(Debby) I was sick for a week

Once in high school when I was sick for a week I read Cancer Ward, a Solzhenitsyn book that was totally over my head I’m sure, and succeeded in completely wrapping me up in a blanket of Sickness and Paranoia, despite not having cancer or being a Soviet bureaucrat. This time around I read science fiction & Proust. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Dune – Frank Herbert - Yep, Dune. Done read it. Interesting if one is interested in geography and political ecology, since it all hinges on the idea that a people’s physical environment shapes their culture and religion. Hence, desert planet Arrakis leads to people with a tightly controlled society revolving around very tight conservation of water, a tight hold on the grievances in their history, and very good fighting skills.

So it was good. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but that probably has more to do with the timing – I was reading it in between bouts of throwing up and having very convincing visions of how Graca Machel and I could save Kenya (all I remember is that it involved my thighs, but not in a sexual way).

I would like Dune less if this was the only kind of science fiction out there – if Ursula LeGuin and Madeleine L’Engle weren’t in my universe, I think I would get a lot more annoyed with books like Dune. Dune is not particularly sexist; it’s just very, very male.

Ilium – Dan Simmons

Yeah, is okay, but not nearly as good as the Hyperion/Endymion series. But overall it was an enjoyable sickbed read. I liked when the organic robots talked about reading Proust.

Swann in Love – Marcel Proust

At some point in Combray, Proust talks about the invalid in the depth of the nights, seeing a glimmer of light under the door and having hope lift within him, believing that dawn has come and that night is over, only to have the servant with his candle pass by the door, leaving him in back in the dark, dreadful night. I thought about that a lot the night of the onsight of my illness, and it was comforting to think that I was experiencing a universal misery. (now I can’t find the passage, so apologies if I’m remembering it wrong)

Well, after making a big ol’ deal about how great Proust is, I’m a bit tired of him. The second part of the first book of Volume One, Swann in Love, charts Swann’s fall into love and then the tortures of jealousy, etc. I think we can say that it rather exhaustively explores sexual jealousy, with a comic tone, but nonetheless, I ran out of enthusiasm for the subject about a third of the way before Swann did.

But I’m still excited for the next section – let’s see where it goes and whether it delves into something other aspect of human life. For now, this library book is overdue so I need to return it before checking it out again.