Rebecca Wolff & Remembrance of Things Past

Two nights ago I attended a reading by the novelist John Casey, and in between reading sections from his novel Compass Rose he mentioned that one of the most beautiful sentences he had ever read was from Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Casey went on to quote the sentence but I can't for the life of me remember it. I only remember filing away a mental note to go find Remembrance of Things Past at the library and one of John Casey's character's exclaiming "I smell biscuits!"

I was already going to the library this afternoon because I wanted to check out Rebecca Wolff's latest book of poetry The King and Jorie Graham's Swarm. Although I'm teaching an Introduction to Poetry course and two composition classes, I've found that I have ample time to write and read if I plan my time carefully. By that I mostly mean drinking lots of coffee in the day to stay awake, and never, ever turning on Netflix instant watch while I eat lunch. I found the poetry books quickly, and I ended up adding Wolff's first book, Manderley, followed by a biography on Springsteen as I browsed my way from the PS aisles to PQ, the section where Proust is shelved.

I had some impressions of Proust. I vaguely recalled that Remembrance of Things Past was supposed to be remarkably long and full of unapologetic, meandering flights into memory and nostalgia. I should expect plenty of window gazing, plenty of forays into the past sparked by the smallest of catalysts--a scent, a sound, a taste. I thought I was prepared to tackle a classic, so I glanced at the piece of paper in my hand, PQ2631.R63, and scanned the shelves for a heavy tome.

I couldn't find Remembrance. There were several copies of books I hadn't heard of--Swann's Way, Within a Budding Grove, Cities of the Plain, The Captive...but not the one I wanted.

I knew something was up. King Library typically has a great selection, and Remembrance is a famous title. I started flipping through the books, looking at publishing dates, when I saw a note before the title page in Swann's Way. "Marcel Proust's continuous novel (Rembrance of Things Past) was originally published in eight parts, the titles and dates of which were..."

The title of the first book? Swann's Way. That's when I took a closer look at the encyclopedic Random House editions looming battered and black from the top shelf--Remembrance of Things Past Volume I (Swann's Way, Within a Budding Grove). I was...unprepared.

Immediately the idea of reading through the set overwhelmed me, and I thought I might wait until summer when I could (ideally) devote more time to the book(s). Sometimes the classics can be tough to get through--here's to you and unmet expectations, Thomas Wolfe-- but, out of curiosity, I opened the book and read the first few sentences:

For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say to myself: "I'm falling asleep." And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would make as if to put away the book which I imagined was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had gone on thinking, while I was asleep, about what I had just been reading, but these thoughts had taken a rather peculiar turn; it seemed to me that I myself was the immediate subject of my book: a church, a quartet, the rivalry between Francois I and Charles V.

And I was hooked. I wanted to continue reading in the aisle, hot from wearing a winter coat inside with a scarf and my backpack dangling from one shoulder, already half-full of books. So, despite the possibly poor timing, I'll start with volume one and continue forward so long as the reading remains a pleasure. And the moment it becomes a chore, I'll quit, because eight volumes is too long to spend on something I don't enjoy, and I can always lie and tell people I finished as long as I can remember some crap to mention from the beginning of the book. (The way he describes reading in bed...it's perfect. It's exactly like me!)

I began reading Rebecca Wolff's The King this afternoon, which I already like more than Figment (and I liked Figment, as you can see), but that has more to do with her new subject matter--Motherhood, child-bearing--than any real changes in style.

So, if I can't hurl enough of my free hours into the black hole of "time spent planning for class", I now have other distractions, although I'm not taking any bets on finishing Remembrance on this side of the coming decade.