Thoughts on Reading Proust Again

In 1981, when a revised English translation of Remembrance of Things Past was published in hardcover in the United States, I bought a massive, three-volume set of what was said to be the greatest novel ever written. (And also the longest.) A friend of mine had been reading it in an older edition around that time, and I was tempted to discover this work that so enthralled him. I remember lugging the huge, black-bound volumes, each of more than 1,000 pages, with me to and from work, and reading on the subway and bus. I had a long subway ride – from 179th St. in Queens to midtown Manhattan – and to come home I would sometimes take an express bus, which took a bit longer, but at least let me read by daylight. It took a very long time to read the entire work – I don’t remember exactly how long – but since the work’s theme is time, this was fitting.

Reading Proust got me interested in French culture. I had already read a number of French authors, such as Camus and Sartre, and Beckett (if you count him as French), and I decided that I wanted to learn French to read them in the original. (I had studied French in high school, so I had some background.) Proust’s writing is more complex than that of many other French authors, so while, at the time, I thought I wanted learn French to read Proust in the original, I never thought that would actually come true. I took some French lessons, then, a few years later, saved up enough money to move to France for a year, and ended up staying.

I came to France in the fall of 1984, where I had rented a house for a year, in the southwest of the country, with the same friend who had introduced me to Proust, and with two others would would come and go during the year. Stopping by Paris first, I visited some bookstores, and my first purchase was the three-volume Pléiade edition of Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu. (The Pléiade editions are unique. They are small, pocket-sized leather-bound books printed on bible paper, which generally contain complete works of great authors, often in multiple volumes, with from 1,000 to 2,000 pages each. Published by Gallimard, this series is considered to be a pantheon of great writers.) This was the then definitive edition of the novel, published in 1954, and given its compact size, you could have probably fit a half-dozen of them in the huge box that held the English translation.

I would repeat my initial Proustian experience a couple of years later in Paris, when my French, and my vocabulary, did, indeed, reach the level required to read the novel. (I recall reading a book about Proust at some point, in a Paris library, which said that Proust used 18,322 different words in his long novel. Vocabulary was therefore essential.) I carried these smaller volumes with me on the metro and busses in Paris as I went to and from work. At the time, I was teaching English to French executives, and I would always have a book handy to read during my commutes, and when waiting for classes to begin. As I look at these well-worn volumes now, I recall that period with a certain nostalgia; one could say a Proustian nostalgia.

I read La recherche a few more times after that. In the late 1980s, a new Pléiade edition was issued – it contains four volumes, costs more than twice as much as the old edition, and has twice as many pages, as each volume contains huge swaths of “variants,” or drafts that Proust wrote. I haven’t read these variants, in part because they are in tiny type (the Pléiade volumes already use a small font, but the back-of-the-book material is even smaller), and in part because there’s enough to read without going into the variants. I listened to the work once in an audiobook recording of 128 hours, which is a magnificent way to discover Proust. And I’ve just started reading this work again.

Proust has a reputation for being difficult. The novel is long – initially published in seven volumes, it comes to 3,000 to 4,000 pages, depending on the edition and font size. His writing can be hard to follow at times; Proust is known for writing long sentences, one of which is 847 words long. (I append that sentence, in French, at the end of this article for the curious.) And his work contains dozens of major characters and hundreds of minor characters, which can be hard to follow. Nevertheless, his writing is easy to read, not hard. He’s no James Joyce, and he’s no proponent of the nouveau roman. Proust’s writing flows smoothly, lyrically, as if he was speaking to the reader. (All but the Swann in Love – Un amour de Swann – section is written in the first person, so he is actually speaking to you and me.) The important discovery I made about Proust’s style occurred, in fact, when I listened to an audiobook version of La recherche in French. It became immediately apparent that Proust’s style was simply spoken French written down on paper. His long, sinuous, rambling sentences were simply the way people spoke when they went on and digressed. With this understanding, Proust’s style became nearly transparent. (I say “nearly,” because you still have to pay attention when a sentence goes on for a long time; however, if you get lost, just start over and read it out loud.)

Proust’s novel is about time. The first English title, Remembrance of Things Past, was chosen by the translator who had only read the first volume, and who didn’t know where the work was going. It was taken from a sonnet by Shakespeare, and, while it does wax poetic, it is far from the simplicity of the actual title of the work: In Search of Lost Time, or A la recherche du temps perdu. (It’s important to note that, in French, this title is slightly more ambiguous than in English; “temps perdu” is both lost time and wasted time. (An aside: French toast, in French, is “pain perdu,” or lost/wasted bread.)) The first book begins with the word “Longtemps,” or “For a long time,” and the last book ends with the word “temps,” or “time.” The entire story is about the changes that time causes on people, how people react to the passage of time, and the desire, sometimes, to get back the time that has passed.

Readers today have a much easier time with Proust than I did at first, as there are a number of books that can help you on your journey. Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life is a sometimes serious, sometimes humorous look at Proust, his work, and his way of viewing the world; this is a good introduction to the work. William C. Carter’s Marcel Proust: A Life, sadly out of print, is the best English-language biography of Proust, who famously claimed that one shouldn’t concern oneself with an author’s life when reading their works. Roger Shattuck’s Proust’s Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time is another useful guidebook, as is Malcolm Bowie’s Proust Among the Stars. Offering less analysis than the previous books, Patrick Alexander’s Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time: A Reader’s Guide to The Remembrance of Things Past is a cheat-sheet for readers: it contains a plot summary, a cast of characters, and more useful information to keep you from getting lost. Finally, a wonderful series of video lectures by William C. Carter, Proust scholar and biographer, provides an excellent “course” in Proust. This web site, available on a one-payment lifetime subscription basis, includes lectures and regular Q&A sessions via webcam, as well as a forum. (If you join, you’ll see me on the forum; I’ve volunteered to help moderate and administer it.)

So, where do you begin if you want to read Proust? You should simply dive in and start with the first volume, Swann’s Way, in a recent translation, or Du côté de chez Swann, in the Folio paperback edition, if you read French. The nice leather-bound Pléiade edition is attractive, but the books are too long, in my opinion (much longer than the older edition that I carried around in my Paris days), and at that price, I don’t want to read them in the bathtub. But there are a number of different editions in French: there’s a 2,400-page one-volume edition, which is too bulky to read comfortably, and another edition in two 1,500-page volumes, which is a bit easier to handle. Other French publishers have released their own editions in paperback, since the work went into the public domain.

If you like audiobooks, and you’re a French speaker, you can get a recording of the complete text of La recherche. If you’re not a French speaker, there’s an abridged audiobook version of Remembrance of Things Past (meaning it uses the older translation), from Naxos Audiobooks or an unabridged recording of Swann’s Way, from Tantor Media. (Naxos also has a 3-CD biography of Proust, called The Life and Works of Marcel Proust, written and read by Neville Jason, the narrator of the abridged Naxos version mentioned above. Finally, Jason also narrates The Essential Remembrance of Things Past, a 10-hour version of key scenes from the text. I’ve been informed by Naxos Audiobooks that they’ll be releasing full, unabridged versions of Remembrance of Things Past within the next year.

One other wonderful book that doesn’t fit in any of the above categories is Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time. This book presents all the paintings mentioned in Proust, with excerpts from the text to contextualize them. And, if you read French, go for the French version of the book with the original texts: Le Musée imaginaire de Marcel Proust : Tous les tableaux de A la recherche du Temps Perdu.

Reading Proust is a long process; one that never ends. If you “get” Proust, you’ll realize that when you get to the end of the last volume of In Search of Lost Time, you’ll want to start over. Not right away, of course, but the aftertaste of lost time will linger, and a few years later, you’ll get the itch to read it again. For me, this itch sneaks up on me every five years or so, and with each reading I understand more of the vision of this unique author who managed to write in such a way as the reader can learn to see the world differently. It’s the voyage of a lifetime, and you can start any time.

See other articles about Proust on Kirkville.

Bonus: Proust’s longest sentence, from Sodome et Gomorrhe:

Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Jobs Biography Due in a Few Days

I’m guessing that a lot of readers of this blog will be buying Walter Issacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, which is due out on October 24. Interestingly, this is one day after the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the iPod, which is certainly one of the key moments in Jobs’ career.

This book is already the #1 selling book on Amazon, and it hasn’t been published yet. Unfortunately, it comes shortly after Jobs’ death, but in some ways it’s a good thing it could have been finished while he was still with us. I’m looking forward to reading it, to learn more about the man who did so much to change my life, and to have one final appreciation of all he did.

In some ways, it may be more fitting to read this book on an iPad. You can either buy it for the Kindle app, or a Kindle reader, or for the iPad’s own iBooks app. But having a hardcover version would be nice too.

Book Bargain: Oxford History of Western Music

I recently picked up the Oxford History of Western Music, by Richard Taruskin, in 5 volumes, from Amazon UK. It’s marked down 50%, to a mere £45. These are 5 very large books, with some 4,000 pages of text, and with many illustrations and musical examples. The series covers music from the first notated music to the late 20th century. While I will most likely not read the entire set, it is useful to have as a reference. If you’re interested in the history of western (classical) music, and are near enough to the UK so you won’t have to pay too much for shipping, this is a good, affordable purchase. Note that the individual volumes are similarly discounted, if you only want one of them.

(For comparison, the same set is currently $148 at Amazon.com. If you’re in the US, it would be cheaper, even with transatlantic shipping, to get this set from the UK.)

Weekend Read: How Proust Can Change Your Life

This weekend, I’m re-reading a little book that I’ve found very enjoyable: How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Botton. De Botton is a Swiss writer who lives in the UK and writes in English; I consider him to be a “popular philosopher.” He has written books about philosophy, travel, business and work, our perceptions of status, and much more. In this 1997 books, de Botton examines the life and work of Marcel Proust, and shows us how reading this work can help us understand, as Proust said, that, “The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Proust is perhaps one of the most daunting of authors. He didn’t write separate novels, but one long work, A la Recherche du temps perdu, or, In Search of Lost Time. This work covers thousands of pages, and follows its protagonist (the “narrator”) from his childhood through his adult years as he discovers aristocratic society in France. With long sentences, florid descriptions, and acerbic characterization, Proust presents a portrait of a society that, behind the glossy surface, is wicked and deceitful. Yet in spite of the length of the work, In Search of Lost Time is funny, strange, and a delight to read. Proust’s style is verbose, but his writing is musical.

I first read Proust in 1982, when a revised edition of an earlier English translation was released. In three large, hardcover volumes, this book was quite heavy, and I read it on the subway and bus as I went to and from work in New York City. When I moved to France in 1984, the first book(s) I bought was a three-volume Pléiade edition of the work (now superseded by a later four-volume edition; the extra girth is made up of notes, sketches and variants). I’ve since read Proust twice in French, and once in audio. Every few years, I get an itching to read him again, and this often starts by reading a book like de Botton’s or a biography of the author’s life.

But even if you haven’t read Proust, or don’t plan too, this little book about Proust can delight you and give you some interesting lessons about life and literature. Proust can change your life, if you take the time. Read this book to find out how.

Two notes:

1. Interestingly, this book tends to get filed in the “self held” or “self development” category, in addition to being put on the “literature” shelves. I guess it is, in some ways, a guide to living, but, then again, isn’t all great literature?

2. I’m a fan of audiobooks, and I was tempted to buy this in audio to listen to when walking. But seeing it at $20 (on the iTunes Store) quickly dissuaded me. Paying twice as much for an audiobook is ludicrous, especially as I know how much audiobooks cost to produce. It’s a shame, because a book like this at $10 would probably sell a lot better.

Books I Want: Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve got lots of books; probably too many. But there are some books that I’d like to own, bu I simply cannot afford. My tastes are varied: from Stephen King to Henry David Thoreau, by way of Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Robert B. Parker, Peter Robinson, Robertson Davies, William Shakespeare, and much more.

But one of my favorite authors is Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was one of America’s finest thinkers, and reading his essays, lectures and journals is one of my favorite pleasures. I have a couple of editions of the journals: the recent two-volume Library of America selection; a 1909 ten-volume edition, which is a different selection from what, at the time, was a relatively un-scholarly edition, and a few paperback books that offer selections from the journals, both from early editions and from the 16-volume Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson published by Harvard University Press.

This scholarly edition, published between 1960 and 1982, is the ultimate edition of Emerson journals. It is a true scholarly edition, with all changes, corrections, deletions and other details noted carefully. (You can see an example on Google Books.) They contain much more than just the journals themselves, but also contain the “Miscellaneous Notebooks,” which include drafts of Emerson’s lectures and essays.

In any case, I’m not planning to buy them soon, but found a complete set online from a German bookseller at a price well below list. Tempting, but it’s still way above my budget for now. But this is a series I’d like to get, and I may try looking for used copies of the individual volumes online.

Update: I have since purchased this set, at great expense, and I have been delighting in reading Emerson’s “raw” thoughts now for several months. You can see some of my favorite excerpts on my Emerson website Reading Ralph Waldo Emerson.

For those who want a taste of Emerson’s journals or other works, particularly in much more affordable editions, see my Emerson bibliography.

Book Review: The Quotable Thoreau

The Quotable Thoreau
Collected and edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer
552 pages. Princeton University Press, 2011. $20

Buy from Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon FR

Jeffrey Cramer, notable Thoreau scholar and head of the Thoreau Institute, has been publishing some wonderful books for fans of Henry’s writing in recent years. In 2004 he published Walden – A Fully Annotated Edition, in 2007, I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau, and in 2009, The Maine Woods: A Fully Annotated Edition. All of these books take Thoreau’s texts and add annotations and explanations to help the reader better understand the little details.

Cramer’s latest Thoreau collection is The Quotable Thoreau, described as containing “more than 2,000 memorable passages from this iconoclastic American author, social reformer, environmentalist, and self-reliant thinker.” This small hardcover book – roughly the size of a DVD case, or more correctly, a season of Lost – contains a wealth of selections from Thoreau’s varied works. Divided into sections on different topics, such as Beauty, Conservation, Day and Night, Simplicity, Society, and Solitude, each excerpt is from a few words to a few sentences, and contains an attribution specifying which text it is taken from.

Fans of Thoreau will find this an excellent book to keep by their bedsides, to flip through and read nuggets of Thoreauvian wisdom as they please. Those who have never read Thoreau will find a book containing the heart of Henry’s works, in small, easily digestible pieces. (Hopefully, after sampling the appetizers in this book, they’ll go on to the main course of Henry’s full works.)

While any such florilegium of an author’s work is, by necessity, a series of bits and pieces taken out of context, one thing this book does is offer a broader spectrum of Thoreau’s works, and shows how much his writing was all part and parcel of the same set of ideas.

If you’re curious about Thoreau’s writing, this is the ideal book to get to whet your appetite for his larger works, such as Walden. If you’re already a Thoreauvian, you’ll certainly enjoy flipping through this book and finding so many of those sentences and paragraphs that you’ve enjoyed as you’ve read through Henry’s books.

My Latest Book: Take Control of Scrivener 2

Have you ever used Scrivener, the word processor for creative writers? If you have, you’ll want to check out my latest book, Take Control of Scrivener 2.

In this ebook, you’ll take a creative voyage with Scrivener 2, a unique and popular content-generation tool. Scrivener supports wordsmiths of all types, and it’s designed especially for long-form writing projects—scripts, novels, academic works, and more.

Using Melville’s Moby-Dick as his exemplar, author Kirk McElhearn walks you through using Scrivener to create and manage a writing project. You’ll learn how to use Scrivener’s Binder, Outliner, and Corkboard to develop characters and settings, collect and organize research materials, and arrange your scenes. Kirk even explains how to keep yourself on track by composing in Scrivener’s Full Screen mode and by setting daily progress targets, all on the way to helping you produce a polished, submission-ready manuscript.

Learn more about the book on the Take Control Books website. Download the book in any of a number of ebook formats – PDF, ePub, Mobi, etc. – and order printed copies if you want. The ebook is available for only $10. You can also buy this in Kindle format from Amazon.com.

Hear me discuss Scrivener on the MacVoices podcast.
Read a review on the MacTips website.

Marcel Proust in Audio

A la recherche du temps perdu, in audio, on 111 CDs (in French)

Buy from Amazon FR

I’ve long been a fan of Marcel Proust, author of A la recherche du temps perdu (or In Search of Lost Time, in English). Last year, a French publisher released a complete audio recording of this extraordinary novel, on 111 CDs, read by 6 well-known French actors. It clocks in at just over 148 hours, and I have been enjoying listening to these recordings in recent weeks. I’m not listening to it all at once, but rather one section at a time. The length and complexity of this work is part of the charm that makes this one of the pillars of French and world literature.

Since most of my readers don’t speak French, you might want to check out an English version, such as the 39-CD abridgment by Neville Jason. This is a good start, while waiting for Naxos (the publisher of this audiobook) to release a complete version in the near future.

If you’ve never read Proust, you might want to try the only part of this epic novel that is really a stand-alone section, Un Amour de Swann. In English, you could start with Swann’s Way , the first volume of the series. This is a great novel of decadence and passion, written in an inimitable style.

For some biographical information–after all, Proust’s novel was, to a large extent, about himself–you could try the excellent biography by William C. Carter, or an interesting audio biography by Neville Jason (included in the 39-CD set mentioned above). Finally, Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life is an unexpected approach to this dense work, while Roger Shattuck’s Proust’s Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time is a more conventional introduction and guide book to the novel. No matter where you begin, though, Proust is the kind of author you may end up adopting for life. An excellent biography in French by Ghislain de Diesbach is available for those who read the original language.