Proustian Humour

I think I mentioned that my big reading project this year is Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, which I am certainly reading in English. Time was, I was perfectly capable of reading the daily paper in French, even Le Devoir which seems to be aimed at French-speaking graduate students. I could even manage a novel if it wasn't too difficult. But not Proust, god no! The project is going quite well, by the way. I manage ten or so pages every morning and am 35% through the book, which is about 3,000 pages.

Proust is famous for his long sentences, sometimes extending for a page or two. One often has to initiate a special search to locate the verb. Proust also has a sense of humour, though it is well-hidden. Here, for example, is a sentence from a discussion of a theatre performance:

On the other hand it was because the society people sat in their boxes (behind the general terrace of the balcony, as in so many little drawing-rooms, the fourth walls of which had been removed, or in so many little cafés, to which one might go for refreshment, without letting oneself be intimidated by the mirrors in gilt frames or the red plush seats, in the Neapolitan style, of the establishment), it was because they rested an indifferent hand on the gilded shafts of the columns which upheld this temple of the lyric art, it was because they remained unmoved by the extravagant honours which seemed to be being paid them by a pair of carved figures which held out towards the boxes branches of palm and laurel, that they and they only would have had minds free to listen to the play, if only they had had minds.

Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7] (Centaur Classics) [The 100 greatest novels of all time - #13] . Centaur. Kindle Edition.