Wanted to followup on the Proust. Have you made your way through all 7 volumes? Or "only" Volume 1, "Swann's Way"? I still have a self-commitment to read Proust (have only gotten to "Swann's Way") but haven't buckled down to it. It may be one of those works that defeats my attempts. Sounds like it wasn't much fun for you. Maybe you could give us a better idea of the difficulties in reading Proust, or at least what to avoid. Bravo for getting through.
PS: I think you'll like the Murdoch.
Yes, this will be all 7 volumes. Had I stopped with Swann's Way, I don't think I would have bothered posting on it. Not to belabor this too much, but I have been blogging about Proust, and here are a few representative posts: http://erics-hangout.blogspot.ca/2014/04/proustian-disappointments.html and http://erics-hangout.blogspot.ca/2014/04/proustian-contradictions.html
You can actually do a keyword search to find out everything that I have said about the man and the work. (Perhaps of more interest is a challenge where I am giving away a copy of Robert Kroetsch's The Studhorse Man. -- http://erics-hangout.blogspot.ca/2014/05/the-studhorse-man-challenge-closes-june.html )
I think if this had been boiled down to its essence -- 400 to 500 pages on memory, the shifting sands of people's status in social circles and some thoughts on "art" it would have been brilliant. I find it totally overstays its welcome at 3000+ pages.
But mostly I find the length completely wasted on a group of parasites who are quite loathsome -- it seems almost 1/3 of the book is the Narrator frittering away his time at parties where one person is snubbing another. I found them all interchangeable and thus couldn't tell you much of anything about these party scenes. (While I tend to feel the same way about the nobles in Tolstoy -- a useless parasitical class -- they still tended to be better drawn portraits.)
And the Narrator goes from spoiled brat to a fairly monstrous young adult who keeps his mistress virtually locked up for an entire volume (The Captive). And why does he do this -- because he has decided to save her from herself and not let her indulge in her bisexual tendencies. That's right -- close to a third of Proust is completely driven by discussions about homosexuality (which he almost always called inversion) and how terrible it is, particularly in men (and how widespread in high society). There is just so much self-loathing going on here (Proust was gay). I have come to think about this as the epic literary monument to "the closet." So if a lot of high-minded self-loathing bothers you, you probably are not going to like Proust and you should skip the last 3 volumes.
Had I known going in what this would have been like, I would never have started it, but it was a book that I thought (as a former English lit. major) I really ought to read... It is one I will never return to.
Thank you for making clear the problems you find in Proust. I did go to the links you provided and read your blog posts too. Forewarned is forearmed as they say, but if I decide to go forward, I'll know there are a bunch of red flags to consider. And if I don't go forward, I won't feel so bad about it .
I confess to never having read Proust - I've got a thing about translations and my French isn't up to it - but I did watch a film last week based on La prisonnière which you mention:
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