Wednesday, August 12, 2009

At Long Last, Fini

I did it! Last night during the rain delay of the Red Sox game against Detroit, I finished The Guermantes Way, finally arriving at the scene where a dying Swann appears and the Guermantes pooh-pooh his problems and fixate on their evening plans. The Duchess, Oriane, runs back inside for the red shoes that will match her dress. The Duc, Basin, is such an upper class twit, and the entire scene is priceless, even worth the endless slog of hundreds of pages through the boring parties and receptions and upper class snobbery.
Proust really knows how to end a scene. I loved it. Now onward to the second volume. I have an ancient (ancien) copy in two volumes. It took me forever to get through the Guermantes. I wavered. I procrastinated. I read two pages per week. I became a Proust slacker. No more.
Of course, posting to the blog has been difficult with so little progress through the great novel.
August 11 is the great turnaround. Enfin!
Delirious with accomplishment,
Odette

2 comments:

Michael Leddy said...

Good going, Odette! Onward!

Story teller - Krishnadas Dwija said...

Great.
What next?