The Year of Reading Proust discussion
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Within a Budding Grove
Within a Budding Grove, vol. 2
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Yes. And I finished my review with it (more or less).
Fionnuala wrote: "Regarding Françoise unpinning the curtains...I think, it is a very powerful image and it struck me too, in fact I made it the central theme of my review...."Kalliope wrote: Yes. And I finished my review with it (more or less).
I've made a note to read each of your reviews. Sadly, checking member's reviews has languished in the construction zone of my current life.
I'm wondering if there is anyone still active here? I'm about half-way through Within a Budding Grove and would love the camaraderie if there is anybody still hanging around here.
Ara Lucia do post your comments. There will be many members who will see that a thread has been activated and will join you in discussion. Happy reading!
You could also try your luck at our 2015 group. But i don't want to steal that away from here. You could just copy and paste your comment and try your luck with both though. We Proustians should all stick together. We're currently discussing a 2016 group and also a permanent "All Things Proust" group by the way :)One Year In Search of Lost Time - 2015
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
I've almost finished vol 2 Ara Lucia, i've found reading through these posts as i go along invaluable to my reading. I had planned to read them all over the year,but i found this volume difficult to get into to start with, and have read other books. I've got The Guermantes Way waiting to be delved into though, i'll get through them all eventually.Ang
Hi Ara Lucia! I'm still here, too. I'm only a few books ahead of you. I haven't tried to read them all in one hit but am savouring them over time. But I return to the thread with each one. There have been some brilliant posts on fashion, art and social history of the times which have given further life to the books.
Chris wrote: "Hi Ara Lucia! I'm still here, too. I'm only a few books ahead of you. I haven't tried to read them all in one hit but am savouring them over time. But I return to the thread with each one. There ha..."Cool, thanks for responding. I don't even want to say how long it has taken me to get to the middle of the second volume. I was originally turned on to Proust by the most amazing performance I've ever seen in my life, Eleven Rooms of Proust. A glorious piece that did eleven vignettes... the audience would go from "room" to "room" in a warehouse to witness. Since then I have been luxuriating through the text.
Aralucia, I just finished Within A Budding Grove. I'll try to post some of my thoughts soon.
Cool, I will keep an eye out. (I'm in the process of moving over the next few weeks if I don't respond right away.)
Victor wrote: "Aralucia, I just finished Within A Budding Grove. I'll try to post some of my thoughts soon."Bravo! Two down.....next, you will be exploring "The Guermantes Way."
One of my favorite sentences is in this volume,
"This dream in which nature had learned from art, in which the sea had turned Gothic, ..." MP
I read that line, but wasn't sure what the implications were. I felt I was missing something crucial. Beautiful line by the way. I read it 5 times just to make sure I captured the image. The difference between Guermantes and natural way?
How exciting!I'm on a holiday and I've made notable progress. I look forward to following you!
"That purpose allows the chain of spent days to slip away, holding on only to the very end of it, often of a quite different metal from the links that have vanished in the night, and in the journey which we make through life, counts as real only in the place in where we at any given moment are. But all those earliest impressions, already so remote, could not find, against the blunting process that assailed them day after day, any remedy in my memory..." One of my favorite lines. How as we age we forget earlier memories, we remember incorrectly, and miss the moments that we could have learned from.
This line echoes the famous line from Within a Budding Grove that's common on inspirational calendars..."We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness..."
The line also reminds me as much of Within a Budding Grove's ending does that this is a novel written by a narrator remembering his life and we're reliant on the narrator's interpretations, memory, and revisions to share our experience. To what extent can we trust the narrator?
"For the place where one has lost something in the wrong direction, it frequently happens that one discovers one's error only to substitute it not for the truth but a fresh error."
very nice (re-)collection, Victor, those links of chain had already been blunted in my memory.
Regarding Françoise unpinning the curtains, Ce Ce, you are right, I think, it is a very powerful image and it struck me too, in fact I made it the central theme of my review. And then, as you say, Guermantes opens with , Françoise and the theatre, perfect...