Ceci n'est pas une poste.

I PROMISE, I actually do have a real post coming. It would have been up today if I hadn't had to remove a giant tick from Tess's neck this morning. I'm still shuddering from a little PTSD.

But Jane Brocket posted something Prousty yesterday, so I thought I'd put the link up.

Providing An Antidote to the H&R Block Waiting Room Blahs

The reasons I love books are vast and varied - but sitting in the waiting room of H&R Block today, dreading the inevitable tax angst (and berating myself for once again procrastinating until the last minute), I experienced one of the best aspects of reading. I was able to whip out my copy of Swann's Way and let the lime green walls of H&R Block fade out of my mind. Being transported into another place and time by language is a wonderful thing...particularly when dull 'grown-up' tasks loom over me.

When I read Luisa's first post about Proust, my curiosity was sparked. I checked Swann's Way out of the library, read the first few pages, and got on-line to order my own copy. I'm an under-liner, a post-it pro, and I love being able to make a book mine. And it only took a few pages to figure out that Proust is something to experience. So the first two volumes (Moncrieff/Kilmartin translation) arrived a few days ago and that waiting room was my first opportunity to really delve in. To be quite honest, I was sort of hoping that there would be a line, so that I could do just that.

I live in a small town where I don't have access to much literary discussion or book clubs...so I am pretty ecstatic at this opportunity to bounce around thoughts on these books as we read through them.

And now, while my kids are still completely fascinated by the puzzles I just pulled down from their closet shelf, I will return to Combray.

Step one: purchase book

I finally bought the book! At least the first volume -- Swann's Way, the 2004 Lydia Davis translation. I based my decision on aesthetics. If I have to lug a big book around with me for months (for it will take me months to read) it had better be beautiful. That it's the most recent translation is a side benefit, though who knows if that means it's the best translation.

You know those people who show up to book group not having read a page of the assigned book? I remember one such woman who then went on to declare that she didn't even like reading that much. Well, I'm the opposite. I'm supposedly in a book group, at least I get the e-mailed announcements. And I read the assigned book. But I never make it to the actual meeting. That's why I love this online book group. I'll read the book... eventually. But I don't have to make special arrangements so I can travel to some inconvenient location in Brooklyn on a Tuesday night.

Months ago I read Golden Country by Jennifer Gilmore and was swept away into her world. Since then I've been craving more fiction (I went for a long time without reading fiction) but have been flummoxed by all the choices. This one? That one? How to decide? I just needed a little shove in one direction.

I always loved reading as a child but stuck with picture books a little longer than most kids because I didn't want to give up the illustrations. Once I started chapter books, though I was obsessed with narrative. Madeline L'Engle especially -- remember those books? Later on in middle school I would get in trouble for reading novels during math class. Couldn't put the book down.

Sorry for the rambling post. It's 3 a.m. here. My son isn't sleeping well tonight and so now I'm not, either.

Bienvenue!*

I recently stated my intention to re-read Marcel Proust's mammoth work A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, known in English either as Remembrance of Things Past (RTP) or as In Search of Lost Time (ISLT). Since then, busy moms like me have been coming out of the woodwork to let me know they would be willing to join in the fun. How exciting!

As I mentioned on my other blog, I'm reading the 1981 translation by Terence Kilmartin and C.K. Scott Moncrieff--mainly because this is the version I read 20 years ago, and it's the version I own. Plus, the covers are very pretty. However, this version is now out of print. You can find it used, or you can choose one of two other English translations:

In Search of Lost Time. Translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. Revised by D.J. Enright. New York: The Modern Library, 1992.

OR:

In Search of Lost Time. General Editor: Christopher Prendergast. London: Allen Lane, 2002

Just so you're clear: RTP/ISLT is really a series made up of 7 books. Their titles are, in order:

1) Swann's Way (or The Way by Swann's);
2) Within a Budding Grove (or In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower);
3) The Guermantes Way;
4) Cities of the Plain (or Sodom and Gomorrah);
5) The Captive (or The Prisoner);
6) The Fugitive; and
7) Time Regained (or Finding Time Again)

I suppose if you're really fabulous, you could read it in French. If so, the rest of us will admiringly lay roses and laurels at your feet.

This blog will serve as a virtual Reading Group for its members, with newcomers, commenters, and lurkers always welcome. We'll read as we can and write as we feel prompted. Allons-y!*

*I hereby promise in future to keep my Frenchifying to a bare minimum.