Reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time in 2014 discussion

I'm curious about how some of you first became aware of Proust and this book. I think maybe I'd heard the name Proust, but I'd certainly never heard of this book until a couple of years ago when I started to read books recommended by Peter Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

The book is simply amazing, and I can't understand how I'd managed to live 40+ years without having ever even heard of it.

I bought ISOLT in college (Austin) in the Spring of 1973 as a multivolume paperback set. I saw it in the bookstore,read the back cover and bought it. (I read a lot of literature back then) I got about 20 pages into it and set it aside. At least 2 other times I remember trying to read it and never getting any further than I had the last time. Last Spring, after discovering that I could read difficult books if I simultaneously listened to the Audiobook, I started again and finished. Now I find I'm very comfortable with Proust's style and find it easy to read.

Thanks for starting this thread Sunny.

Sunny, great topic!

I had seen his name mentioned in a couple of films - I was a cinema enthusiast long before being interested in literature. I thought the time that it would take me to read one book would be better invested watching dozens of films instead.... and now, here I am reading this 4,000 pages long book and planning a re-read right away. LOL at myself. Way to go, Renato!

Anyway, my experience was similar to yours, as my interest came from a list. After reading Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain and being completely amazed by it, I started looking for reviews about it - that's also how I found Goodreads. I came across a review from this book: The Novel 100: A Ranking Of The Greatest Novels Of All Time and really enjoyed it. After that I took a look at the other books ranked in it and became instantly attracted by the title "In Search of Lost Time" (I haven't read the review yet because of spoilers), and tried to find out more about it and Proust, but was scared at its length. I figured it would be better to read it with a group, so I searched for it and found you guys back in April!

As I was already late, I didn't give it much thought. I bought the first volume and started reading it to catch up with the group... and fell in love with it.

Oh, and i should mention it has been on my bucket list since I first bought it. Not reading bucket list but life bucket list. I visited Proust's grave twice (1982 &1995) long before I got through the book.

My tale, often told.
In my early 20's, I was reading history for my undergraduate degree, when my eyes first read the name, "Marcel Proust."
After that, every time I saw his name, I had this weird, visceral, intuitive feeling come over me--something like "this man is important to you in some way."
Now, I preferred American and Russian history, took Spanish in school, and wasn't even interested in French or the culture, but this nagging persisted until I said to myself, "Alright already! I will read this Marcel Proust, but I don't have time now...I have to build a career and raise a family."

The day I retired, I picked up "Swann's Way," and my life changed.

Before I moved to New York, I did not know one person. I had already read the novel more than once, so I googled, "Proust reading group."
When I arrived, I joined The Proust Society of America...and it became "my Swann."

Who knows why that intuitive feeling would always overwhelm me? My ancestors were French Huguenots...and the first time I visited Paris, I felt I was "home."

(Strange, my husband feels exactly the same way about Manhattan; he only feels at "home" here. Thus, after never living in New York, we sold our suburban home -many states away- to move into an apartment 1/4 the size!)

Dave, how nice that you've heard about it 30 years ago but didn't go on, and I who had just found out about it, ended up having this great reading experience together!

Marcelita, I imagine you smiling at us new readers being completely amazed by Proust's magic! :-)

Your story is special Marcelita, you grew up and became Queen of Proustland!

I can Google Proust reading group San Antonio from now 'til the cows come home and will get nothing but "NOT FOUND."

I'm looking forward to visiting my Grandson (4) at Christmas. He will enjoy my bedtime story that begins "For a longtime I used to go to to bed early...." Who will go to bed early grandpa? Let's wait and see. ;) Won't he be pleased when he finds out we will still be reading the same story when he is in Graduate School!

You are being kind Renato - It was 40 years ago.

Or plain stupid. LOL!

I'm so happy to have found this group, and to have had the pleasure of being introduced to Proust with you. It's truly been a wonderful journey.

So far. I still have 25 more pages to finish my first reading. Yes, my first. I know I missed a ton that just went right over my head this year, and I'd love to read the earlier volumes again knowing what I now know about the FUTURE. :)

Sunny your last line summoned an involuntary movie memory from Ghostbusters. The image of Sigorney Weaver floating above her bed while Bill Murray questions her. Possessed by the Spirit of Marcel she growls THERE IS NO FUTURE, ONLY PAST!

I hope you are going to let us know your impression of the ending Sunny. Its been a pleasure being in the group with you. I don't know the percentage of readers who read Proust, or the percentage of readers who, having started actually finish (Marcelita, any thoughts?) but I imagine we are a few, a precious few, a band of brothers and sisters. Congratulation on one of the greatest possible reading achievements of a lifetime!

I'll definitely be reading and commenting in that last week's thread once I finish. (I suspect that will be today.)

And, I think you're right about our being among a small but privileged few to have accomplished regaining time. Volume 3 nearly did me in. LOL! Funny how I'd never heard of Proust before, and now his work has become one of my greatest reading achievements. One of many discussion points is how perspectives and opinions change over time. My perspective has certainly changed over Time. :)

How many actually finish? A fraction.
Consider Goodreads as an example...populated with curious, wide-ranging, and self-described "Readers."

Last year, GoodReads' 2013: The Year of Reading Proust had 1,543 members.
Proustitute, who started the group, dropped out, and there were only ten different posters on last thread.

There were a few lurkers, so let's be generous and add an additional twenty-five.

35/1,543 = the most exclusive fraternity in the world. Money can't buy you a membership...you must "read" your way in. ;)

That is why, whenever a true Proustian (someone has read the novel at least twice) visits New York...I consider them a "cousin."

Sunny wrote "One of many discussion points is how perspectives and opinions change over time. My perspective has certainly changed over Time". That is an excellent topic to discuss! As you may have seen in other posts, I really hope that when everyone finishes Time Regained, they let their impressions season a couple of days and then go back and read the first 10 or so pages of Swann's Way. That was where my perspective was radically altered.

Marcelita wrote: "How many actually finish? A fraction.
Consider Goodreads as an example...populated with curious, wide-ranging, and self-described "Readers."

Last year, GoodReads' 2013: The Year of Reading Prous..."

I think our group started with 95. I started late as did a few others. But I don't think we have but maybe 10 left.

I love your phrase "you have to read your way in. That is sooo true!

I also like that you set the "cousinship" bar high! I don't want there to be too big a crowd at your house when I come for sleepover when the Proust Society of America has meetings!

I've been off work this week and was out and about today and couldn't access these threads on my phone app so I could see there was a lot buzzing around on the Proustosphere but couldn't join in.

Anyway, I keep racking my brain trying to think when I first heard of Proust but can't think of any defining moment. I read a lot of books by Henry Miller in my early twenties and I first learned of a lot of writers from his writings but I don't recall him mentioning Proust much. I can remember seeing the shelves of my library with this row of yellow hardback copies of 'Remembrance of Things Past' together with the three-volume Penguin editions that looked very intimidating at 1,000+ pages each. But I never seriously considered reading ISOLT until last year; I'd finished Zola's twenty-novel cycle of Rougon-Macquart novels and wasn't really considering another big reading project when I 'sort-of' read Ulysses and then came across the 2013 group around August time and was a bit annoyed that I'd missed it. I was then seriously considering reading ISOLT when I saw that Alia had started this group - I must have spotted it just as it was created as I was one of the first to join; I was eager to get started and did contemplate setting off on my own, but I thought my reading would benefit from being in a group, which it has, so thanks for everyone that's been along for the ride.

Good word Jonathan, Proustosphere. Sunny finished the book so the champagne is flowing in the Final Week folder. I'll look, but I bet I can't find that Zola series published over here!

Dave wrote: "Good word Jonathan, Proustosphere. Sunny finished the book so the champagne is flowing in the Final Week folder. I'll look, but I bet I can't find that Zola series published over here!"

If you're interested in Zola, Dave, you may like to look here, which is a bit of an intro I wrote for a blog that I've contributed to. It can be summarised by: read whichever novels take your fancy; the order doesn't matter too much; read modern translations where possible as Victorian ones were censored.

Jonathan wrote: "Dave wrote: "Good word Jonathan, Proustosphere. Sunny finished the book so the champagne is flowing in the Final Week folder. I'll look, but I bet I can't find that Zola series published over here!..."

Thanks Jonathan, I'll check it out!

Dave wrote: "Marcelita wrote: "How many actually finish? A fraction.
Consider Goodreads as an example...populated with curious, wide-ranging, and self-described "

I also like that you set the "cousinship" bar high! I don't want there to be too big a crowd at your house when I come for sleepover when the Proust Society of America has meetings! "

You are making my cheeks ache...from smiling.

In that case, you probably wouldn't have felt comfortable at P. Segal's Victorian house--1907 Golden Gate, San Francisco.

She had the first Proust Zine on the web...

was one of the founders of Burning Man...and definitely "not like the others." ;)

Her Zine, "Proust Said That!" in seven editions is now "famous" in some Proustian circles.

http://zacker.info/pst/
(Be careful how you link or you may get nada.)
Issue #1: http://zacker.info/pst/proustgr.html and http://zacker.info/pst/TOC1.html

Oh, and "Every year Miss P bakes a cake in the likeness of Marcel Proust

and has a wake for him in an art coffin."
http://brokeassstuart.com/blog/2014/0...

From a wonderful article in the SF Weekly:

"One night in the early '90s, viola player and then-housemate John Casten asked Miss P to join him in reading Marcel Proust's 3,500-page masterful albatross Remembrance of Things Past."
(Forty people started...only four finished; they read ten pages a night for one year.)

"'It changed my life,' says Miss P, lounging in a party dress crinkled by a night spent on the Caffè Proust couch. '[Proust's] powers of observation were so keen, his humor so rich and subtle. I learned a lot about myself in that first reading. I laughed at my faults and those of my beloved ones and looked at the subjects of love and jealousy, and the nature of things that destroy relationships.'"

P. Segal also ran the Caffè Proust...a meeting place for the Marcel Proust Support Group.
"For the last three years, Caffè Proust has been the physical embodiment of Miss P's magazine and her public parlor:..." It closed in 2002.
http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/...