Let me Oust this Proust!

Goodness gracious, it has been quite a while since I absolutely hated a book.  Usually, even if I do not like a certain classic book at first, I try to find some qualities I like and let me say that I had to try very hard with this one.

Swann's Way is mostly about life at a manse called Combray in the French countryside as recalled in vivid detail by the narrator from when he was a child.  The titular "way" describes one of two or three walks that his family would take on a regular basis so named because it would pass the estate of a family by the name of  Swann.  This particular walking path would become important to the narrator because he would develop an infatuation with the young girl that lived there.  This is especially important because Mr. Swann (and his family by extension) would become persona non grata because of some indirect insult perceived by the family at some point.  Although this seems at first to be a leaping point for some for a child's romance tale, it most certainly is not.  This infatuation with the young girl seems to be just one in a long chain of obsessions by the young narrator, preceded by his mother's affection, the dust motes in his room, hawthorn flowers, and the titles of local plays. During this chapter we also get a slight overview of the personalities of the household of Combray.  We learn about his father's obsession with meteorology, his grandmother's interest in the town's drama, and the unusual personality of the house maid. Oddly these characters function as backdrops and furniture because they do not play a big part in the internal world of the narrator.  Around the 300 page mark the focus changes to the viewpoint of Mr. Swann who seems to share some of the qualities of the narrator.  He is a socialite who falls in love with a young woman by the name of Odette who begins to infiltrate his little clique despite the fact that she is a courtesan and far below his social standing.  He learns to love her regardless of her standing and the fact that, at first, he does not really seem to find her particularly beautiful or interesting.  His feelings for her seem to revolve around a beautiful fragment of some unnamed piano piece he overheard and their relationship becomes equally flighty.  He never seems to be certain of his love for her until she begins "courting" strangers, at which point he obsesses about her to the point of stalking her and even wandering the streets blindly in the hopes of just seeing her.  This persists for some time until he realizes his own folly and moves on with his life.  After this long diversion into the life of Mr. Swann, we return again to the life of the Narrator as a child with a short chapter of him waxing poetic about the importance of place-names and places themselves.  He befriends Swann's daughter after obsessing over her from afar and she reject his overtures of love but they remain friends anyway.  He also meets Mr. Swann in person and holds him in very high regard despite his family's opinion of the Swanns.  We also learn by the end of the book that, at some point, Mr. Swann had married Odette and presumably had a child with her.

There are quite a few things that I did not like about the book itself and Proust's style of writing but let me first discuss the positive aspects.  It is important for me to remember, and by extension you, that the narrative of the "book" is actually stretched over thousands of pages and so any lack coherent narrative of Swann's Way may be resolved over the course of the entire epic "In Search of Lost Time".  Swann's Way may actually function as a mind-numbingly long  500 hundred page "introduction."   The scope of the work is just to enormous for me to comprehend with only what is essentially the first chapter.  So one thing that I can appreciate is the sheer enormity of the work.  I can also appreciate the complex themes of the fleeting nature of all things, memory, time, love, surroundings, etc. He weaves these strongly into the book.  Another thing I can appreciate is his attention to the smallest detail like how the light plays in his room or the joy he can experience from the small of a flower or the experience of reading a book alone in the garden.

What I did not like about the book is that I felt estranged by the author.  The descriptions were beautiful and poetic but it was so overdone that a two pages of the book could quite literally be comprised of one never-ending run-on sentence with a chain of commas so long that the original subject is lost in the confusion.  He  would stack similes so much that they would loose their spark and become a pile of frustrating obstacles in the way of the story or even a simple point.  This became a seriously frustrating hurdle to the story, so much so that I feel I missed some of the subtext and even some larger plot points in the jumble.  I threatened to put the book away multiple times and could only read it in 15 -20 page increments.  I only finished the book on principle.  I would love to copy/paste a sample of an annoyingly long sentence but that would be as long as everything thing I have written to this point.  I am not exaggerating.  Its is a small item, but I also must say that I did not like how the narrator jumped shoes into the life of Mr. Swann describing events that apparently happened before he was born and not even being clear that this was a leap into the past.  I realize that this is an older book as well as a translation from French but even as an exercise in experimental writing, this book could use an editor with a red marker and a sharp pair of scissors.

Thanks!
Joe

About Marcel Proust

Hello all!  I usually like to go over a little bit about the author and book prior to reading it as well as actually announcing what book I am going to read for the millions of readers following the blog.  This time I have obviously skipped most of the formalities such as finishing the last book, or announcing the new book before doing anything.  However, despite my literary misbehavior I am going to go ahead and provide a brief introduction of Marcel Proust and the book Swann's Way.

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was born near Paris, France on July 10, 1871 and died on November 18, 1922.  Proust was a sickly person who developed asthma at an early age and affected him greatly throughout his life.  It interfered heavily with is attempts at working and being in the military and he used his illness as leverage to secure a multi-year leave of absence from his "job" that he never worked at until they retired him.  He stayed at his parents home for the entire duration and was still there when his parents passed away.  Luckily his parents were well off and left him a considerable inheritance when they passed.  Despite his illness and inability to work (at a library, no less) Proust was able to spend a great deal of time writing and social climbing.  Of all of his essays, stories, and critiques, Proust is best known for his gargantuan work In Search of Lost Time of which Swann's Way is the first volume.  Proust was also a closet homosexual and is respected by some for being one of the first writers in France to openly write about homosexuals. (This does not occur in Swann's Way aside from a brief mention of a lesbian interaction but apparently comes up at length in the fourth book with some characters noticed by the protagonist.)

Swann's Way is part one of a seven volume series revolving around the memories of the Narrator as a child staying at his home in a fictional town called Combray (based on Proust's home near Paris).  The volume (as well as the entire work as a whole) deals heavily on random memories generated by the taste of a madeline cookie dipped in tea and in the involuntary and fleeting nature of memory.  Most of the stories revolve around the Narrator's fascination with nature and observations of the people his parents have dealings with, often with a philosophical tinge.

Ok. There you go.  I hope to have this finished up by the end of April (early  May, at the latest) so look for that soon!  Joe

Just touching base...

After re-reading my January post on La Morte d'Arthur I can still detect the excitement I felt in planning to read that gigantic work.  I can also smell my naivete wafting off me like roadkill.  My eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach in this case. The stories are unusual and fascinating but they are also short and redundant like reading all of Aesop's fables and Grimm's fairy tales in a single read-through.  Don't get me wrong, I actually like the book and how it reads, I just cant do much of it at a time.  What it basically comes down to is that I have had to take breaks from reading it and I am still not nearly finished.  In between "takes" I have squeezed in some sci-fi books and even began another classic.  So,  I have decided to make this a long-term project that I hope to have finished by the end of Summer  (hopefully long before that). In regards to the other classic I'm reading; In my complete ineptitude I allowed myself to randomly pick my next classic off the shelf, not even attempting to adhere to my impromptu book-list from January, and guess what my finger chanced upon?  Swann's Way by Marcel Proust was my choice of folly, and by playing the stoic rather than declaring a mulligan as a wiser man would do, I have chosen to escape one difficult book by choosing another famously mind-numbing one. At least it was, coincidentally, already on the list.  I am hoping that by comparison, La Morte d'Arthur will read like an intense, action packed beach book.  As far as Swann;s Way goes, it slowly becomes more interesting about the 50% mark, but that should not be difficult do do because the first 250 pages essentially describes the countryside surrounding the home of the main character in florid detail and at least 25% of that is dedicated exclusively to describing flowers and sunbeams in a similar fashion. Nevertheless, I hope the remainder of the book will have some value to me as I plan to push through to the end.  I have decided to go ahead and do my author introductory as usual and you can look for that soon.
Thanks, Joe

Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory to start the year.

Let's begin this year with a fanciful trip to the times of knights, kings, wizards, and the chivalric code with Le Mort d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory.  Everyone enjoys the old tales of King Arthur and his good Knights of the Round Table from our younger years.  It has been told and retold many times over.  Most of us know it from Disney's The Sword and the Stone and some of us may have seen the mediocre First Knight with Sean Connery and Richard Gere.  A lucky few may have even seen Excalibur (which is the best one, by the way, go see it!) and I only know one person who has read T.H. White's The Once and Future King.   But regardless of what you have read or seen, we have all heard of King Arthur and his lovely Guenevere, the brave but tempted Lancelot, and the wizard Merlin.  You all know about chivalry and honor, lust and magic.  All of these are in here, but did you ever hear of King Arthur the killer of babies? or conqueror of Rome? or emasculator of giants?  You know of the Black Knight but what about the Blue, Green, and Red?  Well, you may look forward to these strange tales and more and let everything you thought you knew about the round table be turned on its head.

About the author

You will often see Sir Thomas Malory's name spelled a host of ways. One of the reasons is that it is the anglicization of a french name from the late 1400's.  Another reason is that there was not much standardization of spelling in those days as most people couldn't write and the spoken word was changing faster than the written form, pronunciations and all.  The main reason, however, is that there were six different Thomas Mallorys and scholars aren't sure which one wrote the book (assuming it is even one of those)!  The only clues available are small notations he included at the end of each chapter denoting himself as a "prisoner knight."  The funny thing is that the one that most scholars lean towards as the most likely candidate, Thomas Malleorre truly was a knight and a member of parliament but was also a villain of the worst sort who repeatedly extorted, robbed, kidnapped, and even raped those around him even while in office.  It is thought that he may have assembled this book (note "assembled" rather than composed-I will explain later) while in prison, hence the "prisoner knight."  As a side note; Malleorre translates roughly from the old french as "unfortunate one" or "ill omened."  Personally I think the latter is more true because he seems to have amassed a bit of money from his crimes or had a secret benefactor for he had an opulent funeral and was buried as a "valiant knight" despite his many misdeeds.  What would be unfortunate is if this great book is forever attributed to the wrong guy, especially if it's this guy.  If it is him, well-at least he's interesting!

About the book and edition

Le Morte d'Arthur was originally written by Mallory around 1470, it is guessed, and published in 1485 by the famous printer William Caxton and this continues to be the best known source of Arthurian literature.  This has been the basis of T.H. White's The Once and Future King (1958) and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King (ca. late 1800's).  However, it should be known that Sir Thomas Mallory was working from preexisting stories in both old French and middle English and translating them and compiling them into something similar to the present volume.  Some of these tales were written back in the 13th century and certainly predate that. It was originally titled The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table.  Many changes were made by Caxton at the time of printing including retitling the book, subdividing the chapters and adding chapter headings.  Few changes have been made since then in regards to format, but you can find versions based in older or newer grammar styles and spelling based on preference.

What we are reading!

The book we are about to tackle sits at around 600 or so pages and the version is inconsequential as long as it is not a novelization. I am sure you can find free or cheap versions on Kindle if you have one, or there are free alternatives on the web in most cases if you don't.

Thanks and see you soon!
Joe

Beginning Book List!

Greetings all!
 I have found myself with several free hours today due to some inconveniently scheduled appointments and so have decided to tackle some chores around the house.  The easiest, least important, (and therefore first to be done) is to complete the 2012 book list.  So far I have made a selection of ten books and the order has not been set.  I may decide to make half of the selection order more "organic" allowing me to adjust the order as needed but still constraining me to complete some of the "harder" ones early on.  Here we go:

Huckleberry Finn-Mark Twain
Swann's Way- Marcel Proust
The Divine Comedy- Dante Alighieri
La Morte D'Arthur- Sir Thomas Mallory (transcribed by)
Candide- Voltaire
Aenied-Virgil
Tom Jones-Henry Fielding
The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Satyricon- Petronius
Lysistrata-Aristophanes

There is still opportunity and space to include any reader selections for those who wish to participate.

Happy New Year!

Hello and Happy New Year to every one!  I hope everybody has sobered up up a little bit because it is time to start thinking about what to read this year.  If there are any requests for the book list please submit them over the next week or two.  I have not assembled the list as yet but I have been tossing some ideas around.  As you may have picked up from last year, I do like the epic poems so I will try to work in some more of those.  One thing I learned from last year was that the late spring and summer months were twice as challenging for me to read as I had originally thought.  Anyone following the blog at the time would remember a huge gap there with an apology about my job afterwards.  It turned out that my brain could not handle anything but the lightest fantasy fluff during those busy stressful months and that was if I was reading anything at all. Another very important lesson from last last year was not to put several large similar books back-to-back.  Placing The Idiot so close to Jane Eyre was not a good idea, even if I didn't make it that far!  What I plan to do this year is to correspond the more challenging books to my lightest work months and possibly have even fewer books.  I also plan to more effectively arrange the books so that the reading order will be more comfortable and interesting.

The reason I want any outside requests for the book club early is that I am basing my list entirely on a selection of leather books that I purchased for myself these past few months.  I, of course, need to justify my impulse purchases and this is how!  The selection will seem very eclectic though, you may rest assured!
I am certain the list will begin with my leather bound edition of Sir Thomas Mallory's La Morte D'Artur.

See you soon!