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I picked up this book I had on my shelves five mnoths ago to read on vacation and only now got around to finishing it. It is told as three parallel stories told in stream of consciousness style about three women experiencing trouble following the prompts of their own hearts owing partly to the people in their lives. There are many colors of blue they feel, chronic barriers to communication, secrets they feel obliged to keep, regrets about the way life has gone, and so on. We start out with the famous one, Virginia Woolf, whose story Mrs. Dalloway informs the way we experience the other two, in a prologue at the very end of her life. There are echoes between the stories concerning mental turmoil, of illness, of self-harm, and more. At the end a link between two of the storylines is uncovered which did seem clever.

I never really felt in harmony with this book, from the opening prologue which felt manipulative to me, to the way dialogue was used to depict character. I know things don't have to be expressed in a naturalistic way in fiction, but I had a hard time entering into these characters' lives or taking them seriously. Even the scenes I thought were striking along the way felt more artificial than I prefer. I can imagine coming back to this sometime in the future from a different frame of mind and maybe having a more positive response, but it doesn't seem too likely. I don't fault the author's craft as much as feel that the tale is just not for me.

When I reviewed the English translation of this book by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (books.theunseen.city/user/4thace/review/79935/s/review-of-swanns-way-on-goodreads#anchor-79935) it was 2013, my Year of Reading Proust over at Goodreads. I gave it five stars then, after some hesitation, after I had even more time to think of what these books are trying to bring about in the reader. I originally read that older translation in the 1980s when I was in graduate school and remember that only in a hazy way, especially the long central section focusing on the inner life of Charles Swann. Now after having all the books in the series I know that character is not a central as I assumed before and have enough perspective now to concentrate on the language without being sidetracked by such assumptions. Also, I read the Collected Stories by Lydia Davis (books.theunseen.city/user/4thace/review/79794/s/review-of-the-collected-stories-of-lydia-davis-on-goodreads#anchor-79794), the translator of this newer edition, and was intrigued by the idea of someone well known for her very short gnomic stories tackling such a large, lush book as a translation project. It turns out she did so with consummate talent, showing the same sensitivity to word choice, rhythm, and mood that I liked in her collected works.

By way of comparison, I present a sentence in the last section of the novel, "Place-Names: The Name," in the two translations. First, the Moncrieff translation:

And when I recalled, later, what I had felt at the time, I could distinguish the impression of having been held, for a moment, in her mouth, myself, naked, without, any longer, any of the social qualifications which belonged equally to her other companions and, when she used my surname, to my parents, accessories of which her lips--by the effort that she made, a little after her father's manner, to articulate the words to which she wished to give a special value--had the air of stripping, of divesting me, as one peels the skin from a fruit of which one is going to put only the pulp into ones mouth, while her glance, adapting itself to the same new degree of intimacy as her speech, fell on me also more directly, not without testifying to the consciousness, the pleasure, even the gratitude that it felt, accompanying itself with a smile. (p. 308 in the paperback)

Next, the Davis translation:

And remembering later what I had felt then, I could distinguish within it the impression that I had been held for a moment in her mouth, I myself, naked, without any of the social terms and conditions that also belonged, either to her other friends, or, when she said my family name, to my parents, and of which her lips--in the effort she made, rather like her father, to articulate the words she wanted to emphasize--seemed to strip me, undress me, as one removes the skin from a fruit of which only the pulp can be eaten, while her gaze, adopting the same new degree of intimacy as her words, reached me more directly also, while at the same time showing its awareness of this, its pleasure and even its gratitude, by accompanying itself with a smile. (p. 420 in the hardback edition)

The way that characteristic confusion of syntax Proust uses when drilling into the precise nuance of some thought is maybe more unclear to my thought in the older translation. There are 24 commas in the Moncrief translation versus 18 in the Davis one and I think this is not just an accident. The Davis translation seems a bit more natural to me while still being faithful to the author's unusual style. I like how it give me more of a sense of shock in the way it uses the image of the figuratively naked narrator in the girl's mouth.

Glad as I am of having access to this new version in English, it is sad that there is no indication she will take on the other books in the series. The second volume is my favorite of all so I just have to imagine how she would have rendered the Normandy scenes with new, updated phrasing. If I could have had her take on the last book, in which the character Gilberte drops back in to the story after a very long absence and the theme of the turbulent passage of time comes out in full force, I think I would have been happy. It just feels as though the attention paid to freeing the words from older English prose conventions might have led there to a beautiful lyrical effect.

This is a series of stories selected to tell the story of how the author became an astronaut and in the process discovered what her particular gifts were. I originally learned about this through Adam Savage's YouTube channel. It follows a chronological order describing how she became a PhD chemist, joined the Air Force, was accepted into the astronaut program, trained for Space Shuttle missions, worked for NASA in various roles, qualified to live in the International Space Station for a nearly six month stint. All of it was accomplished despite casual and pervasive sexism, a committed long distance family arrangement, and conquering the many physical challenges going along with the job. There are three appendices covering frequently asked questions astronauts need to field. It all seems so orderly a march a goal, studded with perfectly crafted anecdotes along the way which lead to lessons the author wants to share with everyone. This book is an easy sell to space nuts but also tries hard to be relevant to everyone who can appreciate an upbeat story of persistence winning out over obstacles also featuring nicely drawn personality descriptions.

I listened to the author reading her work which also has an additional musical bonus excerpting the flute duet she organized and played with Ian Anderson of the band Jethro Tull in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of space exploration. I enjoyed hearing her describe the rigors of centrifuge high-G training, practicing shuttle maneuvers in a NASA neutral buoyancy tank, and the years parenting and sustaining a marriage while "geographically single," all in her own words. There wasn't a great deal of suspense as to whether every challenge would be conquered in the end, and rather few lasting scars and regrets to dwell upon.

This is an example of hypertextual fiction decades before this re-emerged when webpages made linked literary forms easier to implement, where the ostensible subject of the book, the thousand-line poem by the character John Shade ends up being dwarfed by the extravagant and erratic commentary supposedly written by the character Charles Kinbote. The commentary spins out with extended musings on the history of the country Zembla which is dominated by political intrigue to the point of unhinged obsession on the part of Kinbote. By the end, he shows signs of monomania which call into question the sanity of any of what have read, the classic sign of an unreliable narrator. The writing parodies popular melodrama and thrillers, literary criticism, and academic life in its own pompous way, only increasing our doubts.

I had trouble finding this in a regular ebook edition I liked, so I listened to this in the form of an audiobook which only increases the difficulty of keeping any of the literary tricks straight, with so many characters and snippets of plot flying around it felt nearly impossible to keep it all in my head. So I wouldn't recommend this way of experiencing this book to anyone reading this for the first time. I would imagine that a better setup would be to have two hardcopy volumes in front of you so that you could avoid much of the flipping back and forth or of following hypertext links it would take to join up all of the allusions multicursally. The experience reminds me of the book S. by Doug Dorst, only not as annoying because the reader is spared having to keep track of layers of marginal notes and drop-in ephemera.

I do like experiments in literary form that also play with language, but I know they can be a lot to ask of the reader. It is clear that this odd work will always belong to the academic crowd, not the mass market, like all the books Nabokov wrote except for Lolita with its multiple film adaptations.

I don't remember why I checked this out of the public library over fifty years ago, as a teenager, the first time I read it, but I do recall the comfortable feeling this story gve me then. When I saw it in a used bookstore not long ago I knew it was time for me to pick it up again. I really didn't remember any of the details of this long correspondence between the author and her London counterparts but I did pick up on the contrast between the letters of the brash American and those of the more restrained British forms of expression that give the the book much of its charm. The two main characters shared a love of out of print British literature but more than that they each came to feel a transatlantic love for one another over their twenty years correspondence. The economic hardships of early 1950' England were something the author was able to help with through gifts, and she also received a wealth of inspiration in return which she somehow transformed into teleplays and the like. At the end there is an unexpected development whch accounts for why these letters were assembled into this little book for the world to read (and later view in a film adaptation).

I liked rereading this very much, and felt as though I obtained a second-hand feeling for what it was like to come to know someone you have never met in person but have come to know on the page. Maybe there were some editorial decisions in picking which letters made it into the book which would enhance the sentiment. It isn't for everyone, I'm sure, but it worked for me.