The Marcel Proust Support Group

by P. Segal

I live in a grand, crumbling Edwardian in the geographical center of San Francisco, in a two-story, 14-room flat with six friends and an endless succession of delightful house guests. The inmates are, without exception, arty in one way or another; we have lived together and creatively fermented side by side for years. We are family, dysfunctional but nonetheless mutually supportive.

As the birthday of one roommate rolled around, I asked him what he would like for a present. He thought about it for a few days, and then he said, "What I would really like for my birthday is for you to read Proust with me. I've tried to get through Remembrance of Things Past three times now, and I just don't think I can do it without a support group."

I myself had tried to read Proust twice that many times. "Okay," I answered feebly, "anything for you."

"Don't look so miserable," he said, "we only have to read ten pages a day. It would only take about eleven months, and maybe we could get some other people to do it with us. It'll be fun."

I asked myself where we could find a bunch of people who would subject themselves to eleven months of purple prose, and then the obvious response suggested itself: The San Francisco Cacophony Society. Cacophony is a group that devotes itself entirely to the creation of outrageous entertainments of all sorts; some have an element of danger, others whimsy, many have a literary bent and all of them require participation. So I sent the following notice to the Cacophony newsletter:

"We have tried on innumerable occasions to read through to the very last pages of Marcel Proust's magnum opus, Remembrance of Things Past, some among us reaching well into the third volume of this prodigious work of literature, but succumbed to that inevitable, narcoleptic, helpless block which prevents the much-valued completion of this classic of introspective cultural history, and so we have profoundly wished to share this epic endeavor with others of like debility, gathering together in a solemn pledge, not untouched with a tinge of good-humored irony, to plough together through these three volumes at the sensible pace of ten pages a day, agreeing in advance to use the Vintage Books, 1982 edition, so we might proceed at an identical pace, and therefore, at our bimonthly meetings, be able to share the delights of the literary bliss within at an equal rate of discover... blah blah blah."

Eight hardy literature buffs showed for the first meeting, scheduled for my roommate's birthday. We drank Pernod and ate madeleines, got acquainted with the previously unknown persons and spoke of our anxieties about this shared venture. Curious spectators came by to examine the specimens who were voluntarily committing to a 3500 plus-page read and to help dispose of the refreshments. One of them became the designated outside observer, charged with noting the behavioral changes of the support group members over the long haul.

The read began on the very next day. Four of the committed ones were members of our household, and before long, as we staggered out for morning (this term must not be taken literally) coffee, we were bearing our Remembrances so we might regale each other with favorite quotes. Then that wasn't enough, and we began inscribing the most deathless lines on an obscure wall over the cat food. When the going got rough, like the fortnight when a particular dinner party had been going on for 140 pages, we had each other, as we had often been, co-conspirators forced to attend a dull party.

Then we found ourselves speculating. "What is Legrandin's trip, anyway?" or "was Odette really in bed with de Forcheville when Swann came over?" We were very hooked.

In our zeal, we announced our second meeting in the Cacophony newsletter. This time, forty people showed up, but we figured that was because we had included, in our long-winded announcement, the news that we would be showing a movie as part of the evening's entertainment, "Swann in Love", which is one of the books of Remembrance, and a short subject, Monty Python's hillarious skit, "The Marcel Proust Summarization Contest." The crowd included numerous persons who were trying to read Proust, thinking about trying, had been forced to read Proust, or had read it in French. People read aloud (in English and French), munched a lot of madeleines and drank a copious quantity of Pernod.

Our outside observer, and anyone else who knows me, soon realized that of all of us, I had been the most altered. The existence of this publication is testimony enough, but in the earlier stages, the warning signs were clearly visible. I had dumped the generic answering machine message and replaced it with a weekly Proust quote, a tradition I have maintained without deviation for about three years, and without having to repeat myself once. In the beginning of this manifestation, I got a lot of hang-up calls, probably clients who were sure I'd finally gone round the bend. Other people began calling on a very regular basis, just to hear the quote.

My callers, too, found themselves altered. Serendipitous quotes rang too many bells in their ears; their resolve not to read Proust melted away. Even the people who had been laughing at my obsession were secretly buying Volume I and indulging.

The months sped by. We were leading double lives, ours and Marcel's ("Are you still having dinner with the Swanns?" "Have you left for Balbec yet?") Our capacity to speak in simple sentences diminished. Some readers, unable to bear it any longer, dropped out, while others joined in.

We held our meetings in fin-du-siecle venues and amassed a library of Proustiana. Nine months after we had begun, an impending sense of loss began setting in. Only eight hundred pages left... five hundred pages left.. two hundred... oh, no. We had long since stopped greeting each other with inquiries as to states of well-being. The first question we asked upon encountering another of our kind was invariably "what page are you on?"

It was a blustery, rainy January when the end was near for the three survivors of the original group, all of whom lived in our household. A certain rivalry ensued as to which of the three of us would finish first. John, who started the whole thing, announced that he was sure he would finish first. We soon discovered why; he had found our copies and torn out the last page.

John was, of course, correct about being the first of us to finish. He was also right about the fact that reading Proust had been fun, as shared horrors always seem in retrospect. But that wasn't the only reason.

For me, one of the great thrills of the read was the effect it had on my attitude towards books in general. They had always been some kind of sacred cows, not to be marked or mutilated in any way, but treated with utmost respect. But as I read, it became painfully clear that discrete microdots of fine leaded pencil would not suffice to flag the gems I came across on every page. As I made my way through the first few hundred pages, I got over my bourgeoise reservations about the printed page, and the margins became flooded with sqiggles and exclamation marks, the text itself riddled with underling, highlighting, brackets and colored paper markers.

My middle-class veneration of books toppled even further as the months wore on and I, worn out, would fall asleep frequently with the book in my hands, unable to put it down, only to be startled back into consciousness as it fell, with a resounding thunk, on the bedside floor. Within a short time, the binding was so distressed that Volume I broke into multiple sections. When some of my coreaders were off on vacation, I was able to lend them chunks of text to take along, sparing them the weight of an entire volume. In these two notable deviations from my former behavior, marking and breaking great books, I felt the lightness of heart that comes with the shedding of restrictive conventions.

There was fun to be had, and another great breakthrough, in absorbing the cynical and all-too-true observations Proust made on the subject of human nature, particularly in the realm of love. It lent a sense of foreboding to every interpersonal encounter, the anticipatory irrepressible laughter I felt as a child when I knew that the jig was up and I was about to be busted. With the belief that I now possess some kind of code to the human heart, I can face all possibilities without fear, and with laughter.