[Vwoolf] Woolf and Proust ("My great adventure is really Proust")

[Sunjoo Lee]

This one must be the best known and most cited "Woolf on Proust" (and the only one that came my mind): 
 
My great adventure is really Proust. Well--what remains to be written after that? I'm only in the first volume, and there are, I suppose, faults to be found, but I am in a state of amazement; as if a miracle were being done before my eyes. How, at last, has someone solidified what has always escaped--and made it too into this beautiful and perfectly enduring substance?  One has to put the book down and gasp. The pleasure becomes physical--like sun and wine and grapes and perfect serenity and intense vitality combined. Far otherwise is it with Ulysses. 
 
(from a letter to Roger Fry, Oct. 3, 1922) 
 
The notes I made on this letter say that Pericles Lewis makes a quote from it in his "Proust, Woolf, and Modern Fiction." 
I used to listen a lot to de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life as read by Sam West, and remember how West made that sentence, "One has to put the book down and gasp," immensely intriguing with his reading. It was as if he let me know the meaning of the word "gasp" by saying it. 
 
I wrote this down just so we can have a passage from Woolf. 
I wish I could have more. 
 
Sunjoo  
 
-----Original Message-----
From: "Erica Delsandro"<ericadelsandro at gmail.com> 
To: <vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>; 
Cc: 
Sent: 2013-08-04 (일) 07:57:56
Subject: [Vwoolf] Woolf and Proust
 
Hello Woolfians!
 My university is hosting a Proust Celebration this fall and I was asked to give a short talk on Woolf and Proust.  Admittedly, I know much more about the former than the latter, and thus explained to the organization committee that my talk would be heavy on Woolf and light on Proust!

 I turn to the Woolf community for any suggestions regarding texts that might help me put together a light, interesting, and engaging presentation on Woolf and Proust.  Please respond off list to ericadelsandro at gmail.com.


Thank you so much!  All very best -- Erica Delsandro 

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