Groups

Proust Reading Group

The Proust Reading Group will meet at the Athenaeum from 5:30 to 7 on the second Monday of each month, beginning on November 9th, 2009. The group will read approximately 150 pages per month (just under 40 pages a week) and will meet every month except July and August.

The Reading Group is meant not as a class but as an opportunity for people who have always wanted to read Proust, or have tried and only gotten part way through the early volumes, to have a slightly more structured reading schedule, as well as a cheering squad of others who share the goal of reading it through.

Christina Bevilacqua, Director of Member Services, Programs and Development, will facilitate the group. She considers herself a Proust enthusiast, not a Proust expert. The group will be using the 3-volume translation by Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, published by Random House (original publication was 1981-82, depending on the edition), widely available in hardback and paperback, new and used.

Christina has read the work many times, enjoying it more with each reading, and believes that it is a work with an unfair reputation for difficulty and obscurity. Proust’s prose may take a little getting used to at first, but once you become immersed in the book and his sensibility, Christina hopes you will find instead that his writing is characterized by an almost scientific clarity, as well as an entirely idiosyncratic and unforgettable sense of wit and humor.

If you are interested in joining the Reading Group and have not already signed up, please contact Christina at cbevilacqua@providenceathenaeum.org, or phone her at 421-6970 x28. 

There’s no time like the present to start a new adventure!

Click here for Proustian Recommendations and Links From Christina Bevilacqua.

Proust Reading Group Assignments:

Proust reading assignments through end of June, 2010 (these are for the 3-volume translation by Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, published by Random House [original publication was 1981-82, depending on the edition]):

March 8: Pages 465-619 (154 pages), ending with the last completed paragraph on the page, which concludes "inside was a card on which was indicated the name of the lady whom I ought to have "taken in" to luncheon."

April 12: Pages 619-824 (205 pages), ending at the break ("... not by Aime who was apparently 'off-duty,' but by the lift-boy.")

May 10: Pages 824-1,018 (194 pages) to end of "Place-Names: The Place" and Within a Budding Grove.

June 14: No additional reading, time for catching up to finish Within a Budding Grove, discussion of which we will wrap up at this meeting.

If you are reading the 6-volume 1992 Modern Library edition, then Within a Budding Grove is volume 2. Here are the breaks in this edition:

For March 8, ends on page 205

For April 121, ends on page 474

For May 10, ends on page 730 - end of volume

For June 14 – catch up session, no new reading.

Two groups that in the past have met at the library, the Athenaeum Writers' Group and the African Study Group, are on temporary hiatus until further notice. Please contact Karen McLennan for more information: kjmclennan@cox.net.