false 3130461 0701110686 9780701110680 1 1 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3130461.The_Sweet_Cheat_Gone 233619 Marcel Proust 7517 1003 4 21 false Tue Jul 14 20:26:28 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 03 06:37:18 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 14 20:26:28 -0700 2009
I wish I'd read this in my early twenties, when I still had an actual heart left to break. You know all those insane impulses and fantasies you experience at such times, like the urge to send a letter to your ex-girlfriend describing the yacht and Rolls Royce you'd secretly bought and were planning to give her the morning she left you, which now will remain docked and garaged as you have no use yourself for such items, now that she's gone and you no longer love her, if in fact you ever did, which in fact, you did not? Or that telegram telling her not to be alarmed, as you've grown used to having a warm body around so you'll need to start fucking her best friend? Or.... well, just all that totally crazy shit that goes through your mind when someone leaves you, and you've lost control? M. doesn't just think about it, he does it all, and it's Wonder Years-cringe level excruciating but you definitely know where he's coming from. Proust really picks apart what that whole experience is like, especially the knowledge that when those people were actually around you really didn't want them there, but now that they're gone you'll dispatch your loyal aristocratic wingman to travel miles to the town where they're staying and offer their aunts thousands of francs to buy them back! Not only that, but.... well, as previously noted he's a real freak, and this book definitely takes some bizarre plot turns. No spoilers here, though! Buy this for someone you know who's gone through a bad breakup, and they'll thank you for it.... probably. I actually should see where this goes before I promise you that. But so far, this portrait of the jilted lover surpasses even that of Stacy-with-the-gunrack in Wayne's World, who was always sort of my sentimental favorite as far as Who to Try Real Hard Not to Act Like, from middle school on. Obviously Proust never got a chance to benefit from that movie's instructional message, with painful-for-him, delightful-for-us results.

Anyway, so far I like this one way better than the one before it, which wasn't bad or anything, but was I guess sort of a relative drag. It's cool (though a little disturbing) to see that those romantic and post-romantic feelings weren't invented by Phil Spector or the Buzzcocks. People have been getting dumped for ages, and acting like completely pathetic psychos afterwards! Though almost no one acts as pathetic or psychotic as this in real life, which is what makes reading about it so comforting.

The unfolding of this breakup is also greatly satisfying for other reasons that I can't get into here without giving too much away, not just about the plot but about myself.]]>