Too long; didn’t finish
Frothing Mouse admits to falling asleep during Á la recherche du temps perdu:
What a total snoozefest. Great literachuah’s reputation seems to be a self-propelling prophecy fueled by some freaked out introvert in a school tucked far far away in a woods surrounded by sociopathy.
It’s not like Proust had a pet haddock or anything, but the sheer length of the thing is daunting. I mean, one and a half million words?
Oh, and pay no attention to this:
We raw authors don’t produce anything resembling great literachuah.
Kim »
23 April 2010 · 8:22 pm
He had a HADDOCK?!?!? I simply did not know. Or forgot. Ah, the vagaries of losing one’s mind as one remembrances and all.
The retractable leash would not work well with a haddock.
CGHill »
23 April 2010 · 9:48 pm
I had to restrain myself from “Not tonight, I have a haddock.” (For the halibut, of course.)
Brian J. »
24 April 2010 · 7:55 am
Serious literary literachuah gives classic literachuah a bad name.
James Joyce and Proust drive the perception, but for every one of those or the thick Russian tomes (you have to acquire a taste for them), you can get Dickens, Kipling, Twain, or even some Hawthorne with shorter novels and more action driving them.
If only we could hook readers on some of those easier classic works. However, the professors tend to like to promote Faulkner over Hemingway, for example, to winnow out the masses from the acolytes to join them in the priesthood.
fillyjonk »
24 April 2010 · 9:31 am
Actually, Proust is on my literary “bucket list.” I have a set of the books bought v. cheaply at a church sale. Not sure if they’re the best translation or not but we’ll see. I like Dickens and Twain and especially Anthony Trollope, but recognize that they’re more accessible.
Dickens and Twain were the popular novelists of their day; Dickens was actually serialized in magazines (I think Twain was too). “Does Little Nell live?” was a question asked of passengers returning from Britain (where the most recent installment of “The Old Curiosity Shop” had been published but had not made it to America’s shores yet)
Lisa Paul »
24 April 2010 · 11:15 am
Fillyjonk, don’t bother with Proust. Skip directly to Tolstoy, who is a better read than you might expect.
The late great Quentin Crisp once noted that Proust has been lauded for having the courage to leave nothing out. Crisp opined that he should be condemned for not having the intelligence to edit.
Brian J. »
24 April 2010 · 12:47 pm
I’m aware of the popularity of Dickens, Kipling, and Twain (and let’s not forget Shakespeare) in their days.
I maintain that if people study American literature in 2110, they will study Stephen King and Tom Clancy more than any serious university professor who writes literachuah.
wendex.net » Blog Archive » Out of room »
25 April 2010 · 1:04 pm
[...] how much of a story can you tell if you throw in three hundred tracks? This is Proustian overkill when you need Hemingway’s [...]