You should know that I am something of an expert.

I have now read the first 50 pages of Swann's Way, alternately the "Overture" or simply "Combray: I," four times. Each time I have been distracted by one thing or another; each time I have failed to move on to "Combray: II." The first three times were in translation, and for this, my fourth, and admittedly rather desperate, attempt to manhandle Proust, I tackled it in French (which, um, may or may not be the foolhardy key to my undoing - shh, don't tell Marcel!).

Four times! I can't think of another book that has managed to flat-out defeat me so consistently. Even Women in goddamned Love only withstood two attacks before giving in, and believe me, comrades, I am no friend of Lawrence. What, you may ask, has prevented me from proceeding in my three prior attempts upon this book? To answer that question, I take you back to Jessie's earlier post, "Overpriced Beer and Crackerjacks." I agree wholeheartedly that Proust would be totally into the kind of moments she described so clearly (though he might not be a huge baseball fan, considering his aversion to the outdoors and his supposed proclivity for ANTM) - after all, he's all about that giddy-making, visceral feeling of time travel that links sense to memory. I love reading these pages because they communicate so clearly that instantaneous and uncontrollable jerk between present and past (again, as per Jessie, cue madeleine reference). However, I can't help but experience these pages a little too directly, too intimately. At the risk of sounding kind of, well, reductive and idiotic about it, I think I just take Proust a little too personally.

Reading that opening section, I'm a good sport - I go along with Marcel into the darkened bedroom of his childhood, I feel with him the anxiety of an early bedtime exile. I eat the crumb of madeleine, I let it dissolve in the spoonful of tea. I remember the sickly aunt. Everything's all fine and peachy keen. But then (damn it!), I go off on my own; I leave Marcel in the dust and go a little crazy. I can't help but think of things that make me time-travel: I taste the edge of cigarette smoke on velvety, thick summer air, then fall into a memory of smoking and talking and kissing and smoking again in a Cleveland Heights parking lot in a now-distant August. I catch a hint of the perfume I wore in high school and find myself again, somewhat incongruously this time, in a packed box of sweating, dancing bodies somewhere in English clubland. I feel the burn of smoke and sharp, frigid air in my throat, and lean once more against the wall of the Taft Apartments in New Haven, the infuriating weight of both unrequited love and unfinished senior essay settling into a familiar hollow in my gut. Now I'm distracted, and the book is forgotten. I get up, wander around the house, and ponder my mortality. Perhaps I eat some ice cream and loll around for a while. Undoubtedly I realize that most of my vivid memories involve smoking, and half-heartedly curse the day I quit. What - huh - Marcel? Marcel who? Proust shmoust. Get out of my way, I've got to go get a pint of Coffee Heath Bar Crunch and a pack of Camel Lights.

All in all, this is a long-winded way of saying that I agree with Jessie - Proust's style does far more than simply invoke memory, it creates the past and brings it to the present. Andre Aciman has all the right in the world to be sick of hearing about Proust and senses, Proust and memory, Proust and sense memory, blah blah (aren't we all just a leeetle bit sick of hearing about all that?), but even if he doesn't want to dwell on these things any more, it can't be denied that memory and style are inextricably, lovingly, carefully intertwined here. Yes, Proust's greatest joy is in the aesthetic experience of the every day - but it's the re-creation of gorgeous moments past that allows him to attain this joy. And to me, the real triumph of the opening pages of the book is the seductive, coercive impact that they have on my memory - all of a sudden, I find myself reading Marcel's memories and my own; I take my own languid excursions into the scents and tastes and ticklish sensations of my unrecorded personal past. I put the book down.

ANYWAY, now that that's all out there, this time I intend pick up the book again and move on, despite this past week of guilt-ridden delay (and let's face it, German homework is no excuse: simply put, ich habe viel Angst vor Proust). The resplendent moustache and doleful eyes of our friend Marcel regard me with a infuriatingly casual skepticism, as though he is just soooo sure I can't/won't make it through - but I swear to you, sisters in bloghood, I WILL prove him wrong. The war isn't over - sure, it may be Marcel:3, Sarah:0, but this fourth battle is still up for grabs. This time, I won't get lost in my own private no man's land of introspection, and I WILL WIN!