To be played as you read, if you wish:

“I had dinner before everyone else and afterwards I came and sat at the table, until eight o’ clock when it was understood that I had to go upstairs; the precious and fragile kiss that Mama usually entrusted to me in my bed at the moment I was going to sleep I would have to convey from the dining-room to my bedroom and protect during the whole time I undressed, so that its sweetness would not shatter, so that its volatile essence would not spread and evaporate and, on precisely those evenings when I needed to receive it with more care, I had to take it, I had to snatch it brusquely, publicly…” – The Way By Swann’s, Marcel Proust.

Do people write like that any more?

(It’s so hard to read: the entire thing is long, winding sentences with occasional punctuation and very vivid imagery.)

Will I ever have the ability to read it in the original French?

(Erm…)

I wish school-standard French taught you how to speak it fluently instead of useless little phrases and all that grammar. I’ll be pedantic about a sentence only after I can speak a whole one without hesitating, thank you very much.

On the day of my last journal entry I had a sudden, very strong craving for tea. This is remarkable because I tried tea at the age of eight and detested it. For the next eleven years I was to detest even the smell of the stuff, until I was struck by a need for tea. Weirdly enough, I’m now drinking silly amounts of the stuff. And I really like it.

I was told today, very sweetly, that I have a nice singing voice. It made me pleased

“i thank god for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees & for the blue dreams of sky & for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.” — e.e. cummings

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough” — Oprah Winfrey

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero

“I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.” — Woody Allen

“I do not think we have a “right” to happiness. If happiness happens, say thanks.” — Marlene Dietrich

Jax

“Purring is not so different from praying. To a tree, a cat’s purr is one of the purest of all prayers, for in it lies a whole mixture of gratitude and longing, the twin ingredients of every prayer.”  — Kathi Appelt (The Underneath)

“I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best. “ — Walt Whitman

“When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe.” — Maya Angelou

“Everyday, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.” — Dalai Lama XIV

“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” — Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. “ — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.” — Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

GiGi

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” — Marcel Proust

“Be present in all things and thankful for all things” — Maya Angelou

“Fell in love with a beautiful blonde once. Drove me to drink. And I never had the decency to thank her. ” — W.C. Fields

“True forgiveness is when you can say, ‘Thank you for that experience.’” — Oprah Winfrey

“Gratitude is a ‘heart’ memory” — French Proverb

“He was still too young to know that the heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.” — Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)

“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” — Albert Schweitzer

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ” — John F. Kennedy

“I tell you this, my friends, in the experience of my life time, the failure and the pain have certainly outstripped the triumphs. But this has not destroyed my faith — my faith in reason, in truth, in human solidarity — but, on the contrary, it has made it indestructible. I see the hope of the world in you. And, from my heart, I thank you.” — Frida Kahlo

“Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough.” — Garrison Keillor

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jag vet inte hur många gånger jag sett det här klippet. Vad tänkte han egentligen, målvakten? Exakt i vilket ögonblick, i vilken nanosekund, är det han tappar konceptet? Hur såg hans liv ut efter detta? Tänk att en människas förnedring kan glädja en annan människa så. Jag står för det. Jag älskar det.

Klippet får mig att tänka på en novell av Bo Widerberg: Anteckningar från en straffpunkt från novellsamlingen Författarnas Fotbollsbok från 1994. Han berättar om hur jobbigt det var att träffa Staffan Tapper på gatan, att han hellre sneddade över till andra sidan för att slippa behöva stanna till och tvingas prata om allt utom det enda han egentligen ville prata om: Den missade straffen mot Polen som innebar sorti för Sverige ur Fotbolls-VM 1974.

I novellen gör han en jämförelse mellan Staffan Tapper och Bo Larsson (som Widerberg och alla andra som såg matchen tyckte skulle lagt straffen). Han skriver: ”Säg mig vad du läser, och jag ska tala om ifall straffen går in eller ej. På Staffan Tappers nattduksbord där nere i Mönchen-Gladbach kan ha legat ”På spaning efter den tid som flytt” eller en Flaubert. På Bos bord låg bergis en Bond. Kanske med risk att avslöja mig som djupt antiintellektuell bekänner jag vid denna skrivmaskin att jag har större förtroende för den straffläggare som läser tre kvarts sida Fleming innan han kvällen före matchen slaggar in än för den som ligger vaken en timme för mycket med Proust.”

I det här klippet är det målvakten som läst en timme för mycket, säkert en semiotikrapport av Umberto Eco. Anfallaren spelade troligen Call of Duty 4.

Se sex sekunders oförklarlighet. Beskåda förvirring när den är som mest underbar.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

At this moment I am pleasurably enveloped in an ivory colored satin quilt in my own room with a view, at my daughter, Hadley’s, house in Atlanta. Beau, the elegant, velvety, warm blooded, chocolate colored companion that is my dog, is curled around my legs. It is the beginning of Thanksgiving weekend and I am writing in bed, my very favorite place to write, and well, my favorite place, I think, in any house. Certainly I am surrounded by new landscape, about which Proust speaks, away from the Carolina Lowcountry and well, yes, Atlanta is admittedly one of the Great Aunts of the American South. In the spirit of the weekend, I feel renewed and I see again, with new eyes, today, that Proust is just right, oh so right, about what matters.

What a delightful American holiday this is, a day dedicated to gratitude and the splendid pleasures of the table. As I packed yesterday to travel, I tucked into the red leather traveling bag that this beauty loving daughter gave me, another gift from her, a copy of the original Proust Questionnaire, in Marcel Proust’s own handwriting, in French. She gave it to me, because every holiday season for years we’ve circulated a family questionnaire amongst the large and blended family that is mine. The questionnaire we make is usually twenty questions or so, like “If you could have dinner with anyone who would it be?” or, from the original, “What is your idea of happiness?” (Proust’s answer was ” To live in contact with those I love, with the beauties of nature, with a quantity of books and music, and to have, within easy distance, a French theatre – all of which would be mine exactly! – except having access to film now, instead of French Theatre).

Completing the questionnaire is a gift of connection, or listening to each other, the one element that somehow began to be missing as the holiday became so centered around gifts and shopping. Our own family questionnaire has taken a life of its own and now, each Thanksgiving, one family member begins and circulates the questionnaire beginning on Thanksgiving weekend, by email, even though I value those old paper compilations, especially the one my sister did in her own beautiful perfect and loose handwriting, so passionately detailed in the food category. When she died, all the foods she listed as her favorites – and her list ran around the page to fill up the back (it included Duke’s mayonnaise which those from the South will understand) were gathered and cooked and served by my son’s wife at the gathering of family and friends who came to my house after the funeral.

But ah, Proust! – whose passion, curiosity and genius inspires all lovers of the arts. Virginia Woolf, the legendary writer, identified the highly sensual nature of Proust’s prose as the Proustian effect, a rejuvenating energy, the intense pleasure that we find in great art. The root of the word “aesthetic” is to feel, to be alive; it is about art that so dazzles one’s spirit that it consoles: Joy, I think, is the word.

Included in that is to feel overwhelmed with gratitude. For the pleasures of love and food, for the pleasures of grown children who now create the feast, and the birthday celebrations and the blessings of grandchildren. Proust’s own words mark the refrigerator here in Hadley’s oh so sensual home. It is a fridge magnet her mother gave her. “Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”

The two warm ham biscuits, on a gold rimmed porcelain plate, delivered to my bed as I write, by my amazingly beautiful and talented daughter, illustrates it all. Amen.

Från baksidestexten:

Första delen av Marcel Prousts romansvit På spaning efter den tid som flytt – Swanns värld – beskriver barndomens värld. Berättaren minns sin familjs ferievistelse i den lilla landsortsstaden Combray och flydda somrar från 1800-talets början. Vis ostadig väderlek promenerade man genom staden förbi torget åt Méségliesehållet, och vid vackert väder följde man floden Vivonnes lopp åt Guermanteshållet, där slottet låg; magiskt klingande namn på borgerlighetens respektive aristokratiens orter som kommer att bli hållpunkter i berättarens vuxna liv.

Det är i berättarens sovrum i Combray som dramat kring den uteblivna godnattskyssen utspelar sig. Och det är vid kvarnen vid Montjouvain, strax utanför staden, som den fönstertittande berättaren får bevittna en skamlig kärleksakt. Allt detta bevarat i doften av en madeleinekaka doppad i lindblomsté.

I Swanns värld återfinns också en fristående berättelse om Swann och kärleken, som kan läsas som berättarens debutverk som författare. Med den introduceras kompositören Vinteuils ”lilla fras”, Swanns och Odettes kärleks ”nationalsång”, som ska klinga romansviten igenom.

Den här boken är delad i tre avdelningar, av vilka del 2 och 3 handlar om berättarens upplevelser från sin barndom, medan den mellersta delen (och i mitt tycke den minst intressanta) handlar om Swanns och Odettes kärlekshistoria. Totalt omfattar denna första del i romansviten På spaning efter den tid som flytt ca 500 sidor, men jag blir ändå helt uppslukad av Prousts språk, invecklade och långa meningar, samt alla dessa beskrivningar av minsta detalj. Jag vet, det skrämmer bort många potentiella läsare, trots att man går miste om en av världslitteraturens riktigt stora romaner. Visst, att läsa igenom hela romanserien kräver sin tid, jag hoppas för egen del att jag är klar i mars (och då är jag ändå en snabb läsare), men det tycker jag ändå att det kan vara värt. Det bästa är att man får lära känna romangestalterna eftersom Proust beskriver dem så ingående, exempelvis de fel och brister som Swann eller Odette har. Det är synd att jag aldrig lärde mig franska, det skulle vara intressant att även kunna uttala de namn som förekommer i boken…

Läs gärna den här krönikan av Martina Lowden i DN: http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/kronikor/martina-lowden-forsok-inte-illustrera-marcel-prousts-romankonst-for-da-kan-det-ga-sa-har-1.999673 Hon har ju rätt, det går ju bara inte att ”korta ner” Proust roman utan att det som är så kännetecknande, hans ”stil”, går helt och hållet förlorad. Att tålmodigt ge sig i kast med de nära 4000 sidor i romanen På spaning efter den tid som flytt är faktiskt det enda sättet att läsa Proust.

… del 2 av På spaning efter den tid som flytt av Marcel Proust har fått den bedårande titeln I skuggan av unga flickor i blom. Jag tror faktiskt inte att det kan bli mycket bättre än sådär. I övrigt läser jag om Alain de Bottons bok Låt Proust förändra ditt liv.

Jag har läst igenom första delen av Marcel Proust mastodontverk På spaning efter den tid som flytt och mitt mål är att ha tagit mig igenom hela romansviten när vi når mars månad (ska jag hinna med andra böcker också så är det inte realistiskt att tro att jag kan bli färdig innan dess).

Nu vet jag inte om jag ska gå över direkt till del 2 eller om jag ska läsa lite andra böcker först. En recension utlovas, men jag kan redan nu säga som så att en verklig bokälskare bara inte får missa På spaning efter den tid som flytt, att döma av hur den första delen var så är det en underbar romansvit, om man kan ha överseende med att Proust skriver långa meningar som mest av allt går ut på hur något känns för hans huvudperson. Det här är liksom motsatsen till deckare eller spänningsromaner och passar definitivt när man känner för något lugnt och icke-upprörande.

Uppdaterat före publicering: Jag började på del 2 redan dagen efter det att jag skrev ned ovanstående anteckningar…

Der Sohn von Albert Camus möchte nicht, daß sein Vater ins Pantheon kommt. Er fürchtet die politische Vereinnahmung. Die Camus scheuen das sarkozyanische Pantheon wie die Pest. Was für eine Naivität. Man pantheonisiert immer aus schlechten Gründen: die Pantheonisation ist immer Mißbrauch des Genies für die (zeitweiligen) Bedürfnisse der Republik. pardon: des Präsidenten der Republik.  …

Nie wird man den Marquis de Sade dort erblicken, nie Céline. Man wird weder Rimbaud noch Lautréamont einlassen, und es ist gut, daß Péguy nicht drin ist. Jean Genet kommt nicht hinein. Und wenn Proust hineinkommt, dann aus unguten Gründen. Vielleicht kommt Sartre hinein, denn er tut keinem mehr weh, aber immerhin hat er vielen wehgetan. Doch hat man viel zuviel Angst, daß sich sein Leichnam weigern wird. / Yann Moix, La règle du jeu 21.11.

Den Anfang macht Nancy Klimanski, Direktorin des atlashotel Basel / Weil am Rhein.

Mein wichtigster Charakterzug – Entschlossen, kreativ, flexibel und zuverlässig.

Eigenschaft, die ich mir in einem Mann wünsche – Denken mit dem Gehirn.

Eigenschaft, die mir bei einer Frau am wichtigsten ist – Ehrlichkeit.

Was mir bei meinen Freunden am wichtigsten ist – Das Wissen, dass sie da sind, auch wenn ich mich wochenlang nicht melde.

Meine größte Schwäche – Ungeduld.

Liebste Beschäftigung – Kommt drauf an, z.B. putzen, wenn ich geladen bin; heiß baden und aufs Sofa kuscheln, wenn ich viel gearbeitet habe; und weil am seltensten: lange ausschlafen.

Mein Traum von Glück – Das jeden-Tag-Glück nicht zu vergessen.

Was wäre für mich das größte Unglück? – Ein Sterbefall in meinem nahen Umkreis.

Was ich gerne sein möchte – Na ich.

Land, in dem ich leben möchte – Momentan möchte ich nicht weg, hat aber nix mit dem Land zu tun.

Lieblingsfarbe – Zur Zeit orange.

Lieblingsblume – Lilien, Rosen und Orchideen.

Lieblingsvogel – Gibt’s nicht.

Lieblingsschriftsteller – Gibt’s auch nicht, ich mag viele Bücher; was ich nicht mag ist Kafka.

Lieblingsdichter – Homer, Heine.

Lieblingsheld der Literatur – Faust.

Lieblingsheldin der Literatur – Gretchen.

Lieblingskomponisten – Timbaland J.

Lieblingsmaler – Meine Schwester mit ihrem expressionistischen Stil.

Meine Helden im wirklichen Leben – Meine Mutter.

Meine Helden/Heldinnen der Geschichte – Nelson Mandela, Alice Schwarzer.

Lieblingsnamen –Victoria, Maria, Mike.

Was ich am meisten hasse – Halbe Sachen.

Historische Persönlichkeiten, die ich am meisten verachte – Hitler & Co, weil wir immer noch drunter leiden müssen.

Militärische Tat, die ich am meisten bewundere – keine, Krieg & Gewalt sind nicht zu be-, meist nur zum Wundern.

Reform, die ich am meisten bewundere – alle deutschen Reformen der letzten Jahre, besonders mit welcher Selbstverständlichkeit sie durchgesetzt und angenommen wurden.

Naturbegabung, die ich gerne hätte – Gelassenheit, Musikalität.

Wie ich sterben möchte – Im Schlaf.

Derzeitige Geisteshaltung – Brust raus, Bauch rein, Scheuklappen auf, Mundwinkel nach oben und flink vorwärts.

Fehler, denen ich mit der größten Toleranz begegne – die nix kosten und für die man sich mindestens entschuldigt.

Mein Leitspruch/Motto – Habe ich nicht, ist mir zu schnulzig, aber „Carpe Diem“ ist ansatzweise ok…

I shudder to think about what Marcel Proust might have done if he’d had access to a camera phone that shoots HD video and unlimited hard drive space.

The novelist’s happy discovery was to think of substitutes for those opaque sections, impenetrable to the human soul, their equivalent in immaterial sections, things, that is, which one’s soul can assimilate. After which is matters not that the actions, the feelings of this new order of creation to appear to us in the guise of truth, since we have made them our own, since it is in ourselves that they are happening, that they are holding a thrall, as we feverishly turn over the pages of the book, our quickened breath and staring eyes. And once the novelist has brought us to this state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every emotion is multiplied ten-fold, into which his book comes to disturb us as might a dream, but a dream more lucid and more abiding than those which come to us in sleep, why then, for the space of an hour he sets free within us all the joys and sorrows in the world, a few of which only we should have spend years of or actual life in getting to know, and the most intense of which would never be revealed to us because the slow course of their development prevents us from perceiving them. It is the same in life, the heart changes, and it is our worst sorrow; but we know it only through reading, through our imagination: in reality its alteration, like that of certain natural phenomena, is so gradual that, even if we are able to distinguish, successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change.

Marcel Proust

A little tap on the window-pane, as though something had struck it, followed by a plentiful light falling sound, as of grains of sand being sprinkled from a window overhead, gradually spreading, intensifying, acquiring a regular rhythm, becoming fluid, sonorous, musical, immeasurable, universal; it was the rain.

Marcel Proust

Today, November 18th, is the anniversary of Marcel Proust’s death in 1922.  If you will look in the column to the right of this post, you will see a badge that says “Nanowrimo participant”.  Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and I have committed myself to the writing of a book.  Part of what I am writing includes a visit from Marcel Proust, who, as you can read below if you so choose, has just esconced himself in our guest bed and is preparing to tell me a story.  In honor of the anniversary of Marcel Proust’s death, I offer this excerpt from my 50,ooo word not-so-magnum opus:

“Francoise now had Marcel propped up in the bed, with pillows and sweaters piled up behind him, and on either side of him, so that he could prop his elbows on them as he ate his croissant and drank his coffee, with the tray on a pillow on his lap.  Francoise stood at the foot of the bed, watching as Marcel finished his croissant and then going to fetch another as he requested.  While she was gone, he lay back on the pillows and closed his eyes.  He looked so much, at the moment, like the photograph taken by Man Ray after Proust had died, of him lying on his death bed with his sunken eyes closed and his nose sharp with skin stretched tight over it, that I was frozen in time, staring at the face I’d never seen in reality and yet- here it was.  He opened his eyes and caught me staring at him.  He smiled.  “Do not worry, Madame,  I will be restored soon.  And then I will begin the story”. 

Man Ray's death photo of Marcel Proust

SF Chronicle and L.A. Times both review Zadie Smith’s Changing My Mind.  The Millions comment on the reviews “non-committal, guarded praise” and go on to call it “wunderkind jealousy”.

The Guardian says of Smith, “criticism is a bodily pleasure“.

Time Out New York weighs in on Changing, name drops a bunch of other great writers while doing so.  End up liking the book.

Lit.

• The FBI kept an eye on Studs Terkel, considering him a “suspected communist”.  Surprised?  Saul Bellow wouldn’t have been, he though Terkel was a “Stalinist”.

• Over at HTML Giant, a video of author Mike Heppner.  The man has great concentration while driving and talking, this impressed a great deal. He also says that a Dan Brown book isn’t publishing, it’s a “buisness transaction”.  I like this guy.
  

• The Faster Times interview Palestinian author Ghada Karmi.

• Lit Kicks continues to “Ponder Proust“.

• “Our Man in Boston” tackles Boston Noir.

O-bow-ma

• A rabbi weighs in on our president bowing to a head of state.  Pulls out the Megillah.

• Conservatives expose Obama for the pinko he is.  Bowing =’s Stalinism.  Proof that when we are all in the work camps, we will probably be forced to be courteous to each other.

• Of course stupid liberal media goes ahead and tries to play clean up crew.

• Our favorite conservative pundit, Stephen Colbert weighs in, “that bow makes Obama look weaker than Rove’s chin!“

• Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. bowed.  But of course, I’m sure it was a different kind of bow.  One with authority and stuff.  Not some liberal/commie sorta gesture.

Playlists, top 10’s, etc.

• Author David Henry Sterry (Hos, Hookers, Call Girls & Rent Boys) gives us a playlist of the top 25 songs about sex workers.

• The Strokes vs. The Libertines in a battle for the decades #1 at NME.  Who wins?

• NPR picks the best recordings of the decade.  Awkward picture of Sam Beam (Iron and Wine), Norah Jones, Wilco, and Kelly Clarkson sorta sums up the decade where the line between “indie rock” and “mainstream” was totally blown up.  Thanks.

Okay, we are a teeny bit excited about the new Twilight film.  So what?

• Lev Grossman weighs in on the phenomenon.

• How New Moon is gonna save Hollywood.

• Meanwhile, we are a little bit more excited about the prospect of Lorelai and Rory Gimore making a movie full of snappy dialogue and L.L. Bean influenced styles.

And finally.

• McSweeney’s interview with a trapeze artist.

• Andy and Conan reunite via Zach Galifianakis.  Deep secrets are uncovered.

• Those Smurf movie jokes that Conan and Andy Dick make may not be that far fetched.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.
—Marcel Proust