finish Swann's Way

I haven’t even attempted this in a couple months, and I don’t really care much about it at this point. I’ve got lots of other books I’d rather read or DVDs to watch or people to visit or cake to make or earrings to sell or a million other things, so I’m dropping this. Maybe, just maybe I’ll come back to this later.

Yeah, so I haven’t read any in the past two weeks or so, but I got a little done today, and hopefully I can actually keep myself on track this time!

This was the first time I read any of this book since last Tuesday. I didn’t even realize it had been so long, but I’m back at it…for now at least.

again!

last night. I was about to go to sleep when I remembered that I hadn’t read my Proust for the day.

That’s 9 pages! Strangely, the pages I read last night were actually a teeny bit not horrible, AND I could follow what was going on! I must’ve been in the twilight zone!!

6 pages last night. Better than zero and one more than my goal of 5, so I’m happy.

I started reading this book at the beginning of the month, and finally decided to read something else instead, while still reading this little parts at a time in order to make it more bearable. Then I just kept reading my other books and never made myself read any of this one. I’ve read four or five other books already and I’m only on page 60 something of Swann’s Way.

Honestly, once I got past the introduction and the 50 page Overture??!! it got a little better. I haven’t read much past that, so I can’t say how much yet. It may seem strange that I’m going to keep reading something that seems utterly boring and useless to me, but once I start a book, I am determined to finish it, so that is my goal.

The most annoying part of the book is his insanely long sentences! Now, I understand that sometimes you just need/want a long sentence. That’s fine with me; I can understand. But the last time I was reading, there was a sentence that was about 1/4 of the page long, and I thought…hmm, wow. Then they kept getting longer each time until one was 2 pages long! ONE sentence….TWO pages!! Crazy! And it’s really hard to keep up with what’s going on when the sentence doesn’t stop for 2 pages!!

My goal is to read at least 5 pages a day. That’s pretty small and simple, and I’ll finish it one day at least!

Proust writes these long-winded sentences, and while the new translation by Lydia Davis was smooth, it was still hard to read. Certain passages were well worth the time and effort to read and re-read… can’t say I tried to understand everything though. The melodrama between Swann and Odette dragged on, for me, and the inconsequential affair between little Marcel and Gilberte was annoying. The last few pages tied it all together and made me want to re-read the book to re-live everything. The book is so long and dense of emotions that reading through felt like living in that world of Marcel’s… and I’d like to read the other books to find out what happens… need a break from Proust right now, though.

... it took two months and several long hiatuses, but, finishing it makes me feel like i climbed a really high mountain!