I have decided, to broaden my scope while reading Proust. I have chosen six famous figures of Literature to read in part or in total while reading Proust. I hope to get a better idea, for comparison, how and what the textural differences are between the various writers. I am sure that with many of these texts I could remember the body of the work or the particular title. I want to have a complete and fresh understanding that is not pulled from the cloudy fields of memory, or the influence of criticism or media, rather I want an unbiased and wholly synchronous experience.
The criteria I used was arbitrary. I walked the stacks of one of the libraries I currently patronize and chose books that were classic or noteworthy and held my interest. I also tried to pick titles that I had not read to further challenge my attempt at a fresh transparent view.
Here are the first six I have chosen to work with:
1. _East of Eden_ John Steinbeck ISBN 0-14-200423-5
2. _Mr. Palomar_ Italo Calvino 0-15-162835-1
3. _Snow country and Thousand Cranes_ Yasunari Kawabata_ LCCCN 69-17239
4. _Dead Souls_ NIcholai V. Gogol LCCCN 65-15433
5. _Sound and the Fury_ William Faulkner (no number(s) looks like a donated book club)
6. _The Cairo Trilogy_ Naguib Mahfouz_ 0-375-41331-6
Of the books listed above I have read two Snow Country and Dead Souls. I have read portions of Cairo Trilogy and East of Eden having read many other works by Steinbeck. The same circumstance applies to Faulkner, I have read many other works but never this particular title. I think these books are a complete blog entry in themselves so I hope to sample the writing without the pressure to finish them in total. The effort to finish Proust will be challenging enough. I have begun with Steinbeck as I am in the middle of Oregon winter and miss California, and Northern California in particular, quite a bit. So I will read a bit more Proust and a bit more Steinbeck before I comment further.
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