Reading Proust

[Nick Armstrong]

... the Pléiade and the folio paperbacks both use garamond, the classic font of the maison-mère, Gallimard.

The Pléiade is at 9-point, perhaps the folio has a larger type size.

...

[And I've learnt something today : I never knew that the French for typeface was police ... ]

Interesting stuff in those links, v, thank you. And yes, perhaps it was a question of type size, then, between the Pléiade & folio editions.

I found about the word police a few years back while trying to explain to some French my enthusiasm for the new Gill Sans signage at the Mont St. Michel...

[Nick Armstrong]

garamond

Particularly interested to read about a feature that I love in the 1970s Zola Livres de Poche I've recently collected (q.v. 'Retirement' thread) - the ligatures between c & t and between s & t...



And lo and behold, one reads in http://www.garamond.culture.fr/fr/pa...tere_universel :

Since 1931, books in France's prestigious Pléiade series have been set in Deberny & Peignot's Garamond. It is, incidentally, one of the few collections to systematically use the elegant ligatures of "ct" and "st".

Well, Le Livre de Poche was using it too, until 1980 if not since...

[french frank]

I think that one of the problems, though - looking randomly at pp 432-433 of Pléiade Tome I - never mind the point size, both pages are printed without a single space on either page to indicate separate paragraphs. They don't actually constitute a single sentence, but you do have to hunt a bit to locate the full stops …

[Nick Armstrong]

I think that one of the problems, though - looking randomly at pp 432-433 of Pléiade Tome I - never mind the point size, both pages are printed without a single space on either page to indicate separate paragraphs. They don't actually constitute a single sentence, but you do have to hunt a bit to locate the full stops …

That sounds familiar from flicking through the current version.

And that's your nice 60s copy?

[french frank]

That sounds familiar from flicking through the current version.

And that's your nice 60s copy?

It is I suppose the same edition as the 1954, but a later printing.

[vinteuil]

.... but didn't Proust say that ideally he wd not wish the work to have any divisions at all - not even paragraphs?

[french frank]

.... but didn't Proust say that ideally he wd not wish the work to have any divisions at all - not even paragraphs?

Not even paragraphs? Not even sentences, I'd say. Though looking up information on longest sentences, Bohuslav Hrabal has one which is 128 pages long - being the entire novel Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé. So it sounds as if Proust wasn't even trying.

[Conchis]

Not wanting to veer o/t but has anyone on here read Robert Musil's (unfinished) trilogy The Man Without Qualities? I read somewhere that it makes Proust look like an easy ride, although it's nowhere near as long.

[french frank]

Not wanting to veer o/t but has anyone on here read Robert Musil's (unfinished) trilogy The Man Without Qualities? I read somewhere that it makes Proust look like an easy ride, although it's nowhere near as long.

I keep meaning to, if that's any help? But I don't have enough German and tend to avoid translations. Which, yes, means I don't often read German language novels

[Rue Dubac]

I suppose most of you erudite people know that the French have produced A La Recherche in bandes dessinees? Not yet complete as far as I know, but language very close to original, cut rather than paraphrased, and illustrations delightful, very fin-de-siecle. I think it a charming idea, even if not what Proust may have had in mind. The first vol. has now been translated into English and was somewhat snootily reviewed on radio. Lost in translation, perhaps...

[vinteuil]

I suppose most of you erudite people know that the French have produced A La Recherche in bandes dessinees? ...

... yes, they're great fun, aren't they?

I read them, appropriately enough, staying with friends just a few miles from Cabourg [Balbec] some summers ago.

[french frank]

... yes, they're great fun, aren't they?

I did not know of this. Just found a nice illustration which I take to be 'thanking M. Swann for his case of wine'

[vinteuil]

... you might like to do some feuilleter-ing within:

http://www.amazon.fr/recherche-temps-perdu-int%C3%A9grale-Swann/dp/2756038563/ref=pd_sim_14_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=51Xl2EpJg1L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR115%2C160_&refRID=0F465XBDDHHS0P1MSY2C

[french frank]

(Though, à vrai dire, I think one volume would probably suffice … )