On Demand
A book club even Stedman can join
By Claudia La Rocco
June 26, 2008
Update: Hey y’all, thanks so much for the comments - glad to know it’s not the lamest idea ever. We’re working out the details. Stay tuned.
I have been reading Proust forever.
Well, not exactly forever, but for more months than I care to admit. I somehow managed to get through a liberal arts education without once reading him, and a little while ago decided to rectify that by reading the Penguin translation of his epic seven-volume novel, “In Search of Lost Time.”
Of course, he’s incredible. It’s difficult to take any other writer seriously while reading him. But I’m nearing the end of “The Guermantes Way,” and I need a break before tackling the next book.
So, I’ve been thinking … who out there would be interested in a book club? We or I would come up with a list of possible titles, and then vote. Instead of meeting in real time (although we could do that), we would discuss each chapter, or every few chapters, here. It would be just like Oprah’s Book Club, only, er, small and insignificant.
Let me know if you would be interested. If you think this is the lamest idea ever, well .. silence is golden. I have never been in a book club. I’ve heard some scary stories about them. But I like the idea of a communal, contradictory review process - sort of like that game where one person would draw a head, fold the paper over so that the next person would do the torso and then pass it on …
Meanwhile, I shall keep on keeping on with Marcel. By the time you read this, I should be en route to Durham, N.C., to teach a two-day workshop at the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Dance. And I’m bringing him with me. I’ll leave you with a quote:
“Feel comfortable to be called a neurotic. You belong to the splendid, pitiable family that is the salt of the earth. Everything we think of as great has come to us from neurotics. They and they alone are the ones who have founded religions and great works of art. The world will never realize how much it is indebted to them, particularly how much they have suffered in order to present it with their gifts. We appreciate good music, fine paintings, a thousand exquisite things, without knowing what they cost those who created them in terms of insomnia, tears, fitful laughter, nettle rash, asthma, epilepsy, and, worse still, a fear of dying, which you perhaps have experienced yourself …”
Comments
Comment from smaxfield
Date: June 26, 2008, 2:15 pm
I love the idea of a book club, (though that doesn’t mean it isn’t lame, as I’ve never been a barometer of cool.) I’m also currently on my slow, first stroll with Proust. A bit behind you - still in the middle of Swann’s Way - I’m enjoying the walk immensely, and I’d love to chat more about it, or any other selected books. Perhaps we can discover if everyone is reading Proust right now because the new Penguin edition is so eye-catching, or if there is something deeper to the trend…
Comment from smaxfield
Date: June 26, 2008, 2:17 pm
When will I ever learn to copy/paste my links?
Comment from Evan
Date: June 26, 2008, 2:25 pm
This is a great idea! Small and insignificant? Maybe. But definitely not lame.
Comment from Taylor
Date: June 26, 2008, 3:54 pm
Book club idea = I’m in
Comment from Counter Critic
Date: June 26, 2008, 3:59 pm
My friend read me–rather excitedly and over the phone–a passage from Tom Wolfe’s “The Painted Word”: http://www.tomwolfe.com/PaintedWord.html
It sounded really fierce, illuminating and hilarious, and is all about the art world and it’s relationship with itself, the avant-garde, literature and money.
I’ve never read Wolfe (although, I have read plenty of Woolf), but would consider taking a stab at this one.
xoxoC.C.
Comment from Vangeline
Date: June 26, 2008, 9:20 pm
Proust is such a great writer!
So many French writers are poorly translated..or NOT translated..I have this idea that the day I become too old to dance I will attempt to translate all the novels that never made it into English.
My next favorite who translates rather well : Emile Zola.(les Rougons Macquart, 20 volumes). Although “Belle du seigneur” comes close (Albert Cohen).
Has anyone read it?
It’s incredible…20 plus pages of interior monologue/stream of consciousness writing..
Comment from Brennan
Date: June 27, 2008, 12:38 am
A book club? This is amazing! I am in heaven.
I just–well, a-few-months-ago-just–started reading The Guermantes Way. The experience of reading Proust is so total, so wonderful, so beyond that I keep not letting myself go there.
Book club=yes! Never lame.
Comment from jeffrey
Date: June 27, 2008, 5:17 pm
[ nods in approval ]
Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 30, 2008, 9:58 pm
Hey Sarah! “Slow, first stroll” is the perfect way to put it … I was at first really apprehensive about reading a version of Proust that featured so many different translators (one per book, for those of you keeping score at home). I thought it would be really jarring, especially given Proust’s reputation as such a singular voice. And I get kind of squirrely about reading in translation anyway (Vangeline, I eagerly await your second career!). But, so far, I’ve found that his voice, or what I assume to be his voice, shines through in incredible fashion. The translators bring out different facets, like shifting a precious stone to catch the light. And his humor! I had no idea Proust was so freaking funny.
And it’s true - I did judge the Penguin translations by their covers, and I wasn’t disappointed …
I’m glad you wrote in - reminded me I need to add you to my blogroll, which I just did. Everyone should check out http://inquisitiveowl.wordpress.com/ if they haven’t yet
Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 30, 2008, 10:00 pm
Hey Brennan - are you reading the Penguin translation, too? Which one if not?
Proust is out of his mind. I am terrified of finishing - what the hell will I do next? Perhaps, instead of a book club, what we’ll need is a recovery group. - although, from what Vangeline is saying about the 20 pages of interior monologue, I might have found my follow-up candidate
Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 30, 2008, 10:05 pm
(and “a few months ago” counts as just where Marcel is concerned - who, I think, needs his own bobblehead doll like nobody’s business)
I’ve never read “The Painted Word,” (heard it’s great - have you started it, CC?) but anyone living in New York has to read “Bonfire of the Vanities.” Seriously. Even if that New York is all but vanished, or never existed for all but a fraction of us anyway, it’s required.
Comment from Counter Critic
Date: July 3, 2008, 10:32 am
I haven’t read anything all the way through–that includes The Rest Is Noise–in like, over a year or something. I actually can’t even remember the last book I finished.
But I think I’m ready to jump back in!
Proust sounds hot, although, I think I have some catching up to do. I’ve tried to start Combray like a hundred times. I love it, but lose interest as soon as my life starts to take over. It seems with Proust, you really have to give over the reigns.
Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 3, 2008, 12:05 pm
What translation are you reading, CC? I tried Proust several times and found him impenetrable - now that I’m into great translations, I think it had more to do with the middle men than Marcel.
I got derailed on The Rest Is Noise, too, even though I was enjoying it - life (mainly electronics) intruded. If it weren’t for the subway, I wouldn’t get any reading done at all.
A few years ago, I read some study about how only one in six adult Americans reads books, and of those the average is 12 a year (and I think is only that high because of lots of Harry Potter addicts. I never, ever, ever will understand why so many adults love that series - doesn’t hold a candle to Tolkien).
Because I am the nerdy sort who delights in lists, I started writing down the books I read each year, with the idea of upping my number each year. And I was doing just fine, too, until I met Marcel …
Comment from smaxfield
Date: July 7, 2008, 12:16 pm
I’m glad to hear that the Penguin translations hold up as the books continue. I’ve become so attached to Lydia Davis’ translation of Swann’s Way, that I’m almost afraid to finish it and have to move on to a new translator. Good to know that I need not worry.
Also, since there’s a book club theme here, I just read E.B. White’s Here is New York for the first time, and I was so struck by the similarities between White’s NY of 1948 with our own crowded, lonely city of 2008. The chief differences being the price of a subway fare, and that the specter of a threatening plane not only haunts our fears, but elicits a heartbreaking shudder of experience.
Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 7, 2008, 4:37 pm
Having a book club theme is a great precursor as we wait for an actual book club. Details really are being worked out, and I still have to finish Proust before anything can go forward…
I had the exact same reaction to Davis’ wonderful translation. Worry not. By the way, do you know about the funky situation surrounding the Penguin translations? I didn’t until I went on Amazon to order the rest, and was wondering why I couldn’t find them. Here’s the reason: http://www.slate.com/id/2114257/
Does White talk about planes in the essay? Strange. And sad.
Interestingly, I just posted a comment about a White poem on this excellent blog: http://reverberatehills.blogspot.com/. I only wrote a snippet of the poem there but, since this is my blog, screw it, y’all get the whole thing:
“Pigeon, Sing Cuccu!”
Earth is a hoyden, loud rejoice;
Pigeon, sing cuccu!
The green girl, spring, has found her voice,
My heart is piercèd through.
The warm wind picketh winter’s locks,
The jonquil bares his blade;
In Finley Shepard’s window box
The hyacinths parade.
From choir loft, in heavenly chants,
Up swell the sweet hosannas.
The huckster fills his cart with plants
Who lately called bananas.
By Rockefeller’s skating pond,
The cherry springeth clear,
And waveth wide the greenhouse frond
And drops the pinking tear.
Love is alive beneath the pave,
A-pipping at the shell;
Who has the fun that I have,
Or loveth spring so well?
In glaumy glades and rocky rifts
The snake from his cool slumber
Stirs, when the air of heaven sifts
Into his noisome chamber.
Beside the Fifty-ninth Street lake
Old men, alive and toothless,
Applaud the plundering of the drake
And grin when love is ruthless.
Oh, swiftly floweth now the Bronx
Where osier stem doth redden,
The sky is loud when the goose honks,
And naught can my heart sadden.
Earth is a hoyden, loud rejoice;
Pigeon, sing cuccu!
The green girl, spring, has made her choice,
My heart is piercèd through.
Comment from smaxfield
Date: July 8, 2008, 5:42 pm
I didn’t know that about the Penguin series. It seems fitting somehow…
I couldn’t follow the link to the blogspot blog that you posted, but thanks for sharing the poem. It makes me nostalgic for the wonder that is New York before the heat wave kills the joy.
Comment from Marisa Hayes
Date: July 17, 2008, 8:13 pm
Oh! Is this still happening? I was on vacation and didn’t read the June posts. I’d love to be part of the book club! I”m reading Proust for the first time too (sort of simultaneously in French and English…French when I have the time, English when I’m feeling lazy, want to read faster and feel unashamed about being a total underachiever in France reading in English)…
Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: July 17, 2008, 11:15 pm
You didn’t read the Junes posts??! I’m hurt, Marisa.
Yes, it’s definitely still on - we’re trying to figure out the best way to do it on the technical side, and then, on my part, I have to finish the current Proust book. I have roughly 60 pages to go, which means I should be done by October. 2009.
I’m so impressed that you’re reading some in French. Would love to hear how you think the translation you’re reading compares.
Comment from Erika
Date: August 30, 2008, 5:01 pm
Hi Claudia!
I hope I didn’t miss the boat either. Just now catching up on a smattering of your entries. I’d love to join your book club!
I read half of Swann’s Way in French a few years ago when I returned from France, but haven’t picked it up since. I’m scared to see just how much of the language I’ve lost already! But I should just get a translation. That way at least I wouldn’t be intimidated by both language and length!
It’s funny how reading in another language makes you feel like you’re in an even stranger land than the one the author creates!
Love reading your writing as always!
Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: August 30, 2008, 5:15 pm
hey! not to worry, the boat is currently idling in the shallows while tedious logistical stuff gets worked out. but i would throw out a life raft anyway for any native English speakers who managed to get through even half of “Swann’s Way” in French …
The only other language I mastered well enough to feel that I could even begin to read in it is (was, really) Italian. I still remember the marvelous strangeness of plunging into the language. Maybe in my next life I will do better, but in this one I’m pretty much a translation girl.
Comment from Gennady
Date: November 5, 2008, 11:17 pm
to be truly surprised and pleased:) Do not be believed, that even this happens:)
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