Obermann: A novel reading pick for your self-isolation
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‘In my snug little room I shall forget the world outside; I shall narrow down to my lot, and possibly come to believe that my valley is the hub of the universe.’
The need to self-isolate has reportedly sent many people online to buy new books to help them through the weeks ahead. Others have surely returned to the pile of unread novels already sitting on their bedside tables. Now’s the perfect time to catch up with the reading we all feel we ‘should’ have done or have been putting off.
One book that probably won’t be on anybody’s reading list in the coming weeks of quarantine is Étienne Pivert de Senancour’s Obermann. And yet this is in many ways the perfect self-isolation novel. It is, after all, a work that is largely about self-isolation, or at least the active pursuit of solitude.
There are many barriers to entry when it comes to reading Marcel Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time. Most obviously, it’s very long – 7 volumes in the original French (usually reduced to 6 in translation) and runs to over 3,000 pages. It’s also notoriously complex. Proust’s text is written in an allusive, meandering style that requires a high level of concentration from the reader. It is, therefore, easy to be put off. Many give up after the first volume, The Way by Swann’s. In fact, you could argue that 
There are currently two books on my beside table: Patrick Rothfuss’ fantasy novel The Name of the Wind and the DC Comics omnibus Batgirl and the Birds of Prey: Vol 1. Who is Oracle? Looking now, I can see the bookmarks in each marking the place where, too tired to continue, I last stopped reading. In my study bookmarks poke out the top of other books too – novels, works of philosophy, collections of letters and essays. I’m part way through each of these. Some I’ll return to, some not.