Emma’s Comments (group member since Nov 29, 2012)

Emma’s comments from the The Year of Reading Proust group.

Great discussions! I have the feeling we will end up with something even better than Patrick Alexander's book, lol.
Not sure anyone mentioned it, but it strikes me this time, I had not perceived this before, how many ironic passages there are.
My evaluation is that Proust uses self-irony as a key for revisiting and interpreting his past. I may be totally off, have not done critical reading for ages. That would be one of the clues for the backwards/forwards shifts.

Richard, t'es extra, j'avais envie de le faire, mais je reculais devant la tâche...Merci!!

I'm French, and teaching French online, thru skype. actually, with one of my current students, at his request we do read Proust together in French.I explain some more difficult words or phrases, and we share our comments.
contact me if you would be interested in doing something similar.
we could even do some conference with a a few of us together, for a very small fee.

well, even though we are not in 2013 yet, I restarted reading A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs where I had left it, and it's getting very good again - when he does meet this group of girls. before that, I felt in a social mud for a while. lol
if you are fluent enough in French, it is so so very good. well, I'm French, so really no reason to read in English. though when I want to share a passage with my husband, I rely on English translations, and I discovered even some free online translations are quite good indeed.

A painting with Charles Haas/Charles Swann.
A blogger I follow just posted this interesting picture with explanations: http://bookaroundthecorner.wordpress....

Thanks so much. I started it last year, in French, but got stuck in A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs [sorry no English title of the 2nd volume satisfies me], always finding things to do/read. so this is going to be a great help!