@bookgaga

Congratulations, raising my virtual glass in your direction! I do so across continents, and across time as well ..., since my own reading of the book was many decades ago, as a young student. I have re-read selected parts from individual volumes, but never found the right mental frame to do the full second round. Perhaps this year!

It will be strange: revisiting the text and experiencing its circular nature, and at the same time facing the "having passed" of much of my own lifetime. Bits that the young Roamer read as an advance notice, the current Roamer may recognise from his own life, or he'll realise he misunderstood them all those years ago, or he may think them wrong. (Master Marcel won't mind.) I will give it a go this year.

#MarcelProust #somanycirclesfeedingintoeachotheritmakesyoudizzy

@chris_e_simpson

I read all of it as a young man. It meant a lot to me. Later I routinely picked up one volume or another and read a few sections. Each time that was a naturally enjoyable reading experience, meeting the mood of the moment. Not a forced exercise to prove something to myself.

One day I hope to re-read the entire series, one more time.

The Recherche creates a world and a society and a way of responding to others and to ourselves, at once unique and historically specific and universal.

The obvious danger is to treat it as too big a thing and then never do it. Looking at your question, I'd say yes, absolutely, read "a little Proust".

I'd just give the first volume a try, a cheap paperback stuffed into your coat pocket, read it on the train or in a sandwhich bar at lunchtime, a few pages at a time. If you don't like it, no big deal. If you do like it, finish Vol I. And if you _really_ like it, hell, you can even move on to Vol II!

Have fun!

#MarcelProust