Heading Straight to Sodom and Gomorrah
by Roxana Robinson
I don’t actually change my reading habits in the summer—I read more or less the same things all year long. This season I’m looking forward to reading Lily Tuck’s new book of stories, The House at Belle Fontaine. I’m hoping, because of the title, that most of the stories are set in France. This is a place about which Tuck writes beautifully, and it’s a place for which I have a great affection. I always feel as though I’ve been there for a visit after I’ve read one of her stories set there. She gets it all sublimely right: the language, the atmosphere, the manners, the landscape. The deep sense of culture—I don’t mean art and literature, I mean the French sense of their own mores and beliefs—the attentiveness to the arts, and to beauty, and to certain codes of behaviour. I love sinking into that stream of Gallic consciousness.
And speaking of Gallice consciousness I’m also going to read Proust again. I confess that I’ve never made it through the entire series, though I’ve read Swann’s Way twice, and In a Budding Grove once, and I’ve started Sodom and Gomorrah. This time I’m going to read Sodom and Gomorrah and go right on to the end. Large ambitions! But Proust is a centerpiece of modern fiction, and I want to be able to hold the whole of it in my mind, to be able to swing back and forth through it, lighting on the moment that illuminates this moment right now. Proust is so capacious, so omnivorous, so wide-ranging, that this is possible: you will find something in Proust for every occasion.
I might read something in between Proust volumes—if the sublime Tana French comes out with a new mystery I will read that no matter what else I am doing. And I’m starting to read for my new novel, the one I can’t talk about yet. I always do a lot of research for my novels, and with each one I learn about a new world. This one is no different, and so now I’m starting on my explorations. This is wonderfully interesting, as I read all sorts of things that relate to the new subject. I relish the voyage of discovery. I may start writing as I’m reading, to limber up, to experiment with the new subject, to figure out the voice. I’ll read and write throughout the whole process, trying to keep pace with my writing through reading, and vice versa. Then I’ll start over again. And maybe then I’ll start in at the beginning with Swann’s Way.
Roxanna Robinson is the author of three earlier novels, three collections of short stories, and the biography Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, More, and Vogue, among other publications. Her newest novel, Sparta, comes out this month from Sarah Crichton Books.
