The Same

This book is amazing. So finely wrought, it's like reading a poem in tome form. And best of all, it has a sense of humor! Marcel Proust is not overrrated, not by a long shot. Every minute is a joy, almost.

...then we would enter what he called his "study," a room whose walls were hung with prints which showed, against a dark background, a pink and fleshy goddess driving a chariot, or standing upon a globe, or wearing a star on her brow - pictures which were popular under the Second Empire because there was thought to be something about them that suggested Pompeii, which were then generally despised, and which are now becoming fashionable again for one single and consistent reason (notwithstanding all the others that are advanced), namely, that they suggest the Second Empire.