Daily Features

In Bed with Marcel Proust: A Nomadic Reading of Swann’s Way

Centenary of the French author's influential work celebrated with readings across New York City

By Anne Quito, Superscript November 14, 2013

Last Friday, we were in bed by 7:00 p.m. About forty or so Marcel Proust fans packed into room 805 of the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for the first installment of a seven-part event celebrating the centennial of the publication of Swann’s Way. Fortified by madeleines, macarons, and copious amounts of wine (French, of course), the small crowd settled on the floor of the bedroom suite along the Brooklyn waterfront for a three-hour reading from the first volume of Proust’s most influential work, In Search of Lost Time.

The Book

Swann’s Way Marcel Proust
William C. Carter

“For far too long, we went to bed too early,” began Ira Glass. Ambling onto the king-sized bed and illuminated by a night lamp, the public radio personality kicked off the night with the first words of the book’s English edition translated by Lydia Davis (Penguin). Following Glass were eleven readers—luminaries from publishing, media, and academia—taking their turn on the bed. Among them was Antonin Baudry, French Cultural Counselor and Proust scholar, who helped assemble more than one hundred readers for the weeklong event. Interviewer and writer Paul Holdengraber held the crowd captive with animated reading of a particularly bittersweet passage. Donning a robe and rollers peeking under a white shower cap, professor Giovanna Calvino climbed into bed, reading her pages in French. Mike Birbiglia, the award-winning comedian entertained the crowd with a humorously textured delivery of his chapter.

In Search of Lost Time, an influential book by Marcel Proust (center), celebrates 100 years on November 14. © Cultural Services of the French Embassy

The night was unforgettable for many reasons, among them the intimacy of the setting and the proximity to the celebrated readers that it afforded. There was also the cast of illustrators who triangulated the room, capturing vignettes in charcoal throughout the night in their Moleskine notebooks. But perhaps most triumphant is the audacious concept that it’s still possible to hold the attention of our multi-tasking minds and be romanced by the detours and diversions of a literary classic or any long-form work of literature for that matter for an extended period of time. That night, we were captive and captivated, time suspended in a perfumed Proustian salon, with only the photographer’s insolent flash snapping us back to the present.

“Swann’s Way: A Nomadic Reading” was organized by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. The 21-hour event culminates on Thursday, November 14 exactly 100 years since the book’s publication in 1913. A full list of readings in various locations can be accessed through the embassy’s website.

Public radio personality Ira Glass reads at the Wythe Hotel, left. A map of the various reading sites across New York City, right. © Cultural Services of the French Embassy

Artists wandered through the events, sketching Proust-themed artworks. © Cultural Services of the French Embassy

An artist's sketch during the Nomadic Reading series. © Cultural Services of the French Embassy

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