Slogging through Proust's "In Search Of Lost Time," a/k/a "Remembrance of Things Past"

By Jack Brummet

I am beginning the final volume (7) of Proust's Remembrance Of Things Past. 3,031 pages, and 1,267,069 words. It's has been beautiful and infuriating and puzzling at times. I'm glad I did this with our book club because I would have probably weaseled out otherwise. it is also pretty interesting to be in a book club with three philosophy professors, a lawyer, two cool and smart professional women - one of who is a philosopher too-and one knucklehead, yours truly. So, this sentence from book five is pretty typical, and illustrative of why this book is such a slog. It gets way more dense, but never more Hemingwayesque. I've found I need to read three other books between each Proust volume (with at least one of those being some trashy genre fiction) to cleanse the palate.

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The Blog War, continued

The blog Almost There In No Time recently posted this follow-up:

"Q: Is the blog war with Jack Brummet still active?

A: I think about it all the time. In cyber-terms, he is no better than Pol Pot and/or Idi Amin. He's a shoddy cook too, constantly over/under-spicing food."


In fact, Almost There In No Time, rolled over almost exactly like the French have in every smirmish they've become involved in in modern times. Almost There In No Time talked a great blog war, but when push came to shove, they hoisted the white flag immediately, all the while declaiming their valor and righteousness. This particular blog war ended weeks ago. After the initial volleys were launched, the proprietor of Almost There In No Time scampered off like a scared jackrabbit into the infamous Marxist stronghold of Nicaragua.
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