My friend Ben is moving to a new apartment tomorrow. He is receiving his Ph.D. in English this Saturday, and he has so many books that he asked me to take some to ease his move. In fact, the three books I took are actually one novel divided into seven parts.
This set is now on my bookshelves, and I must admit that I feel my intellectual acumen has risen sharply as a consequence. The novel is Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. I think that merely having this novel somehow enhances my literary stature; it provides a boost as well to the other books on my bookshelves. I feel that I should go forth and proudly announce to all who will listen that I have the magnum opus of Marcel Proust.
All of you non-Proust owners out there should be jealous.
Now... if only I would read all 3,000 pages of Remembrance of Things Past! Hmmmm.
4 comments:
A possible strategy for you to consider is to read the first sentence of the novel. Then if someone asks you if you've read it,you can say "I started it but never finished it." I doubt you would be pressed for details. The person you are talking to will likely take the ball and run with it and you can nod along and my guess is that this will make you feel smarter also.
I read it years ago. It made little impression on me beyond the rumination that it could have been parsed down into one book and still made a terrible novel. If you insist on punishing yourself read DON QUIXOTE instead. It is equally terrible, about as overrated... but substantially shorter.
Maybe I will read the first sentence, and then the next day read the second sentence. Then I can say I not only started it, but also tried again. It will show I gave a valiant effort.
I have Don Quixote, so I think your recommendation Mike is good. I might tackle it first then.
Prepare yourself for 1,000 pages of excrutiating repetitiveness with an inexplicable and totally irrelevant two-hundred page interlude. My prayers are with you :-)
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