As we approached the end, it became obvious that a slight, ever so slight bit of competition was rearing its ugly head in some of us. (Here I would like to suggest that perhaps the editor missed these nuances, as she had consciously slowed down her reading for the sheer pleasure of not having the experience come to a close.) After one too many wistful tilts of the head, glimmer in the eye and passing comments, I let my inner child get control of my adult body just long enough to steal up the stairs to John's empty room, find his copy of Remembrance, and carefully tear out the final page.
Not one day later, as friends gathered boisterously in the kitchen, the formidable instigator of the MPSG came down the stairs and into the room with a look of repressed fury on his face. He didn't need to utter a word. His energy was so strong it had proceded him, and I knew he had found my little joke. I knew I had made a large error of judgement, and try as I might to pass it off with a clearly defensive and foolish hint of arrogance, in five minutes I was on my way downstairs to retrieve the missing page from under my pillow.
It's true that as the rest of us approached our final moments
with Proust, we also found our final pages gone. In good humor, my
prank was imposed upon us all.
Sincerely
Trembling Like a...
The editor thanks Ms. Trembling for this clarification, and the reminder that her signature, "trembling like a...," is the last phrase you can read in the Vintage edition of Remembrance when your final page is missing.
A letter I'm proud of...
PST is a lovely creation! ... When I first saw the review of
PST, my first thought was to get it for my mother--if I got it at
all, as I have bad luck with fanzine editors, who like cash but
not responsibility. I thought: anyone weird enough to publish a
Proust fanzine will obviously not shirk their duties as a
publisher... My mother is a passionate and serious reader. She has
been attempting Proust for at least a decade with a lot of sucess.
She will therefore love PST.
G.S.B., Morgantown, WV
Praise from G.S.B. is most delightful for two reasons: the first is that he is himself a superb writer, and the second is that he doesn't know me, and consequently there is no mere flattery involved. To G.S.B.s mother, the publishers heartfelt thanks for fostering a love of language and literature in your talented son, and don't forget that the Marcel Proust Support Group is here for you. Read on...
Shortly before press time, a second letter arrived from
G.S.B., and I am equally proud of it:
My mother just returned PST, saying she was delighted.
So was I.
I especially liked your writing, very elegant and droll... which
means that you yourself must be elegant and droll--Italianate
shreikings included--since a good magazine is a mirror of its
editor.
...You have written me a letter full of every sort of beauty, with an additional one that is more beautiful than all the others-the fact that you are unaware of the beauties you have put into these pages that are at once so exquisite and so simple...
-Letter to Louisa de Mornand, May 1905
Point Well Taken
Wonderful job, beautiful cover, $$ enclosed...Those madeleine
recipes they do not appeal to me...But then, memory triggers to my
childhood would not include them. Mine would be... the yowl of a
Siamese cat, apricot and pineapple jam, the regular thunk of a
foot operated punch press, oatmeal bread hot from the oven. So, I
am eager to read about Marcel's madeleines, but do not think I will
yearn to recreate his milieu, but rather more illuminate and
examine mine own.
Jeanne B., Glen Ellen, CA
To Jeanne B. the editor/publisher responds with one of those big laughs of unspoken mutual accord. Also I refer you back to the quote in the first issue from Time Regained: "In reality every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to enable to discern what... he would perhaps never have perceived in himself."
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