Comments on: Swann’s Way http://www.frumforum.com/swanns-way Building a conservatism that can win again Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:50:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: WaStateUrbanGOPer http://www.frumforum.com/swanns-way/comment-page-1#comment-165757 WaStateUrbanGOPer Thu, 30 Sep 2010 06:32:32 +0000 http://www.frumforum.com/?p=18806#comment-165757 Evelyn Waugh was right about Proust's novels. They really are incoherent and unreadable. ("He never tells you the age of the hero and on one page he is being taken to the WC in the Champs Elysees by his nurse & the next page he is going to a brothel. Such a lot of nonsense.") Anyone looking for a reading experience similar to the one promised by In Search of Lost Time's lofty reputation should instead try Anthony Powell's "Dance to the Music of Time." (Case in point: Frum has to interpolate Ayn Rand into Swann's Way in order to make it interesting. Oh dear.) Evelyn Waugh was right about Proust’s novels. They really are incoherent and unreadable. (“He never tells you the age of the hero and on one page he is being taken to the WC in the Champs Elysees by his nurse & the next page he is going to a brothel. Such a lot of nonsense.”)

Anyone looking for a reading experience similar to the one promised by In Search of Lost Time’s lofty reputation should instead try Anthony Powell’s “Dance to the Music of Time.”

(Case in point: Frum has to interpolate Ayn Rand into Swann’s Way in order to make it interesting. Oh dear.)

]]> By: alexandriavol http://www.frumforum.com/swanns-way/comment-page-1#comment-103855 alexandriavol Tue, 18 May 2010 13:26:44 +0000 http://www.frumforum.com/?p=18806#comment-103855 David, You have mentioned in previous posts that certain books (such as Thomas Hardy novels) are great to experience as an audiobook, while others should be read (such as Shelby Foote's books on the Civil War). I'm considering listening to the audiobook edition of Remembrance of Things Past, but would like to know whether you think it should be read, rather than listened to as an audiobook? Did you enjoy the audiobook edition? Thanks. David,

You have mentioned in previous posts that certain books (such as Thomas Hardy novels) are great to experience as an audiobook, while others should be read (such as Shelby Foote’s books on the Civil War).

I’m considering listening to the audiobook edition of Remembrance of Things Past, but would like to know whether you think it should be read, rather than listened to as an audiobook? Did you enjoy the audiobook edition?

Thanks.

]]> By: cnathan http://www.frumforum.com/swanns-way/comment-page-1#comment-78357 cnathan Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:58:24 +0000 http://www.frumforum.com/?p=18806#comment-78357 Interesting. I take as the principal subject matter of David's essay the assertion that "Groups are typically bound less by their purposes than by their accepted valuations and verities – less by their adhesion to ideas, more by their loyalty to persons." At first he seems to have introduced a contradiction: are "valuations and verities" not themselves a form of "ideas"? And do not most groups coalesce fairly effortlessly around some statement of their organizing purpose? They say, sometimes tacitly but often enough explicitly: "we are for human dignity," or "there is nothing worse than cruelty," or "we love beauty," or "we are against prejudice in any form" or some such thing. Whatever our assessment of their objective merits, or the integrity of their definitions, or the rigour of their thinking, groups tend to believe these things about themselves. They do not normally say, except in satire or caricature: "we are for ourselves, and the exclusion and repudiation of others." But I think Proust is showing - and David highlighting by this curious choice of subject matter at this fraught time of year - that in practice personal and group associations are not reliably constituted for the actual accomplishment ("purpose") of dignity, kindness, beauty, toleration and so on. That in practice groups are ill-suited to the rigorous pursuit of purposes or ideals, and that they exhibit an acrobatic talent for delineating membership on the basis of eccentric and idiosyncratic norms, but above all, personal loyalty. So, given the ambitious committment of David Frum's intellectual venture - and its less than fully comfortable place at the contemporary conservative dinner party - this rather subtle gloss on the manners of our community strikes me as almost aristocratic in its tone and discretion. He chides us, but gently. I have not read Swann, but I take away this point from David's essay: let us resolve to distinguish carefully between our loyalty to people and our committment to ideas and purposes. Where the two seem to be at odds let us at least tell ourselves the truth, or be silent, rather than trading our very integrity for the approval or affection of a group that does not please us, and is not - when fully considered - genuinely in our style. Interesting. I take as the principal subject matter of David’s essay the assertion that “Groups are typically bound less by their purposes than by their accepted valuations and verities – less by their adhesion to ideas, more by their loyalty to persons.” At first he seems to have introduced a contradiction: are “valuations and verities” not themselves a form of “ideas”? And do not most groups coalesce fairly effortlessly around some statement of their organizing purpose? They say, sometimes tacitly but often enough explicitly: “we are for human dignity,” or “there is nothing worse than cruelty,” or “we love beauty,” or “we are against prejudice in any form” or some such thing. Whatever our assessment of their objective merits, or the integrity of their definitions, or the rigour of their thinking, groups tend to believe these things about themselves. They do not normally say, except in satire or caricature: “we are for ourselves, and the exclusion and repudiation of others.”

But I think Proust is showing – and David highlighting by this curious choice of subject matter at this fraught time of year – that in practice personal and group associations are not reliably constituted for the actual accomplishment (“purpose”) of dignity, kindness, beauty, toleration and so on. That in practice groups are ill-suited to the rigorous pursuit of purposes or ideals, and that they exhibit an acrobatic talent for delineating membership on the basis of eccentric and idiosyncratic norms, but above all, personal loyalty.

So, given the ambitious committment of David Frum’s intellectual venture – and its less than fully comfortable place at the contemporary conservative dinner party – this rather subtle gloss on the manners of our community strikes me as almost aristocratic in its tone and discretion. He chides us, but gently. I have not read Swann, but I take away this point from David’s essay: let us resolve to distinguish carefully between our loyalty to people and our committment to ideas and purposes. Where the two seem to be at odds let us at least tell ourselves the truth, or be silent, rather than trading our very integrity for the approval or affection of a group that does not please us, and is not – when fully considered – genuinely in our style.

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