I want to read Proust

I want to start reading Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. I do not need to commit to the whole work yet. For now, I would like to try the first volume and see whether I want to continue.

The wish came after reading Nikita Huno’s essay There is still time, after all. He describes stretches of the book where seemingly little happens, until a passage or a reflection on memory draws him in. He wonders whether those reflections would have affected him in the same way if they had been separated from the story.

That seems worth finding out by reading. A summary can tell me what a book is about. But I am curious about what it leaves out: apparently unimportant scenes, long sentences, places that make the reader wait. I might find them boring. Or a passage might become memorable precisely because I have read the pages leading up to it.

Reading documentation to solve a particular problem has a fairly clear purpose. I need to understand something, find an answer, and use it. With this book, I would like to leave room for another kind of reading. I do not need to know in advance how it will help my work or how many lessons I can take from it. I would rather start with the text.

That may be harder when a summary is so easy to obtain. I can ask AI to explain a difficult passage, identify themes, or suggest what to look for. Those can be useful. Still, I would like to read a passage myself before asking for an explanation, so I can tell what I understood, what I missed, and where my questions actually are. Starting with the explanation might leave me noticing only what someone has already pointed out.

Nikita also describes finding it difficult to write without a language model. After spending time writing to persuade, sell, and produce results, he wants to relearn how to write essays that follow a question without knowing in advance where it will lead. That is his experience. What interests me is a practical connection between reading and writing: to express something, I need to look closely enough to have something to say.

I would like to try writing a few lines after each reading session. Which passage made me pause, and why? Was there something I did not understand or disagreed with? Those notes need not become blog posts. I would also like to write them myself first, even if the sentences are awkward. At least when I return to them, I will know they record something I thought, rather than a formulation that merely sounded plausible.

In his essay, Nikita mentions an eight-year reading plan covering several fields, with room to change direction as his interests change. I like the amount of time he is willing to give to reading. But I do not want to begin with a large list. Making a list can be enjoyable; reading the first few dozen pages is a separate task.

My intention is smaller: choose a translation I can follow, set aside some uninterrupted time, and begin. I do not know how well I will get along with Proust. If it is difficult, I can slow down, look for an explanation, or put the book aside and return to it. I need not decide now that I must finish it.

I would like this wish to become more than another saved book title. My next note about Proust should begin with a page I have read.

Prompted by Nikita Huno’s essay “There is still time, after all.”