You know the way you read a book which leads you to another book, because of something the author mentioned? Well, recently I read ‘How Proust can change your Life’. He didn’t, by the way. Change my life. Or perhaps he has. It was a very entertaining read, and laugh-out-loud in places; the guy who wrote it is called Alain de Botton, and I’ve got him to thank for getting me on to Proust, as it were, so to speak.

The problem is that I have been trying to keep away from too much detail; whenever I tell my kids about the young slim black-haired Frenchwoman in front of me in the supermarket queue, talking on her mobile so quietly that I couldn’t hear a word, even if I was trying – which I wasn’t; or the unusually helpful EDF (electricity company) woman who I spoke to on the phone; or the cashier who didn’t give me the receipt until I asked for it, and hadn’t given me the carrier bag until I’d asked for that twice  – the kids tend to glaze over. So now, in addition to my slowness, I have the anxiety of knowing I’m taking ages, and that I should stick to the interesting parts (none) – which makes the stories take even longer.
“Where is all this leading?”, I can hear you scream. To Marcel Proust, naturellement.

Ole Proustie is great – I’m reading a translation – I’d never manage that level of French; the book is called ‘Remembrance of things Past’, and he goes in to incredible detail about everything.

For example, when he was young, his mother’s goodnight kiss was something he was desperate for, and usually she would go up to his room; but one awful night he is sent to bed early, as there are dinner guests – and he has to receive the kiss in front of everyone and then carry it with him up the stairs, hoping that it won’t evaporate, or that the unfriendly smell of the varnish on the staircase won’t overpower the memory of the kiss – but it’s much more beautifully written than this, obviously.

I’m not quite clear yet on whether I’m reading memoir or fiction – it’s labelled fiction on the back of the book, but it seems to be agreed that Proust was unusually close to his mother, even leaving notes outside her bedroom door at night. I get the impression that he was a bit all over the place, changing his mind and the format his books would take – even duplicating chapters in his other books.

In case you’re interested, here’s Wikipedia’s thing: Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (/pruːst/;^[1] French: [maʁsɛl pʁust]; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past), published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest authors of all time.^[

And rest assured, there’ll be no more short-changing from me, where the details are concerned.