my first kiss (woodacre, california)

i am starting to think that no-one ever really can win with proust. yes, one can finish the book ("can" might be the wrong word here? perhaps an impersonal construction suits the endeavor better? "it is possible" to finish the book? in the same way, of course, that anything is possible, like unicorns, or, my personal favorite, griffins. but i digress. which is, of course, the point.), but proust still wins because in finishing one has submitted to his work. i rather think, sarah, that your re-reading and re-living is the greatest sort of victory that one can have with proust. after reading your post, i was filled with a sort of guilt because i am almost done with the first volume and have been a more conventional sort of reader than you have. when i first started reading it, in berkeley, i could only stomach 15 pages a day. my attention span for that sort of writing ("he has too much time on his hands" - more on that later) was diminished. it was all about him! there was nowhere for me to get in! (exactly the opposite problem from that which sarah had).

when i arrived in brussels, though, and then when i got to berlin, the reading became a million times easier. i´m not completely sure why, maybe because there are fewer distractions here - no internet at home, few friends, no cell phone (until yesterday! whee!) - but i rather think more because my life isn´t here. you see, for me, reading proust is about losing myself in l´histoire de marcel, about losing my own past for his. instead of identification, i feel erasure. i regret this - it sounds so much richer to relive the moments of one´s own past via the book. what i hope is happening, though, is that i´m writing some sort of new history, one in which this summer will be the summer of proust. this idea is disturbing on a number of levels (number one, i never want to be like d.a. miller, with my very own proust and suntan oil story. blech.), but still maybe alluring. the point is that i think that reading proust in berlin, where i have no history, helps me sink even more in the story. i am starting to find myself, against all odds, wanting to read more before i go to sleep, wanting to KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT despite the fact that nothing ever bloody happens.

i´ll try to circle back to my point, which was simply that getting sidetracked by one´s own history sounds like a marvellous way to read proust. there are a multitude of ways to experience a book so much about memory and the senses and i think that it will be fascinating to see how everyone does it.