spoilers will be ok if we limit the content for each section.

Reading Schedule here. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

David ~ I had heard earlier that we were not going to start until the beginning of January ! Oops! Was that "Fake News" ? HA!

Is it ok if I just play catch up? I was looking forward to reading this one this year ! I simply loved Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time last year ! It was the first group reading experience of a large volume read and it was a MAGNIFICENT read ! Powell was wonderful and most say Proust is even better . I do not know how readers feel so far but that might be a good question to start with first .

Should we ask how many readers have participated in reading " Large Big Book Volume Reads" and if so which ones and how did you enjoy the experience ? Did you read as a group read ? Did you read alone ? What appealed to you most and what did not ?

If you tell me where to place this question , I will answer first and get some discussion started !

We may want some historical and author background to talk about first ! I was an English Literature major with an emphasis in the English Victorian period and a speciality in Dickens . I went back to University and received an emphasis in Southern Culture and Literary Studies along with Creative Writing . During this time I briefly touched a few French writers but mostly concentrated on poetry and Russian Literature because we did not have an expert in other foreign specialties at the time . I have consistently read on my own to satisfy my curiosity as I have been a freelance writer and editor of my own blog which not only concentrates on the light in which the literary arts brings to our bored minds but how all light or knowledge can cure the boredom for such passion for all . I feel myself , that the mysterious light that magically shines and illuminates in crevices of dark corners or in blinding dreamy darkness all over the world will always live in most of our minds as a never ending curiosity that will always keep our minds searching !
Dawn
Lover of Light

As some of you know, I've read Proust many, many times; I started rereading about a month ago, and I'm almost done with "Swann's Way" at this point, but I'll try to stick to the reading schedule. And I want to mention an odd thing about the Narrator; one NEVER knows how old he is, have you noticed? As in the episode w/ his mother & the bedtime kiss...he could have been six, or ten; and as you go through it, you continue in this fog of timelessness. Like the Lady in Pink...

I thought that perhaps our narrator---an adult anywhere between about 20-50 years old---is floating about in free thinking about his childhood. He can easily move from this memories of his thoughts at age 5 to his same thoughts on the same people or subjects at age 12 and then back down again. As Elizabeth said, it's a "fog of timelessness". His memories of his mother's kiss are perhaps modified as he grows.

For example, when I was 10 I had memories of ways of thinking that I had at age 5 and those older thoughts would contribute to and modify the new thoughts. So we can write about our childhoods from multiple perspectives: we may have an old memory fixed in amber, so to speak, but with age our reflections upon that fossilized memory may be adapted.

A point of discussion: M. et Mme. Narrator's parenting skills: what do you think of them?

I remain so early in the book (I have just arrived at the "Swann's Way" part) that I don't have much helpful to observe. I know that our Narrator will begin to more closely observe other families and other ways of "doing things". He seems to romanticize his mother (who reads George Sand to him) much more so than his father. His mother is afraid of annoying his father by going up to kiss the young son. BUT---is the son blaming the father, or does he think that the mother cannot overcome this obstacle?

In these early pages the influence of the female relations seem greater but perhaps that's because the women are expected to deal with the young children. Perhaps the beloved church with its spires represents a sort of masculine principle and the crumbling p'tit Madeleine a feminine one--it will collapse and lose its structure in the tea.

But this is all mere speculation: all I can say is that he does not seem to have siblings and his parents are not presented in any way contrary to what I might suppose late 19th century parents behaved in general.

Yes, it was considered very bad for children to be openly and lavishly loved in that era; But the Narrator's family--especially his mother and grandmother--seem to go...a bit overboard.

And we, of course, have gone to the other extreme.

Elizabeth wrote: "As some of you know, I've read Proust many, many times; I started rereading about a month ago, and I'm almost done with "Swann's Way" at this point, but I'll try to stick to the reading schedule. A..."
good point about ageless quality of narrator.

I'm still struggling to figure out how to comment for each week. The pages flow one into the other and at the end I'm hard-pressed to track the journey of my reading.Today I thought maybe I could just write down the top three thoughts I had. Or maybe just one. Any others care to weigh in on how they intend to comment on their week's reading? are you taking notes? highlighting? or simply thinking of more general impressions?

I have just been thinking. I wonder if there's a study guide I can find. I know that a lot has been written about Proust and his work.

Each page is full of such richness that all of my comments have been quite a bit arbitrary. Also my edition does not line up with the page numbers here at all, so I never know where to place my comments.

Our moderator wrote somewhere that we could start new topics so I think I will try a couple.

Natalie wrote: "Each page is full of such richness that all of my comments h..."
that's how I feel. I'm reluctant to rely on study guides- just more reading. So I'll just take notes and well, still not sure what I'll post that's worth saying. Can't just say I love this, I love that...

Natalie wrote: "my edition does not line up with the page numbers here at all, so I never know where to place my comments."
What is your edition?

Is there a way to add folders for the topics-- i.e.
Folder ONE for general information: reading schedule, ancillary readings, how will discussions work
Folder TWO for specific topics about characters: Marcel's family, Verdurins, Swann etc
Folder THREE for weekly reading schedule discussions
I couldn't figure out how to do this.

Lori: you obviously did! I've visited them & commented a little. Like this chance to "avoid spoilers"--which I think is a failling of our age. Think of this: Sophocles' audience knew the story of Oedipus long before he even wrote the play, much less had it performed. Almost all of Shakespeare's plays begin with a Chorus (one actor) delivering a synopsis of the entire plot. And to veer wildly to the other side of the planet: there is an ancient tradition of murder mysteries in classical Chinese fiction, but they are hard to translate. Why? Because the murder is always revealed on the first page.

Elizabeth wrote: "Lori: you obviously did! .."

I meant to say folders within folders, as there will be quite a few of them as we move along

Elizabeth wrote: "A point of discussion: M. et Mme. Narrator's parenting skills: what do you think of them?"

Hum...giving a sensitive child the "silent treatment" for days at a time?

From the novel:
I saw in the well of the stair a light coming upwards, from Mamma’s candle. Then I saw Mamma herself and I threw myself upon her. For an instant she looked at me in astonishment, not realising what could have happened. Then her face assumed an expression of anger. She said not a single word to me; and indeed I used to go for days on end without being spoken to, for far more venial offences than this. A single word from Mamma would have been an admission that further intercourse with me was within the bounds of possibility, and that might perhaps have appeared to me more terrible still, as indicating that, with such a punishment as was in store for me, mere silence and black looks would have been puerile. A word from her then would have implied the false calm with which one addresses a servant to whom one has just decided to give notice; the kiss one bestows on a son who is being packed off to enlist, which would have been denied him if it had merely been a matter of being angry with him for a few days.
MP (SW)

An early version of a Tiger Mom? I personally think this is horrible, but...

It is; absolutely. There are many aspects of young Marcel's story that are rather pitiful. Of course "older Marcel" may be focusing on specifically high emotions and not the more mundane ones.

Natalie wrote: "Our moderator wrote somewhere that we could start new topics so I think I will try a couple."

I am just now realizing that this is really helping me. I was trying to comment as a week by week thing but it's far more helpful to keep notes on topics as they unfold. Thanks so very much for setting me straight, Natalie!