In Search of Lost Time in Iowa

We’ve been in Iowa for a couple of weeks now and everything’s back to normal. I’m keeping pretty busy indexing and copyediting and Joel’s been sick for the last week or so. Luckily it’s fall, which is the best season ever. It was really hot in September so there are still plenty of leaves on the trees. It was actually freakishly hot the first week we were here—in the 80s—but now it’s back to normal (60s). We’re staying at my mom’s, and Jefferson County Park is literally right next door, so I’ve been trying to take advantage of that, though I haven’t been since last Thursday, when it rained all day. Posting will probably be sporadic since we’re on dial-up, but I’ll try to update at least once a week.

Friday night we went to a benefit at the old armory for Jefferson County Friends and Neighbors, JFAN, a new organization that’s fighting hog confinements. There was a band that was halfway decent and there were quite a few people there. It’s pretty interesting—JFAN’s goal is to raise money so that they can sue the owners of existing confinements and prevent the building of new confinements under nuisance laws. Or something like that. I’m all for it—helping to start the CSA gave me a new appreciation for where my food comes from. We’re still too poor to be able to buy free range organic meat all the time, but we’re working on it. Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to worry about what antibiotics your meat contains or whether or not your pork chop saw the light of day?

So where does Proust fit in? Last year I set the goal of reading the new translation of In Search of Lost Time. I didn’t get off to a very good start though—I was totally traumatized by Swann’s Way, the first part of the series. It took me three months to get through the first 100 pages! (And I was an English major, so I’m no stranger to powering through dense books.) I was able to finish the second part of the book in a few days, though, and I’ve pretty much recovered now, so I ordered the next book in the series as well as How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton. I haven’t started the Proust yet, but the de Botton book is awesome. It’s giving me background on the books and helping me to appreciate what I’ve read so far. Plus it’s short, easy to read, and completely charming.

While we’re on the subject of French literature, I might as well make a couple of recommendations: Television, by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, and Nothing Serious by Justine Levy. Both are fairly recent books but the English translations are really new. Both are easy reads and really good--what more can you ask for?