Proust on .... and .... on Proust

Proust on quotations: "One must never miss an opportunity of quoting things by others which are always more interesting than those one thinks up oneself."

In that vein, a few more bons mots from Alain de Botton's How Proust can Change your Life -   

Reading: "In reading, friendship is suddenly brought back to its original purity. There is no false amiability with books. If we spend the evening with these friends, it is because we genuinely want to."
"To make reading into a discipline is to give too large a role to what is only an incitement. Reading is on the threshold of the spiritual life; it can introduce us to it: it does not constitute it."

Proust's brother on reading Proust: "The sad thing is that people have to be very ill or have broken a leg in order to have the opportunity to read In Search of Lost Time."

Proust on two weeks of work experience with a solicitor: "In my most desperate moments, I have never conceived of anything more horrible than a law office." !

Alain de Botton on Proust on food: "Food has a privileged role in Proust's writings; it is often lovingly described and appreciatively eaten. To name but a few of the many dishes which Proust parades past his readers, we can cite a cheese souffle, a string bean salad, a trout with almonds, a grilled red mullet, a bouillabaisse, a skate in black butter, a beef casserole, some lamb with a Bearnaise sauce, a beef Stroganoff, a bowl of stewed peaches, a raspberry mousse, a madeleine, an apricot tart, an apple tart, a raisin cake, a chocolate sauce and a chocolate souffle." Ca suffit!

de Botton on Proust on 'going on': "Far from a memoir tracing the passage of a more lyrical age, [In Search of Lost Time] was a practical, universally applicable story about how to stop wasting, and begin appreciating one's life." So now you know.

Comments

[adele geras]

Proust's brother has it right! I did a special paper on Proust at University and had indeed to retire to bed to read the book....took me about a week non-stop during the day. I got up at night to revel and carouse etc as you do, but the days were devoted to Marcel and I thought bed was the best place to do this. It is an EXTRAORDINARY WORK....reading it is like wandering around a cathedral of sorts. You keep on finding new things to look at, over and above, or under and below, the overarching architecture of the thing. Marvellous stuff but still, I am glad I read it when I was young.Don't think I'd have the stamina now. Especially not to read it in French!

[Dark Puss]

Well it certainly was the most influential book my mother ever read. Does de Botton make any comparison between Proust's writing on food and that of Colette? Have you read his great work yet or are you like me stuck after one volume? I'll get back to it (see some earlier Cornflower posting response I made) and I am not going to adopt the technique of severe illness to assist me!

If you make this a CBG choice then you will have no difficulty in finding an appropriate dish to virtually serve us with on the penultimate day before we comment.

[Dark Puss]

I noticed you quote "In reading, friendship is suddenly brought back to its original purity. There is no false amiability with books. If we spend the evening with these friends, it is because we genuinely want to." I don't really agree with this; well not as a blanket statement anyway. I read some (a few but not zero) books which do not become friends (nor sometimes do I ever expect them to) but which will heighten my intellectual and aesthetic experience of reading other works of fiction. Is de Botton really making such a general statement here, or does he qualify it? I suppose you could argue that my reading of books that are not in themselves (i.e. hermetically) endearing still fits his model since it is my choice to do so.

You can see that your posting has captured my imagination. It is also fair of me to point out that I have heard of de Botton, but I have read nothing by him.