It’s only January 3, but one thing is clear already: 2024 is going to be the Year of Reading Proust. Everyone, but everyone, on social media is boasting of their firm resolution to do so. The great Ryan Ruby has just published this fine piece on our favorite bedridden French mama’s boy. I thought in light of all of this now would be a good time to share with my free subscribers the big “Proust piece” I myself wrote in 2021.
I am reading him too....I love the way he spins off, he gives himself so much freedom to think outloud, even his scenes where he is laying in the grass, watching, putting words in peoples mouths... his attending commentary is ferocious, then before you know, he is back to describing flowers...
Lovely piece. On the cover of the English translation of the Deleuze those are rows of "'petites madeleines", not eggs.
I am reading him too....I love the way he spins off, he gives himself so much freedom to think outloud, even his scenes where he is laying in the grass, watching, putting words in peoples mouths... his attending commentary is ferocious, then before you know, he is back to describing flowers...