"Sometimes, when the weather had completely broken, we were obliged to go home and to remain shut up indoors. Here and there, in the distance, in a landscape which, what with the failing light and saturated atmosphere, resembled a seascape rather, a few solitary houses clinging to the lower slopes of a hill whose heights were buried in a cloudy darkness shone out like little boats which had folded their sails and would ride at anchor, all night, upon the sea. But what mattered rain or storm? In summer, bad weather is no more than a passing fit of superficial ill-temper expressed by the permanent, underlying fine weather; a very different thing from the fluid and unstable 'fine weather' of winter, its very opposite, in fact; for has it not (firmly established in the soil, on which it has taken solid form in dense masses of foliage over which the rain may pour in torrents without weakening the resistance offered by their real and lasting happiness) hoisted, to keep them flying throughout the season, in the village streets, on the walls of the houses and in their gardens, its silken banners, violet and white? Sitting in the little parlour, where I would pass the time until dinner with a book, I might hear the water dripping from our chestnut-trees, but I would know that the shower would only glaze and brighten the greenness of their thick, crumpled leaves, and that they themselves had undertaken to remain there, like pledges of summer, all through the rainy night, to assure me of the fine weather's continuing; it might rain as it pleased, but to-morrow, over the white fence of Tansonville, there would surge and flow, numerous as ever, a sea of little heart-shaped leaves; and without the least anxiety I could watch the poplar in the Rue des Perchamps praying for mercy, bowing in desperation before the storm; without the least anxiety I could hear, at the far end of the garden, the last peals of thunder growling among our lilac-trees."
Marcel Proust, Swann's Way, pp. 160-161
I chose this passage for a couple reasons, one of them being the norm with Proust - it is just beautifully constructed, and displays his astonishing powers of observation and description. I was also thinking of Proust reading in that parlor, waiting for dinner, and occasionally sneaking a peak out the window. People who love to read - and I'll also include people who love film - will steal locations and make them part of our personal imaginary landscape. Who hasn't read Tolkien and constructed their own little hobbit hole in Hobbiton where they will spend their days reading, drinking tea and patiently (or impatiently) waiting for second breakfast? During my days that are increasingly filled up with administrative nonsense and incompetence, I increasingly drift off and consider how much happier I'd be tramping around the Antipodes with Dr. Uyterhoeven (I'm sure Sarah Cohen would have to come as well). And I could happily live in that mythical Scottish village from Local Hero, potentially taking on Gordon Urquhart's job or maybe just painting the name on the boat or retouching the call box.
This all came to mind because Proust has just described my favorite place to sit and read in my imagined landscape. Which also got me thinking about my favorite places to read in the real world, or at least in my remember real world (which, as we're learning, may have nothing to do with the real world). I've always been a pretty voracious reader, but I think the place where I read most hungrily and for the greatest number of hours was my father's den in the big house (as we still call it - I guess none of us had ever heard of the stony lonesome then) back in Lawrenceburg when I was growing up. It was a small little room that was equidistant from the family room downstairs where people would gather to watch TV and the bedrooms in the back part of the house. It also had, at least for a while, a small fish tank, which provided a lovely vanilla background bubbling sound for reading (or napping). Two summers I worked the night shift at the local cardboard box factory, which meant that I almost never saw my friend Jack, who was working the day shift, because I would get home around 1:00 a.m. and then not climb out of bed until around noon to get ready to head in around 3:00 in the afternoon. As soon as I returned home I would retreat to my father's den and lay on the couch reading until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. It was the perfect setup, even if it felt more than slightly imposed at the time, for reading, and I plowed through some many books both summers. For example, it was the second time I read Winesburg, Ohio, and as much as I liked it when I was fourteen, I realized that there were worlds within worlds when I reread it during college. I think the other reason why I read so hungrily those summers was that I felt that I was intellectually dying in the summer (if you've ever been to Indiana you know what I'm talking about). My father was, and is, quite brilliant, but my schedule didn't leave much time for us to get together. After spending the school year discussing great books and deep ideas at a pretty solid liberal arts college, it was really hard to spend every day with the folks at the cardboard box factory who were equally certain that I was an idiot because of my complete lack of common sense or useful skills (I suspect my grandfather thought the same thing, but more gently and with much more forgiveness in his great heart). However, I'll have more to say about my perception of those folks in my next visit to Proust, and I probably won't be too easy on myself).
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