A Year In Search of Lost Time Pages
A year in search of lost time is going to get us at least on the way. Several years and we might find what we've been looking for. My style in reading Proust is somewhat leisurely, a page of Proust being like five of most other authors. I like to think of reading him as savoring really good food (and food figures prominently in the novel, from the madeleine on). I'd like to get away from the attitude, all too common, that to read the novel is a marathon. It is long, no question, but after a while one realizes she is not really getting anywhere, unless traveling a circle is getting somewhere. (And the narrative of the novel does take a circular form, the end returning to the beginning.)
What all this means, practically speaking, is that we'll be reading through the novel a book at a time, for however much time that takes. There will be assignments of as few as 10 pages and as many as a hundred, depending on the rhythm of the narrative. Within each assignment I will be bracketing a selection for particular focus. It's best, of course, for readers to cover the entire assignment, but it's understood that such is not always possible, so those bracketed selections would at least give a taste.
Concerning the discussions themselves, my attitude and experience is that if our focus is the text, rather than on ourselves--and that's not a hard line, especially with an author who did not draw a hard line between his art and his life--we can together build an appreciation and understanding of the text at hand which we couldn't have gotten to on our own. Speaking as the facilitator, I inevitably come away from discussions with some points and perspectives I hadn't had when I went in. I'd hope this would be true for everyone in the group.
Speaking of facilitation, I regard my role as just that, providing context, biographical and critical, where it's helpful, but little of that. Proust tends to give the reader (almost) everything she needs. If there's one general goal I have, it's to make a little more available an author who is often thought of as daunting for all but the professional reader. "The Common Reader," to lift the phrase from Virginia, is you and me, who read for the love of it and not out of any particular ambition. I happen to think Proust is an especially lovable character.
Table of Contents
| Page title | Most recent update | Last edited by |
|---|---|---|
| Sesame and Lillies | May 12, 2012 7:46 AM | Patrick Lockwood Francis McMahon |
| About A Year In Search of Lost Time | April 18, 2012 11:23 PM | Patrick Lockwood Francis McMahon |
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