What Tony is reading

Now that I have finished The Namesake I want to see the movie. Usually I go to movies alone, but maybe I'll find someone to go with this time. That’s not something new; I went to movies alone when I was married, too. I don't expect anyone to care about all the same things I care about. But, I suppose, if I got to know more people could eventually end up knowing at least one person for each thing I care about.

I'm going to Paris in about three weeks--with a couple of people who care about Paris. I'm brushing my French; I am so bad at French! I need to buy a map of Paris too, because I can't find the ones I already own. Anyway, what better time than now to read Edmund White's biography of Marcel Proust?

Here are a few random things I remember from chapter 1 of Edmund White’s Marcel Proust: Proust’s father was awarded the Legion of Honor for figuring how to keep cholera out of France. André Gide regretted rejecting Proust’s manuscript of À la recherche du temps perdu (which some people consider the greatest novel of the 20th century; so, take heart, aspiring writers—don't give up just because you get rejected). Proust got invited to all the best parties in Paris because he was the funniest man in Paris. Apparently sometimes he got to laughing so long and hard people who didn't know him thought he was a weirdo. (As an aside, I have only read the first part of Remembrance of Things Past (Swan’s Way), C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation--parts of it were laugh-out-loud funny.)