an early birthday present to myself

the plan is to read the whole thing before i am sixty ... then i can brush this master of padding ... who knocks joyce in to a battered trilby ... under the carpet for once and for all

poor eyesight and plain text ... an aesthetic approach to reading swann's way

plutarch, ( diligent scholar, lucky bleeder ! ), told me that he is reading proust from one end to the other ... YET AGAIN

then why not try it yerself, i thort !

the first volume, swann's way, is available on the internet via the marvellous gutenberg site

but their typeface is rubbish ... and my eyesight is nuffink to brag about ... so i've been using microsoft word to make it more legible on my screen ...

there are zillions of spurious carriage returns in the gutenberg version, so whilst i delete them one-at-a-time, as if mending the broken paragraphs, i get the opportunity to read each sentence as slowly as this most exquisitely thoughtful author deserves, instead of skimming it like a schoolboy who can't wait to get out and play on the street before it gets dark

of course, i'm frequently tempted to re-write whole passages in the style of enid blyton, but i'd better read all twelve volumes first ...