We are in Houston doing holiday stuff. I am catching up on some reading. I have been reading The Guermantes Way for a while now, taking it slow, meaning I only read it when I am on the bus. But since I am away from home, I have had some time to really read it. I often wonder if there should be some type of synchronicity between the reader and the author in terms of what is read and when. Specifically, I don’t think that Proust would have wanted his readers to sandwich in sections of his novel in between the Firth St stop and the Islington stop on the 34e. My guess is that he would hope for something more idealized, such as reading the whole thing straight through without stopping. If for some reason, this wouldn’t be possible, then the reader would at least try to honor the author by finishing a scene in the novel, and having the beginning and ending of a scene be the starting and stopping points of a read. To my mind reading this way seems more congruent to the author’s intentions. I have kind of always thought this, and I suspect that some authors write for readers in this way. I also think that chapters are an offspring of this line of thinking, although I realize that such a groundbreaking proclamation might cause considerable controversey.
I bring this up because of the slow pace I was making on Guermantes Way, something like 10-15 pages a day. Finally yesterday, I got to really sit down with the damn thing and realy get lost in the book, but at the same time, something was going on, I didn’t feel like I was making progress, and that’s when I realized, I was in a single scene that was lasting over 100 pages long. It’s a society party, and everybody is making comments about the Dreyfus case. (To be honest, it’s fantastic, but I want to complain about it to make a point) Not only are these 100 plus pages filled with just one scene, the party, but, they are also just a single part of a particular day, which I am not even through yet, but seems to have gone on for maybe 170 pages or so. And, it’s not like this is some Ulysses deal, it’s cooler because this book is part of a larger body of work (plus it predates Ulysses anyways), so the giant day really stands out, I mean REALLY STANDS out. Anyhow, I am pretty late in the day, and I am sensing a bit of closure, bigtime closure. Don’t want to ruin it for anybody behind in the reading, but I think the day is going to end with one of the characters getting it. Bye, bye, grammy!
I also got The River of Doubt by Candice Millard for Christmas and I got to read a bunch of that today. It’s all about how manly and tough Teddy Roosevelt was. He’s kind of the anti-Proust, although they both started as sick children.
Speaking of manly and tough. Tonight my brother-in-law and I went to see Rocky Balboa. To be honest, I really wanted to see this movie just to see what happened. There is this “great idea” for a website I have been toying around with forever called spoilitforme.com. It’s for people who are watching a lousy movie on teevee for no other reason than they have nothing better to do. They’re watching this crappy movie, usually on a Saturday afternoon or something, and they fully understand that what they are watching is awful, but they keep watching, just to see what happens in the end. I know I have been these people many times. Then what happens is, the phone rings, their wife gets mad at them for wasting time, they suddenly have to do something, but they don’t want to move, even though the movie is so bad, because they just want to see how it ends. Now, you won’t get addicted to bad movies, because you will simply be able to log onto spoilitforme and find out right away what happens.
This is sort of the way I felt about this Rocky, especially after the last Rocky. I know a lot of people will probably think I am a clown for saying this, and will see right through the Proust as protective opinion shield above, but, yes, this Rocky is a really good one. The premise is ridiculous sure, but so were George Foreman’s last few comebacks. Plus, there are a lot of redeeming qualities to this one that Rockies II through V steadily lost, most importantly being Rocky is once again a lovable oaf. In fact, if II-V had never been made, all of the critics would be dancing in the aisles for this one. If I was some cornball movie critic myself, I would say something along the lines of “if you let Rocky into your heart, in the final scenes it’ll get punched out of your chest.” The movie is very understated, thanks in large part to Adrian’s being dead. Adrian was great in one, but her speeches in the later Rocks really dragged down the franchise, most notably the inspirational (??) beach scene in III. Was there anything worse than the beach scenes in III? Maybe the My Lai massacre, but I digress. With Adrian six feet under the pontificating is not nearly as grating, in fact, the hokiest speech of the movie (given by the kinda new girlfriend) gracefully turns joke in just the right amount of time to save you from feeling like a schmuck. I may be a schmuck for liking this movie, but I really did.