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I think Swann’s Way is kinda sweet.
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In the kitchen, Knox cooks and Rodrigo watches and says, “I think I’ve lost motivation to hike.” Rodrigo, pushing scrambled eggs and home fries and bacon around the frying pan says, “what’ll we do then?” They sit down and Rodrigo drinks some coffee and says, “hot springs?” Wolfing down his food, Knox says, “sounds great.” In the laundry room, Knox is grabbing towels for the trip to the hot springs, and Rodrigo says, “want me to bring Proust’s ‘Swann’s Way’ and continue reading it to you?” With an utter lack of excitement, Knox says, “can we do a different book? Proust is kinda’ a drag.” Walking out the front door, Rodrigo starts ranting, “what?! But you’ve told me that you love me reading proust to you!” But Knox rants right back, “I do love it when you read to me, even if the book is boring! Which proust is! Have you even tried a madeleine? They’re nothing but bland bland bland.” He throws the towels into their car, a lime green convertible lowrider, and continues, “but yet those stupid cookies have a stick so far up their cookie butt, that they need their very own baking pan.” In the car, relaxed again, with sunglasses on, Rodrigo says, “you’re mocking squishy cookies, Knox. I’m sure the poor madeleine’s feelings are very hurt. what could they ever do to earn your praise.” Putting his own sunglasses on, Knox replies, “they could start by mating with Boston creme donuts and then introducing me to their children.”
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Doesn’t Pepperidge Farm make those? I don’t remember.
They sound like madeleine eclairs.
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I like Madeleines, but what do they have to do with Proust?
There’s a whole famous episode of “involuntary memory” in “Swann’s Way” where the narrator eats one and gets transported back to this childhood where he was eating madeleines dipped in tea at the house of his aunt.
Here’s the whole passage: https://www.dailygood.org/story/2136/the-madeleine-excerpt-from-remembrance-of-things-past-marcel-proust/
And I agree with Knox, Proust is absolutely a drag…
Have never read anytjing by Proust. Sigh..
I’ll read the bit at that link (thank you!) and then do a little research to see which one to read on my own.
I like shortbread type cookies! Is a Madeleine like that? (I can’t just go buy one, will pay for it physically – allergies you know- though I coukd prob find an altered recipe… but yeah, that special pan…)
Thanks, Christopher, for keeping our minds open to new things, even if it takes a stick jammed in to keep the minds in receive mode! 😉
Madeleine cookies are not like shortbread. Shortbread is buttery, and crumbly because of it. Madeleines are plain (much plainer than shortbread), and in my opinion dry. They are so plain, they are the most boring of cookies. Toddlers like them. They can be dipped in tea or coffee, though I haven’t dipped cookies in drinks since I was a kid, I remember Madeleines were decent at absorbing moisture without falling apart way too soon.
Madeleines are more like shell-shaped Nilla Wafers.
Some people complain of the length and the number of ‘endings’ in Lord of the Rings, a novel in six books and a set of appendices usually published in three volumes.
Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’ (French: À la recherche du temps perdu), first translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past is a novel usually published in seven volumes!
Perhaps more to the point, most printings of “The Lord of the Rings” come in at around 1,100 pages – complete with maps, art inserts, appendices and all – while “In Search of Lost Time” meanders on for over 4,200 pages.
So where do you search for the time you lost in reading that novel?
I hear time is saved from something called a digest?
Maybe if you eat the book.
Whereas this story has started with at least four beginnings. You can outdo JRR, Christopher – I am sure of it.
I agree with knox. On both counts.
Not gonna lie- Knox had me at “Boston Cream Donuts”
Small error in the alt text – the second sentence starts with Rodrigo when it should be Knox.
I have never tried a Madeleine, and I stopped thinking about French cookies because of the Macaron/Macaroon distinction.
I have a copy of Swann’s Way. I think I made it in about 50 pages before setting it aside 5 years ago.
Rigo looks like someone I used to know. I’m gonna spend the rest of this book trying to convince myself it’s not him.
On one hand I got stuck someway into the second book of Proust – on the other hand I found what I read quite a bit more entertaining than I had expected (like the aunts of the narrator who are so concerned abour the proper way to say things as to become totally incomprehensible, or the description of the love/hate-relationship between his grandmother and her maid). Also, the longwindedness is largely deliberate, I suspect – a major theme of the book is the claustrophobic atmosphere of late 19th/early 20th century French bourgeosie.
Everything I know about Proust, I learned from Monty Python.
Costco sells individually plastic wrapped madeleines by the box. I freaking love them.
Kevin, I read the first 50 pages or so, mildly interested, and then suddenly became addicted. Couldn’t stop till I’d read the entire opus. It’s fascinating! I think you just missed the point of no return by a few pages. Tried a madeleine some years later and was unimpressed, but, after all, the point of them, in the book, isn’t their taste, but the memories of Proust’s childhood that they trigger. If a cookie doesn’t have icing on it and/or walnuts in it, don’t even offer it to me. But back to Proust. No one tells you that Proust is frequently hilarious, but trust me, he’s funnier than Monty Python (and I love Monty Python). He’s also intensely moving—he can make you feel what he’s feeling. The description of his dream of his grandmother actually brought tears to my eyes, and I’m not a cryer. Only Proust can describe a dream and convince you that it’s an actual dream, not a literary invention. Well, OK, Proust and Lewis Carroll. And that’s my lecture. You can tell I’m a retired teacher, can’t you?