Distractions

It is now month 2 of the Proustian Marathon, and, in the parlance of our times, Proust is kicking my ass. I'm just a little more than 100 pages in, and my inner monologue while I'm reading is like this:

Nothing is happening...nothing is happening...something about cookies...mmmm cookies...nothing is happening...blah blah Mamma blah blah...nothing is happening....

This kind of mindset makes it very easy for me to be distracted by other things. But the truth is, I must finish Swann's Way by the end of this month. Just try to stop me. It cannot be done.

The Sweet Smell of...

Success! I've broken the 100-page mark of Swann's Way. As you might imagine, I'm quite pleased with myself, especially considering my recent, shall we say, inattentiveness? 

I've passed the infamous madeleine scene, in which the unnamed narrator bites into a bit of cookie soaked in tea, and experiences, for a moment, something akin to religious enlightenment.

I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature.

I find a great deal of truth in this passage--the power of smell and taste to call back perceptions deeply buried. I think most of us have been pulled irresistably down the path of memory by a faint whiff of cinnamon that reminds us of our grandmother's Thanksgiving pies cooling on a counter, or a vague breeze tinged with lilies that hints of an ex-girlfriend's perfume. 

In fact, whenever I smell or taste a certain combination of marjoram and thyme, I'm called back to a tiny restaurant--it must have been Moroccan--in Paris, where, as a relatively unworldly 15-year-old, I tasted couscous and lamb tagine for the first time. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant or approximate location within the warren that is the Latin Quarter, but the memory of that first taste has remained strong in my memory for more than a decade. To this day I can replicate that dish based on smell and taste alone. And each time I do, for the briefest sliver of a moment, I can almost believe I'm back in that restaurant, not far from the Seine, doubly cocooned in the wonder of Paris and the giddiness of adolescence, tasting an exotic dish for the first time. 

***

After the famous madeleine, we are further familiarized with the oh-so-French quaintness that is Combray. Anchored by the steeple of its cathedral, Combray is a town with a small and well-established population of "peasants" and bourgeois landowners, where an unknown visitor is a remarkable occurrence, and where town gossip travels faster than the speed of light. We are also introduced to the narrator's aunt Leonie, who gave the narrator his first taste of those madeleines soaked in tea, and whose neuroses clearly point to a hereditary anxiety disorder. (I say hereditary because, as you'll recall, the narrator likewise spent roughly the first 60 pages in hysterics over a missed opportunity to kiss his mother goodnight. Yes, yes, he's probably at the height of a childhood Oedipal complex, and anxiety disorders are certainly no laughing matter, but am I the only one who found the entire kiss-goodnight scenario a tad bit excessive? Just a wee bit over the top? Or, oh dear god, are children really that needy?)

Nonetheless, I do believe that Proust's abilities as a writer are underestimated when it comes to his stunning characterization. The characters who inhabit the fictional world of Combray are so incredibly lifelike that I can see brushstrokes of these characters in people around me, in my very real world. It is a remarkable thing to consider. So far, however, we have not had much in the way of dialogue or action, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Proust pulls it off. 

100 pages down, 2900 to go! 

What a good blogger am I...

Well, it was bound to happen--my first post about why I haven't been posting.

I won't offer any excuses, just a question: Do you know that babies are pretty much the greatest thing in the universe? I'm specifically referring to baby nephews here, though I do also enjoy baby animals, baby cupcakes, and other baby-type-things.

My second-ever nephew arrived a little over three weeks ago, and when I should have been reading Proust, I've instead been wrapped around the little guy's miniscule little finger. He's really a charming fellow, about the size of a loaf of bread, with brown hair. I do hope you'll forgive my absence--it seems sometimes that nothing in existence is more enthralling than watching a baby sleep in his vibrating chair for three. Whole. Hours. And those tiny cat-like yawns!

In any event, I've (almost) fully recovered from the babycoma, and I totally intend to blog my ever-progressing progress soon. Thanks for standing by.

Days 1 & 2: Well, It's a Start...

It's day 2 of the Proustian Marathon, and I'm really excited about what I'm reading so far. I know what you're asking yourselves, and the answer is no, you won't hear anything nerdier anywhere. 

I'm only about 25 pages into Swann's Way. It's slow going at the beginning--Proust starts off with a long and somewhat dull rumination on sleep, dreams, consciousness, and imagination, ending with the famous scene where the as-yet-unnamed narrator wistfully reminisces about his mother tucking him in at night as a child. This segues, somewhat unevenly, into memories of golden summers spent at his grandparents' house in Combray, a fictional town standing in as Proust's actual childhood home in Illiers, southwest of Paris. (Illiers was later renamed Illiers-Combray in honor of ISoLT, and if I haven't mentioned it already, 99% of my research is happening on Wikipedia, as is the habit of my generation. Someday I'll tell you about the time I used Wikipedia for the factual background of my senior thesis in college. For now let's just say that I would not recommend it.)

More reminiscing. A major player in the narrator's childhood memories is the volume's eponymous Monsieur Swann, and here Proust's characters begin to rocket off the page--the narrator's family assumes that Monsieur Swann is a simple, middle-class country neighbor. In truth, the narrator cleverly reveals, Swann is a fixture in the best circles of politics and society in Paris. These seemingly incongruous facts dovetail beautifully: the narrator's family thinks Monsieur Swann should be grateful of their attention, believing him to be somewhat lower-class than themselves, and Swann graciously refrains from disabusing them of this miguided notion--and what's more, he maintains an effortless intimacy with the family despite their arrogant ignorance. The narrator's family comes across as benignly naive, while Monsieur Swann appears generous, obliging, and kind. In short, the family dynamics are fascinating. 

The narrator also mentions that at some point in the future--remember, we're still turning over childhood memories--M. Swann will make an ill-advised marriage to a woman who's "as good as" a prostitute. I'm looking forward to discovering the circumstances of the match.

I won't dip my toes in the analytical pool quite yet--I still haven't read enough to reasonably suppose I know what Proust is thinking, and far more knowledgeable readers than I have already expounded on Proust's exploration of memory and consciousness in the opening pages. 

Onward and upward....

The Proustian Marathon

Starting tomorrow, I'm taking on the marathon of the literary world, the Serious Reader's herculean task: I'm reading Proust.

And I'm attempting to read every beloved word of it, in one year.

In Search of Lost Time, (or Remembrance of Things Past, as some prefer to translate the title from the original French A la recherche du temps perdu) was written by Marcel Proust in 1913, and was almost immediately reputed to be a masterpiece. Not to mention, one of the longest (and in some circles, boringest) books ever written. The English translation by C.K. Scott Moncrieff weighs in at more than 3,000 pages, with more than 1.25 million words. It's split into 6 volumes, and the paperback boxed set, which I will be reading, is a tubby 8.5 pound doorstop.

Why read Proust? For starters, I like reading, and that's pretty much a requirement if you're going to spend a year reading a 3,000-page book. Luckily, I also enjoy a challenge--and since I am a self-proclaimed "word nerd," I especially savor a reading challenge. I'm fairly competitive as long as no physical exertion is required, and my favorite competitor is me, so here we are.

Secondly, I spent a little bit of time in Paris while I was in college, drifting around the Left Bank, and occasionally attending classes at the Sorbonne, and during this time I decided that France in general and Paris in particular is a fairly superlative place to be. I'm told that most of the action (such as there is) in In Search of Lost Time takes place in Paris, so that will be a pleasant aspect of the challenge.

Thirdly, Proustian relevance has reached a bit of a peak in the last few years, most notably through the efforts of one Mr. Jonah Lehrer in his wonderfully thin little bestseller, Proust Was a Neuroscientist, which I read but did not understand, probably because I had not yet read Proust. I plan on reading it again, once I'm finished with ISoLT, kind of like a literary dessert. It even has a madeline cookie on the cover, which wraps that idea in a neat little package.

Like any good marathoner, I've been training: since April 1 of 2008, I've read 50 books. You can see a list of them here. Anyway, I did the math, and 50 books a year is roughly a book a week. And no, I didn't just read comic books, though I did read quite a few that were simply superb, ahem--the average page count of those 50 books hovers right around 346 pages. At that rate, I could, mathematically speaking, finish Proust in less than 3 months, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I will be blogging this entire experience right here on Proustian Marathon, where I'll update you on my progress, summarize what I've been reading, make some generally feeble attempts at literary analysis, and probably serve as a cautionary tale to readers everywhere. I invite you to join me on this quest! I can promise adventure, lively discussion, and possibly cupcakes. Except I was joking about the cupcakes.