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FlyerInHi.
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May 1, 2018 at 9:31 AM #22559May 1, 2018 at 10:23 AM #809994
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ParticipantDang, those seem like a lot of work.
Just finished “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance. A fantastic read, and it helps you understand the mentality of the white working-class trump supporter (and culture clashes in general, I’d say).
Right now reading “Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius” by Bill Pennington. For a baseball fan (which I am) this book is a treasure. Even if you’re not, it’s an excellent book about a flawed and genius and truly fascinating human being.
Just bought “I’ll Be Gone In The Dark” by Michelle McNamara. It’s about the hunt for the Golden State Killer (before they caught him). I like true crime stories, and critics liked it, so I’ll give it a read.
May 1, 2018 at 12:35 PM #809995scaredyclassic
ParticipantI was just excited that proust is numero uno
May 1, 2018 at 12:46 PM #809996Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]I was just excited that proust is numero uno[/quote]
Yeah, it’s cool when you’re into something and it’s the real deal.
I don’t think I have the mental energy to slog through that kind of book anymore. Or maybe I just don’t want to. I don’t know.
Maybe if it was more or less enjoyable to read (as opposed to being worth the effort of reading because of the enlightenment or knowledge you gain).
I’m curious if you find reading Proust enjoyable, or if you read it for the reason I mentioned above, or some other reason?
May 1, 2018 at 12:57 PM #809997ParticipantI put little check marks in the margins when a blindingly brilliant insight strikes me. there’s one every other page or so. also a lot of triple check marks. esp. in book 2.
May 1, 2018 at 12:57 PM #809998ParticipantVirginia woolf on proust:
“Proust so titillates my own desire for expression that I can hardly set out the sentence. Oh if I could write like that! I cry. And at the moment such is the astonishing vibration and saturation and intensification that he procures—there’s something sexual in it—that I feel I can write like that, and seize my pen and then I can’t write like that. Scarcely anyone so stimulates the nerves of language in me: it becomes an obsession. But I must return to Swann.
My great adventure is really Proust. Well—what remains to be written after that? I’m only in the first volume, and there are, I suppose, faults to be found, but I am in a state of amazement; as if a miracle were being done before my eyes. How, at last, has someone solidified what has always escaped—and made it too into this beautiful and perfectly enduring substance? One has to put the book down and gasp. The pleasure becomes physical—like sun and wine and grapes and perfect serenity and intense vitality combined.
Jacques Raverat…sent me a letter about Mrs Dalloway which gave me one of the happiest moments days of my life. I wonder if this time I have achieved something? Well, nothing anyhow compared with Proust, in whom I am embedded now. The thing about Proust is his combination of the utmost sensibility with the utmost tenacity. He searches out these butterfly shades to the last grain. He is as tough as catgut & as evanescent as a butterfly’s bloom. And he will I suppose both influence me & make out of temper with every sentence of my own.
May 1, 2018 at 1:27 PM #809999ParticipantI only read for pleasure after work, too much extremely unpleasureable reading at work.
strange that a kinky gay French guy from 100 years ago knows my heart.
I would like to form a proust book club…
but I think most people would find him unreadable.I could not have read him 10 years ago…
May 1, 2018 at 3:52 PM #810000Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]
strange that a kinky gay French guy from 100 years ago knows my heart.[/quote]
Now you’re tempting me to read these books.
[quote=scaredyclassic]
I could not have read him 10 years ago…
[/quote]
What changed?
May 2, 2018 at 6:51 AM #810002ParticipantI have more mental space and can embrace slower movement
May 2, 2018 at 12:36 PM #810004FlyerInHi
Guest[quote=scaredyclassic]I have more mental space and can embrace slower movement[/quote]
That is so beautiful to enlarge your mental space. Most people build walls to contain their spaces.
May 2, 2018 at 10:12 PM #810005ParticipantI went wild and purchased THE FOLIO SOCIETY edition, 6 gorgeous cloth bound books, vintage from 1981 avail. On ebay usually and just wonderful to hold. Really fine cloth binding. Has photographs. Paper that makes me feel joy to touch..
I shall leave a note in my will urging my kids to hold on to the set and consider reading it when they turn 55. I hope my check marks next to points make them feel some consanguinity of feeling for me.
May 2, 2018 at 10:40 PM #810006Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]
I shall leave a note in my will urging my kids to hold on to the set and consider reading it when they turn 55. I hope my check marks next to points make them feel some consanguinity of feeling for me.[/quote]
A breathtakingly beautiful sentiment.
May 3, 2018 at 8:03 AM #810009ParticipantI also put multiple check marks when really really moved, exclamation points, a few smiley faces and one LOL next to a description of a fashionable restaurant waiter. but they’re pretty scattered, and written faintly in pencil so as to be nondistracting. easily erase able if necessary…I don’t want to impose too much of myself.
thesp books would be an extension of their privileged childhood.
http://www.thebookoflife.org/the-secrets-of-a-privileged-childhood/
May 3, 2018 at 9:59 AM #810010Guest[quote=scaredyclassic]
thesp books would be an extension of their privileged childhood.
http://www.thebookoflife.org/the-secrets-of-a-privileged-childhood/
[/quote]I love everything associated with Alain de Botton. Loved his series on architecture. Architecture affects how we see and feel life.
I am afraid however that his philosophy would turn us into beta males. Maybe better for us and our kids to be aggressive alpha males.
May 3, 2018 at 10:51 PM #810019ParticipantWhich translation are you reading, scaredy?
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