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  • So, I thought that for 2009 I'd tackle Remembrance of Things Past, also known as In Search of Lost Time. It is, by all accounts, an amazing book that is also incredibly long. Anybody feel like joining me in this resolution?

    October 24, 2008

  • Yeah, ok. In English, though?

    Gibbon can wait 'til 2010.

    October 24, 2008

  • Is there a movie...?

    October 24, 2008

  • HA HA HA!!

    (Dontcry, are you a screenwriter? That's a classic screenwriting joke!)

    October 24, 2008

  • Thanks, bear! I think that's the best compliment I've ever received! I'm an armchair screenwriter. I re-write tv shows and movies, on the fly. It's annoying.

    October 24, 2008

  • Well, it's a classic anyway--it's often (ad nauseam, even) used as an example of how different the media of novels or literature and screenwriting are: there is no way, every last blessed screenwriter or producer will tell you, that Proust's Remembrance of Things Past could work as a movie. I imagine, for this reason alone, that someone's going to try it someday. (Though in general, as I've trumpeted unbidden elsewhere on Wordie, I'm a vocal and ardent advocate of books and the movies that are made from them being purposely different.)

    October 24, 2008

  • That reminds me of the joke about not having read the Bible because you saw the movie. ;->

    October 24, 2008

  • Speaking of book vs movie: How do wordies think Wordie would translate as a movie (assuming it's already a "book")? Surely I'm not the only one here working on that...

    Follow-up question: who would play you in the movie?

    October 24, 2008

  • I would play a fettered ursine who ruminates endlessly on the memory of a childhood madeleine.

    *hopes she spelled that right*

    October 24, 2008

  • If the closest we have to a Proust film is Monty Python's All-England Summarise Proust Competition, the equivalent for Wordie would be... um...

    October 24, 2008

  • I much prefer the Upper-Class Twit of the Year competition.

    October 24, 2008

  • Wordie as a movie? That scares the bejesus out of me.

    In a good way.

    October 24, 2008

  • Yarb: Yep, English all the way. I couldn't read a novel in French if a ménage à trois awaited me at the end.

    P.S. Ménage à trois sounds much better than a threesome, doesn't? God bless the French.

    October 24, 2008

  • "French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that."

    -Frank (Steve Carell), Little Miss Sunshine

    October 24, 2008

  • *weejies*

    Thanks for posting, Lampbane. I love that moment.

    October 24, 2008

  • Got to be the best parent lecture ever.

    October 24, 2008

  • Really? That's awesome. Because the character is gay, and not a parent. :)

    October 24, 2008

  • Got to be the best older person to younger person lecture ever.

    October 25, 2008

  • :)

    October 25, 2008

  • Okay, TYP. Let's a do a book every two months.

    October 25, 2008

  • Morbid curiosity: How many pages in all?

    October 25, 2008

  • Dunno. About 3000 maybe, 500 per book? Just over a million words?

    Maybe 1.2 million.

    Come on dontcry, you know you want to!

    October 25, 2008

  • You're right, I do...but I'm scared!

    October 25, 2008

  • Well, you don't have to read it. All TYP asked for was for peeps to 'join him in this resolution'. I plan to walk in front of him ringing a bell.

    October 25, 2008

  • I could hold the book and turn the pages...

    October 25, 2008

  • Yarb: a book every two months sounds good to me. We can start Swann's Way just as soon as our New Years hang over wears off.

    Bilby & Doncry: True friends you two are. *sheads single tear*

    October 26, 2008

  • I found a nice hard cover volume of Swann's Way at a used bookstore for $4.00 today. I'm ready for the new year.

    December 10, 2008

  • What translation did you get, TYP? I think I'm going to be using the library for the first couple of books at least.

    December 10, 2008

  • To remembrances of half-remembered prousts. he should have been called q.e.d.

    Cheers,

    Prosit

    December 10, 2008

  • Yarb:Translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff. I know nothing of the man, but his namely certainly sounds erudite, and that should count for something.

    Eliotvb: Quod erat demonstrandum? Now I'm intrigued.

    December 10, 2008

  • As I expected, with the coming of the new year every copy of Proust in French, English and Xhosa is checked out of my public library system, as one of the most popular new year's resolutions of all is acted upon by hordes of putative Proustophiles, writhing and thrashing like spermatozoa at the commencement of their quest - only a few, or maybe none at all, will make it to the end of Time Regained.

    Anyway, I've forked out for all six or seven (I'm not sure exactly) volumes on Amazon and they should arrive in about a week. Go ahead and get started if you like, TYP, I'll catch you up. Meanwhile, feel free to email me with your thoughts - let me know if you can't track my email down.

    January 3, 2009

  • Interesting. Checked the Upper Hudson Library System and all are "checked in."

    Moncreiff is the primary translator that the newer translations are all "much better than." To read Proust is a major resolution. It took me eight months of constant effort to get through it. Unbelievable bright spots, bore-you-to-sleep other passages. Suggest you try the movies Swann in Love and Time Regained, too.

    January 3, 2009

  • The Xhosa translation is not that good.

    January 3, 2009

  • Yarb: Around late August/early September, around the news of Wallace's demise, I requested Infinite Jest from the library. Well, it just came in, so I will try to tackle that while you're waiting for your delivery. The reading population of Indianapolis is waiting with baited breath for me to finish, so I plan on starting tonight.

    Considering it is such a long book, I may be a little longer than your delivery, but I'll keep you posted.

    January 3, 2009

  • At the ready for page-turning duty.

    January 3, 2009

  • I hope you've calloused your thumb and index finger; you have a long haul ahead of you.

    January 3, 2009

  • Yarb: So, I finished IJ and am just about to jump into Proust. Let me know what you think so far.

    January 26, 2009

  • Belated props to the fettered ursine for spelling ad nauseam correctly.

    January 26, 2009

  • Is this book heavy, or am I just whining again?

    January 27, 2009

  • Dontcry, this is not a book. This is a website.

    January 27, 2009

  • Arrrrrgh! Heavier still! Hellllp meeeeeeeeeee.....

    January 27, 2009

  • *needs a madeleine to calm down...where's that damn pan?*

    January 27, 2009

  • I dropped you a line, TYP.

    Dontcry: hang in there. Only about 3400 pages to go.

    January 27, 2009

  • Does anyone have a lemon? I just need the outside...

    January 27, 2009

  • You can come and steal lemons from my neighbour's tree that hangs over my fence, dc :D

    January 28, 2009

  • Pleth, you should be out stealing ice cubes if anything ...

    January 28, 2009