The Author-answer to the quiz

The two long passages that I quoted in my last blog were by a fairly ancient author not too many of us would be currently aware of. Marcel Proust is his name. He was French, lived a fairly long time ago and wrote a very, very long novel which ran into many volumes, among other writings.

His thoughts on living and various aspects of life have been summarised by Alain De Botton (not Bottom, please note) in a marvelous book called "How Proust Can Change Your LIfe." I would recommend this to anyone who has the time. Proust's views on original use of words by a writer (rather than cliched expressions) is indeed eye-opening for an occasional author like me. So are his thoughts on what could make love successful (apparently, its denial), and many such gems that probably require savouring. His take on kissing was so funny as to be an ROFL, to use Facebook jargon.

I think I had read another book by Alain De Botton on Philosophy and Status before this, which was also good.