I got through the first one and a half volumes and then - unusually for me - abandoned it (usually I feel obliged to finish whatever I'm reading, even if I'm not particularly enjoying it, as if medals are awarded for literary persistence). The characters just never became real to me and, fatally, I couldn't care what happened to them. And then so many volumes stretched ahead, still to be read... No doubt the fault was mine - plenty of people share your love of the series. At the moment the first volume of Proust is sitting on my bookshelf, tapping its feet, waiting to be read. I'm still plucking up courage. I tried years ago but gave up after what I considered about the most dire first 50 pages in all literature (you know, all that sickly stuff about whether his darling mama was going to come upstairs to kiss him goodnight). But so many writers I admire praise Proust that I feel obliged to have another go; it can only get better... And of course now we have Edmund White (see how I steer this post back to relevance) saying that he reads Proust every year.
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