Letters... and Email
I have two overpowering urges (you will understand this): one, to let you know my response to your PST on the web, and two, to remain anonymous vis a vis your website. Rather not be quoted, doncha know. So here goes with number one: 1. I began reading Proust five years ago with an oath to let nothing, nothing come in the way. I often think back on this as an ironic turning point. No sooner did I get midway in Budding Grove than I started psychoanalysis, quit my job, started my own business and, well, that was the end of it. Proust went one way and life another. Spotting your page, on GNN's Web Review brought all that back. 2. I am now writing web pages and thinking constantly about how short the attention span has become. (See point 1). I feel that I cannot assume a reader will stay tuned for more than 2 sentences in a row. (Forget fancy punctuation like : or ; as well.) In all my time roaming the WWW I almost NEVER settle down and read a full page or take more than one or two glances at other pages on the site.Your site was a first for me. I sat quietly and read, chuckling and even went back and read some pages twice just for the fun of it. Which brings me a new & valuable insight....actually this is something my brother always said but I had to learn it myself: if this is the sort of thing you like, you'll like this. So thank you dear P and all your support group members. You will be getting a wad of bills from me in the mail soon. Our Lady of the Typists
Just wanted to tell you that your name came up yesterday in exalted company.I was talking to the Chief of Reference at the Library of Congress and was asked for my favorite website. I named yours and described it and gave her the URL so she could see for herself. I have received an amazing amount of delightful mail from Our Lady. See Our Lady of the Typists for a most amusing exchange.Our Lady of the Typists
Please explain in tireless detail exploring every conceivable option how to obtain hardcopy of all Proust Said That extant and future. My Proust Said That jones is hardly satisfied by the three semi-annual teasers available on the net. Give me more. Walt Love I told Mr. Love that he could send me cash, $5 for back issues, $3 (now $4) for the current one. A ten, a five and three ones, three fives and three ones, two fives and eight ones, one five and thirteen ones, or eighteen ones. A few months later , he did subscribe, and sent this:Today I have received the PST back issues. I will admit that I hesitated to subscribe. I asked myself, "How much more can I get in the hardcopy than I have already enjoyed onscreen? I mean, is this good value for my dough?" But my higher self said, "Send the money for what you have already enjoyed, which will encourage more of the same." Then I surmised, "The production values of fave rave zines are so shoddy, I would probably have to hide them whenever we have company." But I recalled your comment that every bookstore to which you had shown the magazine had taken it, suggesting that its appearance needed no apology. So I gambled. And won. Text is augmented with additional graphics and all of it presented with a touch of class. And it's portable. How wonderful that I may now enjoy in bed what previously I could enjoy only when seated in front of a terminal. Walt, a satisfied customer
I had planned to spend the evening being an unproductive goof and netsurfing, but I ended up finding your wonderful zine and can no longer consider the night to be the complete loss I had envisioned just a short thirty minutes ago. With the academy overrun by pedants, it is important that people still treat literature and art the way it should be treated-- with a passionate engagement. Keep up the good work! Briggs Seekins
I have just read your wonderful text, and I am sure that the next time that I read my Proust, any page, I will smile with a glad feeling, knowing someone loves his work in a manner that would bring relief and tears toProust and to all his readers. A passionate compliment for a passionate engagement!
Browsing through well.com I came across your page and enjoyed reading the combined bios of Proust & You. One small caveat - you say that you attend "less and less parties" or was it social events? I suggest you replace "less" with "fewer". I was taught that the modifier "less" refers to amounts of adivsible item, eg: less mashed potatoes, less sleep. "Fewer" on the other hand, refers to numbers of discrete items, eg: fewer baked potatoes, fewer paychecks, fewer parties. Other than that, you seem like the next Proust to me! Aflutter with the excitement of such praise, I sent my thanks to Meg. To them, though, I added my explanation of "less and less parties." My life is an ongoing social event, one party from which I take more and more breaks. .. Perhaps one day I'll take a Proustian decade's break and write a novel... She replied:Best wishes,
MegSure you can print my letter, but now that you've explained the ongoing nature of your social life, maybe "less party" would be the wording of choice. Good luck,
Meg
I love Richter, and I would love to have a print of the painting of Richter. Can you tell me the source? This zine is a jewel! Gene Cunningham
The greatest book (in the greatest translation) ever written, Moncrieff's translation of Proust's monumental Remembrance, is itself a timeless work of art.... Random House published the complete work in a 2-volume set. Now it seems it is out of print. How sad! Random House is now publishing Remembrance in a new "translation" by Terrence Kilmartin. What he appears to have done is take Moncrieff's translation as his starting point, then re-wrote many of the passages because he thought Moncrieff's wording was not "accurate". In reality, what Kilmartin did was chop up and desecrate the greatest translation of the greatest book ever written. As Proust might say: "Oh horrible! Does anyone really imagine that these motor-cars are as smart as the old carriage-and-pair?" (Moncrieff) or "How horrible! Can anyone find these motor-cars as elegant as the old carriage-and pair?" (Kilmartin) (From Swann's Way, Place-Names: The Name). As you can see from just this glimpse of the two translations from this one sentence, there is absolutely no justification for what Kilmartin has done. Perhaps his work could serve as some scholastic study pointing out how Moncrieff was not quite accurate in some places, but also how Moncrieff actually added to the beauty of Proust's work. But to replace Moncrieff with Kilmartin's cheapening of Moncrieff, on the bookshelves of the (English-speaking) world? -- unthinkable. However, Random House has anointed Kilmartin as the font of wisdom as far as Proust is concerned (Oh, horrible!) The publisher has now ceased publication of the original Moncrieff, and only publishes Kilmartin's transection, er, translation. Moreover, and most horrible of all, Kilmartin & Random House have now changed the name of this greatest of all names from Remembrance of Things Past to In Search of Time Lost. And while this carnage continues, no one seems to be doing anything to stop it!! By the way, I've heard that Moncrieff chose Remembrance of Things Past from Shakespeare's Sonnet #30, which begins "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past ...." Kilmartin may next fix this one with "When to periods of meditation I call up a search for time lost." Maybe that would be more accurate. Maybe not. In either case, it would be a desecration and abomination. Robert Homes
As a "Proustophile" whose friends have never read Proust, it's comforting to read PST. I was especially happy to see your mention of his caffeine consumption. I'm a psychiatrist at UCSF who specializes in substance abuse so I've been intrigued by the dozens of drugs Proust consumed-- his atropine asthma cigarettes, sedatives, barbiturates, opium, valerian, and more. No wonder he needed seventeen cups of coffee. What's so amazing is that instead of being a sloppy stuporous mess he was capable of writing a massive novel (and letters.) When I'm feeling particularly whiney and tired, I think of M.P, for inspiration. James Dotson
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