the ocean

I have been reading, or attempting to read, Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past for over a month now. This is not like me. I typically dust off a book every few weeks, even if it's something I find physically uncomfortable to read. For instance, last January I downed Dickens's massive Bleak House in a few bleak weeks, telling myself that A) once I had finished it, I would never have to look at it again and B) I really did want to know what happened to all the characters, if only because I hoped the answer would be that they all died. Which they did not, although I take some small comfort in the fact that Dickens himself is indisputably deceased. But the point is that I finished the book despite minor, self-inflicted adversity, and that I actually ended up enjoying it and learning from it, just like one of the Cosby kids would have. If only I had the sweaters, I could totally be a modern-day Theo.

But I'm beginning to doubt my stamina on this one. It's very much stream of consciousness, which I typically don't have a problem with, but there are some idiomatic phrases where the translation is so obviously botched it's ridiculous. I'll be reading along and it will suddenly say something like "and she wept as the queen of walruses does," and I don't know whether to laugh or weep myself. In terms of plot, there really ain't much, just some guy remembering shit, including shit that happened to someone else. The last thirty pages I read all had to do with a guy being hurt by a woman who did not adequately return his affections. Thirty pages. I just explained it in one sentence. Dr. Phil could do it in two words.

Anyway, I'm not a quitter, so I'm going to finish the thing, but there will probably be some suffering involved. I'm thinking I need to just take one day and make it my ROTP boot camp and get it over with. Then I'm grabbing myself up some Danielle Steele or something for a nice, mindless break.