Notes on Proust

Monday 3 May:

Seeing a woman briefly while travelling past; whether stopping would only be a let down; fear of boisterous young women; drunkeness; pursuing your desires; procrastination; monsters and gods — adolescence was the only time we ever learnt anything…

Saturday 15 May:

Francoise reminds me of Laurie Lee’s mother.

Tuesday 6 April:

Going slowly this morning on the bike along my usual route through Carlton I passed, as I must have done 100 times before without noticing it, an old house with ‘Combray’ across its crest.

Saturday 8 May:

“The steps of thought which we take during the lonely work of artistic creation all lead us downwards, deeper into ourselves, the only direction we can advance…towards an outcome of truth.“

Monday 28 June:

Saint Loup tells Marcel an idea that Marcel had previously told Saint Loup.  This is what S. does to me all the time!

Thursday 22 July:

Much of Proust is to do with how we remember the past, but this section of the Guermantes Way (p.388) has been reflecting on how we anticipate the future, and how, when it arrives, it is not what we thought or hoped for.

Monday 26 July:

“The quality of a book, a house, a salon, depends essentially on what you exclude.”

Tuesday 27 July:

My god this has been tedious, this last section, analysing the Guermantes salon and that of the Princess of Parma. Having to stop myself skipping ahead.

Thursday 29 July:

I’m enjoying his detailed explication of Madame de Guermantes’ character. I’ve thought from the start that Proust mocks the idle rich (and others) without rancour, and without the satire falling into absurdity.

Still reading Proust

Began this business last November on a deck in the forest.  Many lunchtimes with Proust in hand. 10 page stints.

Rare train rides or flights make more inroads.

Proust is perfect for short train rides, as I scribbled elsewhere.

Some bedtime work but progress is slower there. Two or three pages under lamplight, then snoring. At that rate…6 volumes…they are all big volumes…

“How is it?” I’ve been asked. For a while I would talk about how he teaches you how to read him. Brings you to him. The slumberous opening is a good barrier — I fell there 2 or 3 times prior. But it gets you fit, and after that…

For a while I also said that the thrill in Proust is what he will think next, not what will happen next.

At the moment, I am realising how important mood is to receiving the text in all its glory.  Some days every page seems full of sparkle and glories.  Others, I am counting the pages as I turn them.

There is some much to read – I have given Marcel so much of my short life. Look at the dying Hitchens, for example. I’d like to ask him if he has regrets…about reading Proust for so many of his days.

But I need to slow down. Wait for the moods.

Is Proust funny? People say so. I’ve laughed aloud two or three times at most. Over that many pages it is not a lot.