h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I can't remember where we were discussing this before, but...

I finally got round to buying Rememberance of Things Past. I haven't really started it yet (I'm trying to get through the last of the Doctor Who novels first), but the first five pages are excellent!

Got the whole thing for 7.98 mind - per page, it must be the cheapest book I've ever bought

Gif

Five pages? Ay, you've a way to go yet then...

Get on and finish that Dr. Who thing then. I'm really pleased you at least liked the first five pages....

Hi Effers,

Doctor Who now done, and I've embarked on Proust properly (I'd been dipping a bit before anyway).

I've passed the madelines (just), but not yet reached the hawthorns. Having seen a bit of his style, though, I'm not dreading it as much as I was

Gif

Dreading the hawthorns...
I did say I probably exagerated the 2 or 3 pages of that. But 2 or 3 pages in 3000 odd pages, seems quite appropriate.

Do you read in the evenings before sleep? That's what I noticed after a while how it fed into my dreams. How is it affecting your thinking? The density of ideas and insights into artistic sensitivity are wonderful I think.

Did you know he wrote most of it whilst living in a cork lined room in Paris? His extreme sensitivity required absolute protection from the harshness and busyness and noise of the city. He was a big hypochondriac as well.

Look forward to hearing more of your reflections on the novel, not just announcing what bit you've reached or what page number...

Yeah, but I post from w*rk mostly - slightly different mindset to Proust!

He does come across as a somewhat sensitive child (how many pages about his desperate urge to kiss his mother? What *would* Freud have said? ), so I can believe the cork room thing.

I sort of read at odd moments. I managed nearly an hour last night (with Dizzy Gillespie in the background ), but it's not the sort of book I want to hurry through. ('Languid' is the word that keeps springing to mind.)

Gif

>how many pages about his desperate urge to kiss his mother?<

Yeah that's what I like. He takes a thing - like with the hawthorns, and rather than just spend a quick paragraph on describing their beauty, he spend 3 pages of long convoluted pages, extolling them from every angle imaginable, to convey just how 'meaningful' they are to him. I find this hugely addictive, because so much that appears to mean a lot to him, also means a lot to me, and I'm used IRL, to people just laughing at my obsessiveness about the meaning of something fairly simple, and they politely suggest for me to stop going on and on about it. I think this book is especially important for me, as more than any other I've ever read, it comes closest to my own subjectivity about certain things.

It's very personal to me in a a way I imagine the bible to be for a 'believer'

I'm sure it wouldn't have quite that meaning though for a lot of people. I am a bit of a 'headcase', after all.

Hi Effers,

Still struggling through Proust. I see what people mean when they say he could have done with a decent editor!

I found your favourite bit on the hawthorn and - while I had nothing against it - it left me a bit cold. (Well, perhaps that's too strong - I didn't *dislike* it as such.) There's been some nice social comedy - I liked the subtle stuff about how the great-aunts are trying to compliment Swann but doing it so subtly that he has no chance of ever noticing - but on the whole it's been so slow (and, frankly, so upper-class) that I haven't really found it all that engaging.

And then... there came this bit where Proust describes how Swann hears a passage of music but because he doesn't know the song he can't track it down. It haunts him, and years later he hears that same piece again and finds out what it is. I just kinda hit me and I thought 'Wow'! So my impression at the mo is tiny moments of beauty in among a bit of a stream-of-memory mess.

Of course, if you'd told me before I started that you actually enjoyed Tarkovsky's 'The Mirror' I might not have bothered

Gif

Hi Gif

Didn't you say something a little while ago on TGD thread, along the lines of wanting to at least have some sort of experience of 'God' . The problem is it's 'pearls before the swine'

You're getting God with Proust, (and Tarkovsky)

Seriously you have a bit of a point about the class thing; but at least it's French class thing

And I think you are falling prey to a bit of dualism by separating style and content. The long winding sentences, and compulsive hammering home of a particular theme or image for pages on end, are every bit as important as the actual 'story'. They induce a trance like state, or at least they do to loonies like me. In this trance like state you can then fully partake of the 'vision'. I could have easily handled another 20 pages of 'hawthorn' description. Once you reach Proust nirvana, ROTP, appears to be a bit of a short story...

I look forward to hearing your new opinion of the book in a later, more spiritually evolved lifetime..

You can take a horse to water....but you can't make him drink.



PS Seriously, , please keep your opinions coming. It's genuinely interesting for me to get 'your' take on it.

(Wow! What a lot of smileys, I did use )

I just re-read your post Gif, and I'm worried for you. You might not get through it...

You are so right to talk of >tiny moments of beauty in among a bit of a stream-of-memory mess. < This is so true of ROTP. The problem is that in book one the stream of memoryness is fairly heated up IMO. Just wait til you get to book three. Even I struggled then. From memory, (I did read it 20 years ago), there's around 800 pages of dull greyness and depression....but it's worth it, my god it's worth it, I won't say more. And in any case if you do make it, you'll just say 'Oh that bit left me a bit cold'...

Very very few make it all the way. And if you're feeling like this in book one, you might find yourself flagging. Don't worry though. Post here if you get too disheartened. I frequently refer to the notes at the back which summarise each bit, and I have marked numerous passages personally.

We can talk about it if you're having real problems.. But I reckon, knowing you, you'll get there. And trust me it'll stay with you forever, one way or another....

Hi Effers,

Yeah, I 'get it' that the medium is the message - but at the same time I don't 'get it' on another level!

I read the Illuminatus Trilogy a few years back, and that took me hundreds of pages before I clicked to what was going on. Charles Fort took me even longer ('Super-Sargasso Sea? What is this guy talking about?'). So I've had a couple of books that have suddenly 'clicked' and I know what you mean about how that kind of epiphany feels. That's part of what has kept me going through so many long, boring books so much - you can never quite tell when one will suddenly spring to life like that. Most never do, but when one does it repays all the effort a thousand-fold.

But it's pretty personal - some books are better than others, but there's no book you can point to and say 'read this book, you'll have an epiphany'. (In fact, reading a book waiting for 'the magic' is probably the best way to guarantee it won't happen!)

So in a long-winded way I'm trying to say that I'll take Proust as I find him. If he springs into Godlike genius, I'll bow and worship, but if he's just a long-winded social satirist, I'll smile slightly at his jokes and then stick him on my bookshelf alongside Joyce and Mandela and all the other 'worthy' authors who didn't quite click for me. And feel slightly bad that I'm obviously such a heathen and slightly jealous of you for your obvious superior artistic taste

Tarkovsky's still crap though

Gif

I don't know how far you've got into into it now, Gif, but enough now presumably to be immersed in the 'reality' of the novel's 'meaning reference'. I'm curious to know how you feel about those tiny moments of beauty as you call them. I think it's always worth bearing in mind, the literal translation of the novel's title, 'In search of Lost Time' as one reads.

I still don't know why the English translation is 'Remembrance of Things Past'. It seems so prosaic compared to the French title. And gets away so much from the concept of it being a 'journey'.

Hi Effers,

Slightly random comment, but - have you ever seen The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

Gif

Yes I have Gif. Fascinating film. It was a while ago. I vaguely remember the concept of re-living which leads to the loss of that most desired because of true love...or something...? I remember being very affected by it, and completely fascinated by the confusion of time and realities which gradually unfolded.

You're relating it to 'In search of lost time' in some way yes? Not entirely slightly random then..?

I must watch it again.

Hi Effers,

I am indeedy. Obviously, I was watching it in the middle of reading Proust, and it struck me that there's a lot of thematic common ground - the struggle to remember, etc.

Obviously, ESSM is sylistically a *little* different (that Swann fellow has spent the last 100 pages mooching over some bird), but I thought the comparison between the two was interesting. Is ESSM Proust for the Youtube generation?

Gif

Hi Effers,

I've reached the end of Book 1, and I have to say I've struggled with it a bit. There have been some good bits, but buried in soooo much waffle about French aristocrats and their manners... and just as I was getting into the poetry of it, there's the long interlude about Swann and Odette

So not going well, I'm afraid. I liked the bit about the musical phrase that Swann remembers, and again at the end of 'Swan in Love' where he hears it again and remembers how much Odette used to love him - that *almost* made the previous 150 pages worthwhile

I'm taking a bit of a break at the moment, reading the first in another little-known series of books called Harry Potter.

Gif

You wuss.

Are you going to be yet another one of those who never makes it all the way? For god sakes...Harry Potter interlude...

And yes, the 'struggle' is so important to the whole thing. If you struggled on all the 'waffle' as you called it in book one, I fear for you in book three....But by now, you ought to be 'under the spell' And you're going to break it with all those spells in Potter.....

Hi Effers,

I see you've really abandoned the Dawkins thread this time - shame, you were one of the more interesting contributors. It's back to going in circles about First Causes for the rest of us then...

It's time for me to pluck up the courage to delve into book 2 of Proustie-boy. Had an interesting dalliance with (gasp) a 200-page light novel called Dixie Chicken - don't know if you've ever come across it, but it's quite funny.

Gif

Hi Giff,

Yeah I think it's as much a personal thing, as the thread itself. I would have liked things to open up a bit and maybe change direction. But obviously new people will join, and old ground gets covered. I'll see how things go.

I read very little at all these days, aside from technical stuff connected with things like manuals for video cameras etc. I'm just experimenting with HDV with the camcorder I've got. Too many bloody choices I reckon. I prefer to stick to 'aperture priority' or 'shutter speed priority'...and a bit of 'white balance' and 'backlight correction'. I'm not into all the digital gimickry gizmo stuff. But I can't believe the difference between ordinary mini dv and HDV.

Good luck with book2.

What's this, you getting all -y and technical?

I'm actually quite enjoying Within a Budding Grove so far (OK, OK, 15 pages!). Proust seems to be wandering off on a train-of-thought about the disappointment of seeing his idol on stage for the first time - I can't count how many times something that feels similar has happened to me. He's definitely at his best when he's detailing (in painstaking detail!) his feelings about something I can identify with (I'm remembering the moment about the tune reminding Swann of his childhood), and at his worst when he's moping about unrequited love.

Though I can see the unrequited love thing looming on the horizon...

Gif

Yes I've always had that geeky side to me as well...You have to as an artist. You can't make decent paintings or drawings unless you first understand about the finer points of different paintbrushes/pencils/crayons for paintings/drawings, for then you can 'choose to get all emotional, instinctive, drippy and 'Jackson Pollock' with full knowledge of the geeky stuff . It's a myth, IMO, that his stuff was just pure instinctive, 'putting himself in the field of the painting'. As he said, when asked if his paintings were about pure nature... "I *am" nature!". It's always all about the *conflict between emotion and thinking*. Pollack was as calculating in making his work, as Constable; any artist has to be. You have to be able to make *choices*, only after you understand all the geeky stuff first. Same with film, drawing, writing.....any art. But artists often keep quiet about that bit, as it's just a means to an end.....but I digress.....(and I'm sure you really knew it anyway).

*****

Getting back to Proust. I absolutely agree with you about when he's going into detail about stuff. But if it was 3000 pages of that, eg 'hawthorn', it might get a bit much...

BTW, can't remember which book it was in, but have you read the bit yet about when he visits Balbec, the seaside place, and starts talking all about his awful neurotic insecurity of spending the first night in a strange room? I can so relate to it personally. I think as well, he also talks about his reaction to the invention of the 'telephone' in that bit.

And there's a great bit about 'perspective' from a cliff top....(I won't spoil it though, in case you haven't read that bit.....

It's true all the fine details of the book are that, that stay with me, even though I read it many years ago, (the full zoomed in bits, you could say), rather than the bigger picture wide angle bits. But without the frame of the bigger picture of the novel, I reckon the detail of the little bits would have far less power. I think ROTP is basically the 'book of the film of the book'.......

Please let me know if and when you read the cliff top bit. It's always obsessed me as much as the hawthorn bit. But don't worry it's only a couple of lines or two I think..

BTW in real life, many of the characters he represents as women, were actually men he was in love with.