Page 258 - PDF Flip TR Program Demo

Works To Live By
Vladimir Nabokov
Speak, Memory
Pale Fire
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
Saul Bellow
Humboldt’s Gift
Mervyn Peake
Gormenghast
Raymond Roussel
Impressions of Africa
Tibor Fischer
Voyage to the End of the Room
Marcel Proust
Remembrance of Things Past
(Random House, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff; vol. 7 translated by Terence Kilmartin)
The first volume, Swann’s Way, is a tough start be- cause the wonderful story of Swann himself doesn’t start for forty pages, because Proust decided to
put his dream-metaphor of falling asleep first. Even though this essential reverie is crucial to the book, it’s slow going. I’d start with the witty stuff about Swann and his love life, and save the sleep metaphor until you’re
halfway through the volumes, when it becomes obvious how Proust’s occasional prose poems deep- en the novel and reveal its gears.
Anthony Trollope
The Way We Live Now
Charles Dickens
Our Mutual Friend
by Peter Halstead
There are many works we refer to in our brochures and programs. They are the books, plays, poems which have stuck in Cathy’s and my minds over the years, and which we use to explain and enlarge the world in our minds. We thought
it might be helpful to present a list of these works, in case anyone is curious. The biographies are the kind which tell you about the era in every sentence.
Reading Proust was one of the great experiences
of our lives. Painter’s book is very helpful, as are Shattuck’s two volumes, which discuss the era in witty and informative prose. After you read some of Trollope or Dickens, you’ll probably read a lot more.
But music is just the start of it, as someone said of Schnabel. Music isn’t just a sound; it’s a philosophy. The more we understand its specific language,
the deeper our insights into the miracles the world offers. Music teaches us how to live. It gives us moments of clarity, of insight. We can use it to illuminate our lives. To escape our sorrows. And, especially, to celebrate our joys.
Stendhal said that no one would fall in love if he hadn’t read about it first. Reading is a dangerous sport. We become what we read.
NOVELS
Tom Stoppard
Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon
Italo Calvino
If on a winter’s night a traveler
258 The Music at Tippet Rise