When I got home from the gym this afternoon, two smiling boxes were waiting patiently on my front porch. Inside, amongst the other tag-a-longs, I found my first three volumes of In Search of Lost Time. All the covers are quite sensual: Swann's Way has a rumpled bed bathed in afternoon light; Within a Budding Grove has a blue-eyed girl resting her porcelin cheek against same rumpled bed; The Guermantes Way has a string of pearls lying on a cinnamon-colored table and disappearing into the fuzzy horizon. It made me instantly want a cup of Celestial Seasonings' Mandarin Orange Spice tea and a snuggly chair to curl up in (oh, what did I ever do with that Papasan?).
Just so we all know what we've gotten ourselves into--the first three volumes together measure four inches in height, weigh 3 lbs 5 oz and consist of a daunting 2155 pages. An interesting factoid from the introduction-- In Search of Lost Time contains the longest sentence written in the history of literature (I thought that was to be found in Ulysses, but perhaps that sentence only feels like the longest). There is also a parlor game in which people challenge one another to diagram this sentence. Luisa, you go first.
I guess I can't say I wasn't warned. But for now, I better go. I hear the tea kettle whistling in the kitchen and Papasan or no, I've got some reading to do.
