Swann's Way: Combray: Caturday: 08/07/09
I'm on my 6th week of reading Swann's Way (Du côté de chez Swann).

From pages 150-180, the novel seems to focus on relaxation and on malingering. Near the beginning of the section a quote stuck in my head and forever fixed my personal (albeit goofy) interpretation of it: "The surprise of a 'barbarian' (for so we termed everyone who was not acquainted with Saturday's special customs..." (p. 154) brings to mind the great lol cat tradition of Caturday.

Besides the special treatment by Marcel's family of Caturday (Saturday), he speaks of the ways different family members treated illness. There is a funny scene involving one sick relative and a maid sent to get the family medical book. Unfortunately she gets so taken up in reading the forbidden bookmarked pages (on certain gruesome sounding aches and pains) that Marcel has to be sent to retrieve the book from her.

Much of the illnesses described in these thirty pages are not serious and are more just excuses to lounge in bed on non-lounging days. It was this wish for it to be Saturday when it wasn't that made me pick the "OK, I NOT RLY SICK" lol cat for this section.

Previous posts: Lisa's First Word, Baby Mine, I Sing the Body Electric, The Lady in Pink, Bleeding Gums Murpy.

books | fiction | Marcel Proust | 1913

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