A recent radio programme about books they had never managed to get through inevitably produced a lady who started In search of lost time in English every holiday. She would get to a hundred pages and give and restart the next summer. Rather like the Myth of Sisyphus. I felt rather superior having read Swann's way in French in my twenties. I think I managed to make it through half of A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs before finding better things to do.
I suppose I was a bit of a poseur when I was younger. Why did I get hung up on Proust? Well in the lower sixth at school at 17 we were taken on a literary holiday to France, organized by our exchange school. One of the visits was to Illiers-Combray in the Beauce between Orléans and Paris. The really cool French French teacher read us the part of Swann's Way about the aunt's dipping her madeleine cakes in her tea in the actual room in which it took place. What a thrill!
I was hooked. I think at the time Monty Python used to mention cultural icons like Proust and this heightened the anticipation. When I went back to France, cycling to watch the Tour de France with my mates I bought the 8 paperback versions. These I bungy clipped on the back of my bike only to see them flying across the road when we went round a corner in central London. Half the collection ended up with tyre marks on and screwed up.
If you've not read Proust you need to be on good form and concentrating. it's very hard to get through 10 pages in a sitting, the tortuously long sentences requiring a huge effort to retain the impetus and effort of comprehension. Luckily most of the books I'm covering in www.frenchalevel.com are a few hours read at the most, a quick sprint compared to the treck across the Andes that Proust's master work represents. Have any of you tried it? Did anyone enjoy it?
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