My beloved brought me from her last trip, which happily took her to a French-speaking country, Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu in French. So far, I have read it only in English and Italian. Published by Gallimard in 1999, it fills one single volume. As the publisher boasts, this is a unique edition in this regard. It sports two-thousand four-hundred and one page exactly. This is a book I have long wanted (“Temps perdu,” February 19, 2009). Given its bulk, as well as the sorry state of my French, it will take me many years to plough through it. But what are true books for than to sink into them and get lost forever?!

Addendum I (October 7, 2016)

Having spent about an hour reading Proust’s masterpiece this evening among evenings, I checked the page I was on when I had my fill. It was page eight-hundred and four. Next I checked the last page of the book. It was page two-thousand four-hundred and one. And then I checked the date on top of the first page, where I always jot down when and where I acquired a book. It was July 2, 2012, and in Zagreb, where my beloved gave me her much-appreciated present. To wit, it took me a bit more than four years to read a third of the book. At this rate, I will reach its last page by 2024. By the way, I will be seventy-eight at the time. Returning to the title of this piece, which I found on my Residua website as soon as I completed my calculations, twelve years is pretty close to forever in my dotage. Hey, the title is just to my taste, I must say!

Addendum II (January 20, 2018)

I just checked the last page that I reached on today’s reading, and I was delighted to see that it was page one-thousand two-hundred and twenty-two. Goodness gracious, I am more than halfway through! Which means that I am going through Proust’s masterpiece at the pace of about two-hundred pages per year. As I guessed in the first addendum, I might be finished reading one of my favorite books in its original French by 2024. Six more years… Be that as it may, I relish every single page to this day. And that will not change till the very last page.

Addendum III (January 19, 2020)

Well, well. I am finished with Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu in its original language ahead of time (Addendum II of January 19, 2020, to “Le temps retrouvé,” August 31, 2019). The mindboggling title of the seventh and last part of the book slowed me down last year, but not by much. After a pause of a few months, I returned to Proust with all the enthusiasm required, and here I am well ahead of my original expectations. By no less than four years, as a matter of fact (“Four Years Ahead of Time,” January 19, 2020). But I must admit that I remain uncomfortable with the book’s conclusion. To begin with, it required no conclusion of any description. More important, the title of the last part is nothing if not misleading. Nay, bamboozling. Which is why I am not likely to return to it ever again. The only thing that still draws me to its two-thousand four-hundred and one page are my markings in stark yellow. They tell a great deal about me, to be sure. And this is why I may relish the well-worn copy I got from my beloved till my last breath. Page after page, the untold markings spell out eight years of my own life.