159 days and Proust is done. Well, at least this volume. Swann’s Way is only volume one in a seven volume novel called In Search of Lost Time. I’ll get to those other volumes some other time. 444 pages in volume one alone! Anyway, this was my most recent long form read that I started last November and completed yesterday. I read 2-4 pages a day. It’s a system that has worked well for me in conquering challenging works.
Swann’s Way wasn’t as challenging as Ulysses or Gravity’s Rainbow. But Proust’s over analysis of every single feeling that passed through his cerebral cortex could grow tedious. So 2-4 pages a day kept a nice limit on his literary neurosis. Sometimes I found the famous Combray section relaxing and almost meditative to read. The section about Charles’s and Odette’s love affair was frustrating and annoying because I found Charles and Odette frustrating and annoying. Maybe that was the point. The conclusion was peaceful and satisfying.
I think Proust used writing for personal therapy which is one of the great benefits of putting pen to paper. This new translation by Lydia Davis was fantastic. Now on to a book I’ve attempted twice and never made past page 80...Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. IJ is over 1,000 pages so I expect to be finished around the end of January 2022.
Incidentally my other current reads are Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson and This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein both of which have been fantastic so far.
