Welcome to Litsy!

And so it begins....mornings sith Marcel.

This is such a stunning sentence

Whether it is that the faith which creates has dried up in me, or that reality takes shape in memory alone, the flowers I am shown today for the first time do not seem to me to be real flowers.

Even I preferred cream cheese when it was pink, when I had been allowed to crush strawberries in it. And these flowers had chosen precisely the color of an edible thing, or of a delicate embellishment to an outfit … one of those colors which, because they offer children the reason for their superiority, seem most obviously beautiful to the eyes of children, and for that reason will always seem more vivid and more natural to them[.]

Did Swann just invent air quotes?!

"After luncheon the sun, conscious that it was Saturday, would blaze an hour longer in the zenith,..." - Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

What's your favourite weekend reading place? Here's Woman Reading by American Impressionist painter Childe Hassam (1859-1935) #BooksInArt

#books #bookquotes #weekendreads #weekendreading #bibliophile #amreading #booktime

“And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading“

My favorite place for reading Proust
@EadieB

008. Marcel Proust: ISOLT vol 1: The Way By Swann‘s (1913, tr. Lydia Davis, 2004)

Something of a mountain to climb, with this being merely the set-up of the story to come. But throughly enjoyed a daily session, taking a leisurely stroll through the past, soaking up the details.

On page 28. Reading Proust day 1. The introduction was really sublime and surreal.

Finished ca. 7/13, 5/5

Here are my top reads of 2020 with the tagged book standing in for the 7 volumes of #Proust2020 year long read. Interesting reading year for me with several top reads published well before 2020 but these are the ones that will stay with me- most of the many 2020 published books I purchased I did not read- time to get to those in 2021 as apparently I need to stare at a book on my shelves for awhile🤷‍♀️ Anyway these are the top of 2020.

Proust‘s memory was not just madeleines and tea; he also mentions pain d‘épices, or gingerbread. So I had to make some to go with my tea...

chai & madeleines with proust 🤍🤍🤍

“The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is.“

Remembering my favourite neurasthenic, Marcel Proust, on his birthday.

#top6reads Through 6/30, I‘ve read 66 books, and Swann‘s Way was the only 5 star read. The next 5, all 4 star reads (no 4 1/2 star reads) would be Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar, Malice by Keigo Higashino, Cherry by Nico Walker, and Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. Runners up (also 4 star) would be After the Fire by Henning Menkell, Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy Hughes, and maybe👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

"I don't deny it," answered Swann in some bewilderment. "The fault I find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only three or four books in a lifetime give us anything that is of real importance."

But then, even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of other people. Even the simple act which we describe as "seeing someone we know" is to some extent an intellectual process. We pack the physical outline of..

#QuotsyMay20 Day 11: #Zone

Aside from perhaps some poetry and Shakespeare, I don‘t think I‘ve read anyone who can capture the singular beauty of an image in time using all senses more gorgeously than Proust. There were moments in this book, especially in Combray and again in Place-Names•The Name where I wanted to dissolve into the scene. I think someone‘s review on Goodreads said it best, that this is an ontological look at love as even as it tore me apart, I liked it.

Proust lives up to the hype. I loved this beautifully written book ❤️
#24b4monday

Current stack for #24b4monday I‘m hoping to finish today.

Social distancing day 15

Happy Friday, y‘all! #booksandbeer #24b4monday

It‘s hot enough to get the water hose out! ☀️☀️☀️

Social distancing day 14

This one has been in my TBR for quite a while. It feels good to finally start it!

Happy birthday @Palimpsest I hope it‘s a day to make memories.

Keeping with #keepLitsypositive my Christmas cactus is in bloom this week and I saw that @ValerieAndBooks has shared a picture of hers, so I wanted to share mine as well. I‘m still loving this book!

I recently started reading Swann‘s Way and am enjoying the reminiscing and the pace. I took this picture on a walk in the woods today. I was surprised to see the fern because it‘s only in the 40s Fahrenheit where I live. I love ferns, all plants really, and this was a much needed moment. #keeplitsypositive

I have finally started the book that‘s been on my TBR most of my life. Thanks @TheAromaofBooks #BookSpin for the game that‘s getting me to do it!

I finished this last night @Booksnchill #proust2020 and I have to thank you for the impetus to keep at it. I found this slow going at times - but there were such treasures in here to be uncovered - ideas Proust illuminates slowly but in depth. He really does capture interior moments in a profound way - such as the way in which a taste or smell takes you back in time or how the idea of a place or a person can be more thrilling in your mind than ⬇️

@Booksnchill @rubyslippersreads @Lcsmcat @MellieAntoinette @sisilia @TheBookHippie @catiewithac @Centique @Bklover @vivastory @jewright

Well I finished this lovely volume today and am in agreement with @Lcsmcat I wanted to start v.2 immediately. The picture shown is from the book “Paintings in Proust” which I recommend- it is organized chronologically. “The places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which we situate them for our greater convenience” Proust searches in reality for memory‘s pictures. Lush and compelling- we read on.

I have decided to dedicate my year to reading classics. Steinbeck, Pushkin, Proust, Austen, Etc etc etc. (dabbled with my #BOTM choices) currently reading this and watching the new CNN show The Windsors.

I‘ll be thinking about this one for a long time. The prose is so beautiful, but so dense that I thought I‘d welcome the break between volumes imposed by the #Proust2020 schedule. But once I got going I couldn‘t stop, and he ended Vol. 1 in such a way that I‘m eager to read them all. So glad @Booksnchill put this together, and I finally read this! The prose reminded me of Thomas Mann‘s The Magic Mountain, But with the philosophy less in your face.

“while the statue that surmounted it held in its hand a long pendant icicle which seemed to explain its gesture.” #Proust2020

I just finished Swann in Love, and I have to say I wonder how Proust is going to tie the first two sections together in just 42 pages. #proust2020

How are you faring? @Lcsmcat @Booksnchill I‘m moving through it with gusto now I‘ve reached Swann in Love (though I do miss Aunt Leonie & Francoise!) The YouTube audio ran out in Part 2 but it hasn‘t mattered.
I‘m really enjoying the experience - although I‘m shaking my head at how foolish or priggish various characters are. The demarcations of society and the grace that is considered inherent in the highest classes is quite astonishing to me. ⬇️

So, we are half way through February and I have loved all of your posts- if anyone has missed any, search the hashtag. I am now into Swann in Love and remembered the 1984 movie with Jeremy Irons- has anyone seen it? I went searching for images and this is my image of Swann- this is JM Whistler‘s Arrangement in Black and Gold. I do not have a grip on Odette in my mind yet- any thoughts?

“It was true that Odette played vilely, but often the most memorable impression of a piece of music is one that has arisen out of a jumble of wrong notes struck by unskillful fingers upon a tuneless piano.” #Proust2020

“as though he were the passive, wire-pulled puppet of his own happiness.”
I am loving this prose!
#proust2020

@Booksnchill #proust2020

I‘m only 150 pages in but I have to say I‘m a big fan of Francoise and the aunt. What characters! I‘m totally sympathetic to Francoise being a grouch when she, after all, has to walk ten miles at night to see her grandson when he‘s sick and be back before her tasks start in the morning. #teamFrancoise Her little ditty about the pregnant kitchen maid made me laugh out loud which I wasn‘t expecting! (mean of her but still!)

Ok all #Proust2020 readers, we are 9 days in so sound off- what do you think? Published in 1913, Samuel Beckett observed that “the whole of Proust‘s world comes out of a teacup”. This first 50 pages, referred to as the “Overture” includes the kiss of Maman and the madeleine. Are there evocative smells, tastes, sounds that spark your memories - mine is my grandma‘s sanka coffee- ever present.☕️