Friday, February 19, 2021

Snowboots

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, trans. Mark Treharne (New York: Penguin, 2002).

But guess what? Mme de Parme thinks that rubbers are wonderful: “It’s so practical! What a very sensible man.” And everyone else suddenly agrees.

In the spirit of self-mortification: This passage resonated with me. In my sophomore year of high school, the biology classes went on a one- or two-night excursion to a nature preserve. The boys slept in one barracks; girls, in another. I, for some reason, was the only boy in the barracks who had brought a pair of slippers. Unending mockery. And no Mme de Parme on site. Not that she would have made much difference.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

comments: 2

Fresca said...

Were you the sort of child who would learn to skate with a chair?

Slippers are genius!

Michael Leddy said...

No, but I was the sort of child would would get his hat taken in a game of keepaway while trying to learn to skate. Good times. :)