If you've ever attempted, for love or for scholarship, to wade through a
volume of Proust, you'll understand the impulse of "P," and her San
Francisco art-house friends: They organized The Marcel Proust Support
Group, and slogged through Remembrance of Things Past at the rate of ten
pages a day. Be glad they did, for the resulting off-shoot, P's fanzine
Proust Said That, is one of the most entertaining and clever zines
to come churning out of Kinko's.
P sprinkles her newsletter with brief historical footnotes illuminating Proust's work (and with delightful pen-and-ink drawings by Dean Gustafson-- of Madeleines, of course, and of Proustian scenes in Paris). Democratically intended for both Proustians and "fans of serious literature who shrug him off as ... a prissy purveyor of purple prose," PROUST SAID THAT ends up being much more, and much better than a mere author's fan club.
Over the course of several issues, as P almost daintily explores and uncovers her obsession with her literary hero, the zine becomes -- as the best do -- a confessional, and does so -- as few do -- with an elegant style. P, though somewhat flowery, is a capable writer: Her account of preparing candied orange peel is as interesting and enjoyable as the tale of her spelunking excursion into the sewers of San Fran; through her fine eye, she transforms her rag-tag San Francisco set (which includes a covey of "Cacophonists") into characters in a neo-Edwardian adventure.
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P Segal |
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