The little white attic

Yesterday I was talking to a friend, and he told me that his brother had been rereading Proust.  “He said there's something missing in P...

In Part 2 of Within a Budding Grove , the narrator goes to Balbec. Here he forms a friendship with Robert de Saint-Loup, comes across his Je...

Before I picked up Proust, one of my preconceptions or expectations was that he would enter his characters’ heads and inhabit their minds.  ...

I wonder if any reader never gets tired, frustrated, or annoyed reading Proust. There must be an ideal reader out there, savouring every pag...

It’s fascinating to see how Proust describes facial expressions: “… M. de Norpois, while anything was being expounded to him, would preserve...

The narrator’s first meeting with his childhood hero and favourite writer Bergotte must be one of the most interesting sequences in Within a...

I love the metaphors in Proust. Look at this passage in Within a Budding Grove , when the narrator writes about Professor Cottard:  “… we mu...

It’s reductive perhaps, but in a moment of idleness, I was thinking that all prose writers could be roughly categorised as sane or mad.  Jan...

 1/ Most of Shakespeare’s plays open with some supporting or background characters, Richard III begins with the main character’s soliloquy: ...

1/ In my previous blog post, I quoted Henry IV, Part 2 :  “KING […] Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown...” Contrast that with Duke of Y...