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I'm tired, that's why. Lame I know.
I've been reading Proust, as I mentioned, and it occurred to me as I was reading today that, for all the narrator's vaunted perceptiveness and modernity and blah blah blah, he's still a loser in some ways. He's an adolescent of some years (at least 16, though the narrator's age is never very certain, which is how Proust wants it) and he cries when his grandmother doesn't come into his hotel room to kiss him goodnight! That sentence was couched so beautifully I almost didn't realize what was actually happening, but when I pay attention I can actually understand Proust most of the time, and I was paying attention. Loser! This naturally made me think of Little Miss Sunshine and the brother in there going on about how Proust was a loser. I remember laughing maniacally in the theatre during that scene because a) I was certain I was the only person in there who had read more than Swann's Way and b) it's true!
I read some critic once who said that the only character in In Search of Lost Time who is straight is the narrator, ironic given the facts of Proust's life (and a slight distortion of the books), but I recently read the scene in which the Baron de Charlus is introduced, and I could tell Charlus was gay from a mile away, which I was not comfortable with. Is it just because I knew Charlus was gay beforehand, or did Proust actually write it so that it would be that obvious (and that disconcerting)? And if the latter then why? And why does it seem that homosexuality and anti-Semitism are cropping up in sympatico? Disturbing. I don't know. My only solution is to keep reading.
Mom was a lot better today, but she was also running a fever, so we'll see about that tomorrow. Fox Chase doesn't smell like most hospitals (urine + death), but I didn't want to leave her, and I did want to leave, and then I left. Sigh.
I've been reading Proust, as I mentioned, and it occurred to me as I was reading today that, for all the narrator's vaunted perceptiveness and modernity and blah blah blah, he's still a loser in some ways. He's an adolescent of some years (at least 16, though the narrator's age is never very certain, which is how Proust wants it) and he cries when his grandmother doesn't come into his hotel room to kiss him goodnight! That sentence was couched so beautifully I almost didn't realize what was actually happening, but when I pay attention I can actually understand Proust most of the time, and I was paying attention. Loser! This naturally made me think of Little Miss Sunshine and the brother in there going on about how Proust was a loser. I remember laughing maniacally in the theatre during that scene because a) I was certain I was the only person in there who had read more than Swann's Way and b) it's true!
I read some critic once who said that the only character in In Search of Lost Time who is straight is the narrator, ironic given the facts of Proust's life (and a slight distortion of the books), but I recently read the scene in which the Baron de Charlus is introduced, and I could tell Charlus was gay from a mile away, which I was not comfortable with. Is it just because I knew Charlus was gay beforehand, or did Proust actually write it so that it would be that obvious (and that disconcerting)? And if the latter then why? And why does it seem that homosexuality and anti-Semitism are cropping up in sympatico? Disturbing. I don't know. My only solution is to keep reading.
Mom was a lot better today, but she was also running a fever, so we'll see about that tomorrow. Fox Chase doesn't smell like most hospitals (urine + death), but I didn't want to leave her, and I did want to leave, and then I left. Sigh.