Swann's Way: Combray: Bleeding Gums Murphy: 07/31/09
I'm on my 5th week of reading Swann's Way (Du côté de chez Swann). Thirty pages a week is working perfectly and will keep on schedule to finish in twenty weeks.

From pages 120-150, the novel mostly focuses on the protagonists love of books. He is especially fond of a particular author named Bergotte. The adults in his life have certainly heard of the man but can't fathom why the young Marcel is so besmitten with his work.

Marcel also learns that Swann personally knows Bergotte but the author is too busy socialize with a child. Once again the dinner parties that send Marcel to bed early become a thorn in his side. Maybe some day his beloved author will be downstairs and just out of reach.

The boy's single minded devotion to books and to a specific author combined with his grandfather's habit of singing badly and at inappropriate times brought to mind Lisa Simpson's friendship early in the series with Bleeding Gums Murphy. Of course Murphy was a rather short-lived character in the long running Simpsons series but Lisa's complete and utter fangirl devotion to him really matches Marcel's feelings for Bergotte at this stage in the novel.

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

books | fiction | Marcel Proust | 1913

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