tl:dr
a life spent navel gazing, and he marvels at how its all a circle. sure it is, if you keep looking in on yourself. ( )

Que dicir? A BELEZA! ( )

Never made it to this one and even if it is on my list of TBR...I doubt very much I will attempt it a third time.

I felt like Proust's mamma during the last 70 days. I couldn't ignore his plea for one more kiss - such a little boy, such huge, huge eyes. Yet, what a drain, that one! Ironic, that after 4200 pages of examination of the minutiae of a lifetime, Proust's In Search of Lost Time should leave me at the same train station, the same seaside resort, as Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Two paths, as with Swann's Way and Guermantes Way, yet whether I recline in a beach chair, or sit in the lotus position on a towel, I similarly reflect on the sadness of suffering and impermanence, the preciousness of the present moment, that all is vanity, and, maybe it's just the sunlight, maybe it's always just the sunlight, but in reflecting I am yet at peace. So many words? Or, stopping thinking, no words? Same mind. Your mind, my mind, Proust's mind. Yet at the same time different...perhaps as much as arousal and enlightenment...for how come I smile at the thought of a Zen roshi whacking M. de Charlus with a stick? ( )

So far, I have to say that I'm appreciating this book more than the last. The first novel in this collection seems to be about the narrator's obsessive jealous, which is a far more interesting topic than why Mme. Verdurin wants to invite M. de Charlus to her dinner parties or not, which is what it seemed at times the entirety of "Cities of the Plain" was about. Obsession is almost always good copy. ( )