Status Updates From Marcel Proust and Deliveran...

Splendid little book.

Plus I just learnt about Armida's garden, and now an thinking about captivity in literature, prompted by the Wikipedia entry on that story. Cool.

The narrator is "Prisoner of all that phantasmagoria which keeps him furthest away from what he wants to be - an author....It is not Albertine, but the narrator's mind-his will, his very life-that is imprisoned." Nice point. The books full of 'em.

On Captive/Fugitive: "The strange and far too peculiar reality which gleams through the story challenges even literature." Perhaps. Perhaps at the time Brée wrote and Proust too. Foes it still? Germaine is right that "at times" it is "more reminiscent of a psychiatric case than of literature". continues:

Enjoyable throughout.

Really really really really really really good. Probably one of the best looks at the Search i have read. Others may find it boring. But not I. I want to give you many stars, Mme Brée.

A great 60 pages. So far one of the best summaries of ALRDTP I have read. Maybe THE best. Great for readers like me, who might have missed some obvious things. But not so good as an "Introduction to". Really serves as a "here's why the book you read was so great" sort of thing, and that's fine by me, indeed, welcome.

The Narrator finding his purpose, much like in Combray when his Mother would despair that they were lost and yet, turning a corner they would find themselves at the gate of their home. We are tagging along right till the revelation. What novel would he write? Bree seems to suggest not ISOLT? Or rather, I am imagining that this is the case. What a thought! What would he create?

Ah. Great first page. Strong start. Engaging summary. No wonder Bree was so highly regarded.

"I have long had the habit of going to bed early." is how Bree gives us the first sentence. I guess that actually works. Ish.