Fionnuala’s Comments (group member since Nov 27, 2012)

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

Richard wrote: "You might like my Cabourg album. I have a bunch of other Normandy pictures up also from this pleasant week-long getaway ..."

Thank you for those reminders of Balbec, Richard - I love the photo of the display of fish - remember how the Narrator compared the dining room of the Grand Hotel to a giant fishbowl!
Your photo of the beach reminds me of walking there in the evening - I took a photo there of the Priestess of Proust robed in the sunset....

Richard wrote: "I am excited to be going to Normandy in mid-June, staying in Harfleur. I think on one of our free outings I might try to see the hotel at Cabourg."

Bon voyage!

Elizabeth wrote: ".Try Fay Weldon's "Letters to Alice on First reading Jane Austen." It's quite good. I'm reading it concurrently with "Pride and Prejudice.""

Elizabeth, would you believe, I read that twenty or more years ago when I was having my Austen phase! I still have it and will reread it one of these years. Enjoy the combination.

Kalliope wrote: "Fionnuala is also a 'completist' (sorry!) of Joyce, I think."

Yes - I'm sorry about that too!

What other Proust's have you got, Kalliope?

Hey - I'm a 'completist' Jane Austen too! But I don't like the word as I'd love to think I had another Austen still to read. Another one in the style of Persuasion would suit me nicely...

Elizabeth wrote: "Note on names. They crop up in the oddest places. I recently decided to read the New Testament, and found the name Sosthenes. There was a Sosthènes de Guermantes, not a character, really, just s..."

Elizabeth - the Duchesse de Guermantes' name was Marie-Oriane-Zénaïede-Sosthènes de Guermantes. The narrator speaks of her only once as Marie-Sosthènes - in Le Temps Retrouvé when there is a discussion about Gilberte's parentage (view spoiler)[when it is claimed by a stranger that she is linked to the Guermantes family though de Forcheville and so every trace of Swann's memory and his connections to the Guermantes clan is wiped out. (hide spoiler)]

Teresa wrote: "Fionnuala, Sue and I are starting our YoRP today, so we'll be reading these threads too ... eventually. .."

Oh,that's great, Teresa. The old guard willbe notified when you post comments and we can mull it all over again!
Happy YoRP, Teresa - and Sue!

Chris wrote: "Hello all! Today I finished The Guermantes Way! I am way behind the rest of you but I have found your posts made in 2013 still hold great interest to me and bring the book alive. Found this book a ..."

Hi Chris - it is great to hear that the discussion threads are still being read sometimes. I like the Duchamp idea re Albertine:



Good Luck with the rest of the Recherche - and to you too, Harold!

Matthew wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "Yes, Proust has become my habitude, and a lot harder to shake of than any lover!"

My favorite quote from goodreads. This year had been the hardest of my life, but Proust has been a constant, dare I say he makes it bearable? "

Matthew, in one of those serendipitous happenings, you posted your comment here on The Captive thread just as I finally posted my review of the same volume.
I am glad that you found solace in Proust during a difficult year, and if the discussions here on the Year of Reading Proust Group, which I'm glad to see are still accessible, have been of any use to you, it helps to justify all the time and energy that a small number of readers around the world expended in order to keep the group alive and vibrant.

ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: ""Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live."
Gustave Flaubert (via quotes-shape-us)"

like

I'm tempted by the Heuet too. A fun way to do a reread...

Et je vois que les BD étaient tellement bien réalisées que j'étais convaincue qu'aujourd'hui, c'était dimanche!!!

Le prochain group read où vous êtes toutes les deux j'y suis moi aussi - promis!

Oui, je viens d'assister moi aussi à la messe de Saint Hilaire ce dimanche matin!
Elles sont vraiment bien faites, ces bandes dessinées. J'adore.

Quant à Dante, j'ai tellement de projets de lectures en tête en ce moment que j'ai décidé d'y renoncer...

Book Portrait wrote: "Adaptation vidéo de la bande dessinée de Stéphane Heuet d'après Proust
21:46 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvYqW2...
Un travail très soigné!"

These clip meks et sème as if ze Narrator simply wishes to eat many of ze madeleines - non? Dix fois il me faut recommencer..
;-)

Amelia wrote: "While I have only commented occasionally, I have been a faithful follower of this amazing group and would like to thank all of you for your wonderful and insightful comments. You have made my read..."

It was an amazingly year, Amelia. Some of us read and commented a lot here but this is the really important thing: we all read Proust.

I'll do a reread with you, Karen.

Jocelyne wrote: "I therefore decided to post this goofy video in which I indulged my zany self. It is titled "How Proust can improve your life."..."

Jocelyne - you are Absolutely Fabulous!

Marcelita wrote: ""I had heard the noise of the garden bell at Combray---that far-distant noise which nevertheless was within me----" MP p 530
Ringing out 2013: The Year We All Read Proust..."

I will remember 2013.
Some day, I'll be sipping a tisane, or stepping on an uneven paving stone or simply folding a table napkin and suddenly you'll all be there, as vivid and as individual as the personalities I've created for you from your posts. The extra cast of characters in my own personal À la recherche du temps perdu...

I started Monsieur Proust today and fell on this passage which seems quite apt for the last day of The Year of Reading Proust. Céleste is recounting her first meeting with Proust and then remarks that the ten years from that day till the day he died seemed no more than one short year yet also seemed as long as a lifetime. Our YORP year seemed long at times, but looking back now, it went by very, very quickly.

Le temps a tellement changé pour moi, du jour ou je l'ai connu et où j'ai vécu près de lui, et ces neufs ou dix années, de 1913 à sa mort en 1922, qui sont celles où il a vraiment écrit son œuvre, sont tellement devenues dans mon esprit comme une seule année ou comme toute une vie, ainsi que je l'ai dit, que cette première période avant ma véritable entrée chez lui me parait toujours tantôt longue, comme si, sans le savoir, j'avais été impatiente d'être là, tantôt très courte, ce qu'elle fut plutôt. Celeste Albaret, page 23

Marcus wrote: "..Wishing my fellow Proustians bon voyage for another year of reading delight. Marcus ."

We'll look out for your book, Marcus - How to Survive Airports: Read Proust in Starbucks