Subject: The Proust 2000 Project
From: The Laughing Man (the_laughing_man@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Jan 04 2000 - 07:05:13 EST
A few of you might remember me directing some of my rambling at a certain
bourgeois character we all have some, if only the dimmest, recollection of:
Marcel Proust. His À la recherche du temps perdu is quite a project, 3500
compact pages (well, at least in the latest Swedish translation) with a
scent of times passed and, hopefully, of emotions we are passing yet and
again. Some of us Proust wannabes have entered a journey finishing in
December this year, The Proust 2000 Project. Jan 1 the Faithful Ones turned
off the TV in the middle of "Ivanhoe" (once you realize/remember the idiot
Anthony Andrews will go for that silly blonde Lady Rowena instead of
Rebecca) and read the first ten pages, trying to get a first grasp of it
all.
Some of you have mentioned your interest in following this project. For that
purpose I have (one miute ago), guided by our Cecilia, formed an
international Proust 2000 Project Forum on Onelist (www.onelist.com). Any of
you interested in taking this chance to read through one of the great works
of literature in a pace slow enough to allow the ordinary life to take place
in between, and still fast enough not having to start all over again - join
in! Just subscribe to the list by surfing this address:
http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/Proust2000
With a little help from Santa, I now have in my bookshelf a complete copy of
À la recherche du temps perdu, the 1954 Gunnel Vallquist translation. Only
seven volumes, it doesn't look all that much. And it isn't. I'm actually
afraid I will finish it way to fast. On the train back from Copenhagen I had
half of the train coupe wanting to kill me and the other half looking at me
like Jesus from my reading aloud several passages about Swann and Odette. I
just couldn't help myself. One of my most skeptic friends, whom I thought
would be most annoyed from my reading aloud (I directed my efforts at her
boyfriend), waved away my 37th apology for reading yet another passage with
a "No, it's great! Read!"
So if you want another 1000 friends up there with Esmee and Seymour and the
man on the bike, run down to your local store for a journey that will
definitely take you further than 19th century Normandy and Paris, but there
too. If you haven't started yet, you are only 30 pages behind!
I attach my original message as well as the "community description" below,
for those interested.
/Charles Swann
------
Proust2000 Community description:
This is the international support group of the Proust 2000 Project.
The Proust 2000 Project began Jan 1 2000 and has the following agenda:
The members of the project will read Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps
perdu at a pace of 10 pages per day, starting Jan 1 and finishing
approximately 350 days later in mid December 2000.
This community will support the project members by supplying a forum for
discussing the gigantic novel as it takes form in front of us. Even though
most members will read the novel in their own pace, the community at large
will "evolve" 10 pages per day. Thus every member will know how "far" the
community has "read" (Swann's use of quotation marks).
The norm will be the Swedish translation, the Vallquist version, since this
project has its physical roots in Sweden. For international members a
reading schedule based on the different parts and volumes of the series will
be published. As an approximations in the mean time, however, the
mathematical gifted member may use this formula for calculating the reading
speed, v: v=P/350, where P is the total number of pages.
Welcome! This community is open to everyone. It is never too late to start
reading Proust. Not before mid December 2000, at least!
-------
>From: The Laughing Man <the_laughing_man@hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
>To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
>Subject: Proust 2000!
>Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 11:55:29 +0000 (GMT)
>
>I’ll try to refrain from exclaiming too many of my eventual Eureka’s (or,
>on the other hand, feelings of complete boredom from those 10 consecutive
>pages of describing a church) in the fish pond, but I’d like to give you
>all a semi-supported chance to start up the new millenium the right way: by
>reading Proust.
>
>Starting January 1, a group of natural science misfits, a group of which I
>happen to be a member, have decided to read Proust’ “Remembrance of Things
>Past” at a pace of 10 pages a day, which will allow us to finish the entire
>series in less than a year (approx. 3500 pages in total). Many of us have
>tried on our own, perhaps even finishing volume 3 before other aspects of
>the outside life took over and it was impossible to start over again.
>Others have reached only the famous Madeleine cookie scene at page 30-ish,
>volume one, finally realizing why ever one knows that one.
>
>We realized the task of actually keeping the pace though 3500 pages on our
>own was all but impossible in this modern time. Too many excuses, too
>little discipline. But united we are strong! So (at least) once every month
>we will meet, discussing or sharing articles we have found or maybe looking
>at Monty Python’s “Marcel Proust Summarisation Contest”. We have our
>reading scheme, so we know how far we can expect the group to have reached.
>So we can do just the right cocktail mingling with others injected with the
>same dose of Proust.
>
>Well, we don’t expect every member to actually read through it all. But we
>do expect to try. So if anyone here don’t know what to ask for Christmas, a
>present just so hard and heavy we used to like it when we were kids, can be
>reality.
>
>The more, the merrier! So think about it, fellow fishes. Can’t promise you
>quality time in front of the local VCR, but emotional support none the
>less. And maybe an invitation for the big “We did it!”-Party in December
>2000. Read it already? Well, some things are even better the second time.
>No risk of dipping our Proust too many time in the tea, anyway...
>
>/The Proust Wannabe Man
>
>
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Mon Feb 28 2000 - 08:38:08 EST