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À la recherche du temps perdu #7
Finding Time Again
Alternative cover edition of this book.
In Finding Time Again, Marcel discovers his world destroyed by war and those he knew transformed by the march of time. A superb picture of France in the throes of the First World War, and containing in the Bal des Têtes sequence one of Proust’s most devastating set-pieces, Finding Time Again triumphantly describes the paradox of facing mortality yet overcoming it through the act of writing. As Marcel rediscovers his vocation, he realizes that he can live on by writing down the story of his own memories and of his search to recapture the past.
In Finding Time Again, Marcel discovers his world destroyed by war and those he knew transformed by the march of time. A superb picture of France in the throes of the First World War, and containing in the Bal des Têtes sequence one of Proust’s most devastating set-pieces, Finding Time Again triumphantly describes the paradox of facing mortality yet overcoming it through the act of writing. As Marcel rediscovers his vocation, he realizes that he can live on by writing down the story of his own memories and of his search to recapture the past.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1927
444 people are currently reading
14317 people want to read
About the author
Marcel Proust
2,157 books7,456 followersMarcel Proust was a French novelist, best known for his 3000 page masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time), a pseudo-autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style.
Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51.
Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.
Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51.
Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,031 reviews
April 11, 2024
Glitter of high society is enticing… He wishes to belong… So he turns into a snotty comedian among all those pompous comedians… However, instead of happiness he keeps feeling that an abysmal emptiness is all around…
Suddenly the war mercilessly bares all the hypocrisy, vanity and vices of the high circles…
On returning after the war and his prolonged illness, he unexpectedly finds himself in the ruins of the old world and his former convictions… Consequently, he starts recalling the past and writing about it and thus he regains his previously lost time…
We all live in the same world but every one of us perceives this world in one’s own unique way.
Furthermore my frivolity, the moment I was not alone, made me eager to please, more eager to amuse by chattering than to acquire knowledge by listening, unless it happened that I had gone out into society in search of information about some particular artistic question or some jealous suspicion which my mind had previously been revolving. Always I was incapable of seeing anything for which a desire had not already been roused in me by something I had read, anything of which I had not myself traced in advance a sketch which I wanted now to confront with reality.
Suddenly the war mercilessly bares all the hypocrisy, vanity and vices of the high circles…
And if there is something of aberration or perversion in all our loves, perversions in the narrower sense of the word are like loves in which the germ of disease has spread victoriously to every part.
On returning after the war and his prolonged illness, he unexpectedly finds himself in the ruins of the old world and his former convictions… Consequently, he starts recalling the past and writing about it and thus he regains his previously lost time…
But it is sometimes just at the moment when we think that everything is lost that the intimation arrives which may save us; one has knocked at all the doors which lead nowhere, and then one stumbles without knowing it on the only door through which one can enter – which one might have sought in vain for a hundred years – and it opens of its own accord.
We all live in the same world but every one of us perceives this world in one’s own unique way.
July 28, 2025
The moment I dreaded so much finally arrived. After seeing the premiere on the side of Swann's, I finished reading the seventh volume of Marcel Proust's incredible masterpiece. Finally, everyone got off at the terminus. The journey was over, and we had found the lost time.
Thus, time regained is the volume that closes the Research series. In Paris, overthrown by the First World War, the author reviews all the characters we have encountered throughout our reading. Some, like the charming Marquis de Saint-Loup, are dead; others remain the same; others have changed a great deal, or perhaps the world has changed. Oriane, the beautiful Duchess of Guermantes, has started associating with artists and becoming a new Marquise de Villeparisis. The latest generations no longer know that she has long been the most famous woman. Most sought after in the capital, Madame Verdurin ("that insufferable old shrew" as I have often surprised myself calling her) has succeeded in marrying the Prince de Guermantes. Finally, what appears to be a stroke reduced the terrible Baron de Charlus to an almost childish state. In a word, war and time swept away the tremendous Parisian salons.
When it comes time to give you my opinion on this volume and Research more generally, I feel that no praise is enough. I am still young, and after reading such a work, I fear being bored in my following readings, even with the most significant authors, as my father, who experienced it before me, predicted for me.
Besides the extreme beauty of the sentences, by which one lets oneself easily be lulled, never during my readings, however already numerous, I had never met characters with such well-developed psychology. We are far from the stereotypical characters that we often encounter in novels. Each one here has its qualities and faults, evolving throughout the volumes.
This marvelous escapade in the salons at the end of the 19th century has often made me regret not being born 150 years earlier, so that I could have known this world!
Dear Mr. Proust, I have only one word: Thank you!
Thus, time regained is the volume that closes the Research series. In Paris, overthrown by the First World War, the author reviews all the characters we have encountered throughout our reading. Some, like the charming Marquis de Saint-Loup, are dead; others remain the same; others have changed a great deal, or perhaps the world has changed. Oriane, the beautiful Duchess of Guermantes, has started associating with artists and becoming a new Marquise de Villeparisis. The latest generations no longer know that she has long been the most famous woman. Most sought after in the capital, Madame Verdurin ("that insufferable old shrew" as I have often surprised myself calling her) has succeeded in marrying the Prince de Guermantes. Finally, what appears to be a stroke reduced the terrible Baron de Charlus to an almost childish state. In a word, war and time swept away the tremendous Parisian salons.
When it comes time to give you my opinion on this volume and Research more generally, I feel that no praise is enough. I am still young, and after reading such a work, I fear being bored in my following readings, even with the most significant authors, as my father, who experienced it before me, predicted for me.
Besides the extreme beauty of the sentences, by which one lets oneself easily be lulled, never during my readings, however already numerous, I had never met characters with such well-developed psychology. We are far from the stereotypical characters that we often encounter in novels. Each one here has its qualities and faults, evolving throughout the volumes.
This marvelous escapade in the salons at the end of the 19th century has often made me regret not being born 150 years earlier, so that I could have known this world!
Dear Mr. Proust, I have only one word: Thank you!
May 18, 2022
PER MOLTO TEMPO, SONO ANDATO A LETTO PRESTO
Un sogno lungo un giorno
Sono sette e un solo sogno.
Sette meraviglie e una sola.
Questa, in particolare, è anche manuale di vita, di analisi, ricerca, conoscenza.
E felicità.
Un sogno lungo un giorno
Sono sette e un solo sogno.
Sette meraviglie e una sola.
Questa, in particolare, è anche manuale di vita, di analisi, ricerca, conoscenza.
E felicità.
May 2, 2020
""در درون من بسیاری چیزها که برای همیشه ماندنیشان میپنداشتم نابود شدهاند، و چیزهایی تازه سر برکشیدهاند و از آنها رنجها و شادیهای تازهای زاده میشوند که در آن زمان گمان نمیکردم، همچنان که درک رنجها و شادیهای گذشته اکنون برایم دشوار شده است.""
پیش به سوی ملال کامل...
از صبح خیلی زود که چشم باز میکنم، در واقع مغزم روشن میشود ولی چشمهایم بسته اند هنوز، میدانم امروز هم یک روز بد دنباله دار در پیش است. مثل همیشه،همیشه،همیشه...
صدای وانتی لعنتی که همه چیز میخرد و سردرد میفروشد در مغزم میپیچد. دستم را روی شقیقههایم میفشارم شاید جلوی تورم مغزم را بگیرم. انگار چیزی درون جمجمهام می جوشد و دنبال منفذی برای سررفتن میگردد، با خودم فکر میکنم مغزم اگر بخواهد بیرون بپاشد حتما بهترین مسیر برایش سوراخ بینیام است. در کتاب " راهنمای مومیایی کردن اجساد به روش مصر باستان" اینطور نوشته بود که برای تخلیه مغز میلهای را از سوراخ بینی وارد جمجمه میکردند و بقیه ظریف کاریهای تخصصی...
صدای مامان را میشنوم. میگوید بیدار شو [...]
آخ! قلبم درد گرفت. دلم برای شنیدن اسمم از زبانت تنگ شده مامان. اسم واقعی ام که فقط تو بلد بودی..
چه چیز لعنتیِ عجیبیست این حافظه. "در حافظه هرچه بخواهی هست، حافظه نوعی داروخانه یا آزمایشگاه شیمی است که در آن بطور اتفاقی، دستت گاه به دارویی آرامبخش و گاه به زَهری خطرناک میرسد." و من کورمال کورمال در بین جامها میگردم و به غبار رویشان دست میکشم، به امید دستیافتن به خاطرهای دور ،به امید یافتن چیزی که تو را برایم بازسازی کند. چه جستجوی عبثی مامان...
در جستجوی زمان از دست رفته،
لای چشمهایم را با احتیاط باز میکنم با آرزوی اینکه ببینمت، هیکل درهمی در ضد نور آنجاست. منکه میدانم آنجا نیستی مامان، پس با توهمت آزارم نده...
چقدر قدر آن شبهای تابستانی پر ستاره روی پشت بام خانهی نواب را ندانستم. بوی کتلت، صدای به هم خوردن قابلمه های توی کابینت صبحهای جمعه، و نالهی غرآلود خواهرم که با بیزاری میگفت: بذارید بخوابیم...
در جستجوی چه هستی رویا؟ صدای کاکتوسم را میشنوم، از دور ... خیلی دور ... دستم را دراز میکنم که لبهایش را لمس کنم. آرام نجوا میکند "دوستت دارم". اما درست وقتی که گرمای نفسش را کنار گوشم حس میکنم، به جای دوستت دارم ، در گوشم صدایش میپیچد " آهن آلات خریداریم " . میترسم...
درد از گوشم میپیچد به طرف گردن و روی مهرهایم سر میخورد، لگدی به کلیهی چپم میزند، با رودهی باریکم تاب بازی میکند ، انگشتش را توی لوله فالوپم فرو میکند و شادمانه از انگشت شست پای چپم میزند به چاک.
جرات بیدار شدن ندارم، در خودم توان مواجهه با زندگی را نمییابم، تولد چهارده سالگی ات را ندیدی ، پس من چطور هنوز زندهام؟ تو مارسل لعنتی! چطور بعد از آلبرتین زنده ماندی؟ به منهم یاد بده. میگویی: لعنت به آدم، این حجم کثافت گوشت و خونِ فراموشکار .
دیشب اینجا یکهو خیلی سرد شد،تو هم زیر خاک سردت بود سیسی؟
آرزو میکنم کاش غول چراغ جادو حقیقت داشت...
صبح امروز با کاکتوسم کنار رودخانهای نشسته بودیم، روباهی آمد آب بخورد، یک دقیقه و ۷ ثانیه تمام به ما زل زد وبعد عذر خواهی کرد از اینکه خلوت عاشقانهمان را به هم زده و رفت. کاکتوس گفت چه لهجهی عجیبی داشت! بعد سوار حبابهای صابونمان شدیم و رفتیم بالا . از کاکتوسم دلگیر بودم که چرا سوار حباب من نشده بود. باید وقتی بیدار شدم ازش توضیح بخواهم ، خدا به دادش برسد اگر دلیل قانع کننده ای نداشته باشد.
وقتی بیدار شدم میخواهم امتحان کنم چند دقیقه طول میکشد تا امواج ماکروویو با قدرت ۱۰۰ درصد، مغز انسان را متلاشی کنند؟ اصلا متلاشی میشود یا میپزد بدون اینکه چیزی ازش بیرون بپاشد؟
یادم میآید آن کتاب راهنمای مومیایی کردن به روش مصر باستان را هیچوقت نخوانده ام. خودم باید بنویسمش. چون به قول آقای پروست محترم
""همهٔ چیزهایِ عظیم و مهمّی که میشناسیم کار عَصبیهاست!
همهٔ مکتبها را آنها بنیان گذاشتهاند و همهی شاهکارها را آنها ساختهاند و نه کسان دیگر. بشریت هرگز نخواهد فهمید که چقدر به آنها مدیون است""
................
چرا ترجمهی عنوان کتاب «در جستجوی زمان گمشده» است و نه مثلاً «زمان از دست رفته» یا «روزگار رفته» و نظایر آن؟ زیرا خود پروست در جایی از همین کتاب صریحاً به این معنی اشاره میکند: «این اعتقاد اقوام سلتی به گمان من بسیار معقول است که ارواح مردگان ما در موجود پستتری، حیوان یا گیاه یا شیای بیجان، گرفتار میشوند و از دست ما میروند تا روزی که ـــ و آن روز برای بسیاری هرگز نخواهد آمد ـــ ما از کنار درخت بگذریم و شیای را که زندان آنهاست تصاحب کنیم. آنوقت ارواح از جا میجهند و ما را میخوانند و به محض آنکه ما آنها را بازشناسیم طلسم میشکند و آنها به دست ما آزادی خود را مییابند، بر مرگ چیره میشوند و دوباره میآیند تا با ما زندگی کنند. گذشتهی ما هم به همینگونه است. کوشش برای یادآوری آن زحمت باطلی است و همهی تلاشهای هوش ما در این راه به هیچ نتیجهای نخواهد رسید، زیرا زمان گذشته، بیرون از قلمرو هوش و دسترس آن، در شیای مادی (در احساسی که این شی مادی به ما میدهد) پنهان است و ما هیچ نمیدانیم آن چیست. فقط به تصادف ممکن است که پیش از مردن آن را ببینیم یا هرگز نبینیم.»
◾️ابوالحسن نجفی
◾️◾️آیندگان ادبی، ۵ تیر ۱۳۵۴
| تاریکجا |
پیش به سوی ملال کامل...
از صبح خیلی زود که چشم باز میکنم، در واقع مغزم روشن میشود ولی چشمهایم بسته اند هنوز، میدانم امروز هم یک روز بد دنباله دار در پیش است. مثل همیشه،همیشه،همیشه...
صدای وانتی لعنتی که همه چیز میخرد و سردرد میفروشد در مغزم میپیچد. دستم را روی شقیقههایم میفشارم شاید جلوی تورم مغزم را بگیرم. انگار چیزی درون جمجمهام می جوشد و دنبال منفذی برای سررفتن میگردد، با خودم فکر میکنم مغزم اگر بخواهد بیرون بپاشد حتما بهترین مسیر برایش سوراخ بینیام است. در کتاب " راهنمای مومیایی کردن اجساد به روش مصر باستان" اینطور نوشته بود که برای تخلیه مغز میلهای را از سوراخ بینی وارد جمجمه میکردند و بقیه ظریف کاریهای تخصصی...
صدای مامان را میشنوم. میگوید بیدار شو [...]
آخ! قلبم درد گرفت. دلم برای شنیدن اسمم از زبانت تنگ شده مامان. اسم واقعی ام که فقط تو بلد بودی..
چه چیز لعنتیِ عجیبیست این حافظه. "در حافظه هرچه بخواهی هست، حافظه نوعی داروخانه یا آزمایشگاه شیمی است که در آن بطور اتفاقی، دستت گاه به دارویی آرامبخش و گاه به زَهری خطرناک میرسد." و من کورمال کورمال در بین جامها میگردم و به غبار رویشان دست میکشم، به امید دستیافتن به خاطرهای دور ،به امید یافتن چیزی که تو را برایم بازسازی کند. چه جستجوی عبثی مامان...
در جستجوی زمان از دست رفته،
لای چشمهایم را با احتیاط باز میکنم با آرزوی اینکه ببینمت، هیکل درهمی در ضد نور آنجاست. منکه میدانم آنجا نیستی مامان، پس با توهمت آزارم نده...
چقدر قدر آن شبهای تابستانی پر ستاره روی پشت بام خانهی نواب را ندانستم. بوی کتلت، صدای به هم خوردن قابلمه های توی کابینت صبحهای جمعه، و نالهی غرآلود خواهرم که با بیزاری میگفت: بذارید بخوابیم...
در جستجوی چه هستی رویا؟ صدای کاکتوسم را میشنوم، از دور ... خیلی دور ... دستم را دراز میکنم که لبهایش را لمس کنم. آرام نجوا میکند "دوستت دارم". اما درست وقتی که گرمای نفسش را کنار گوشم حس میکنم، به جای دوستت دارم ، در گوشم صدایش میپیچد " آهن آلات خریداریم " . میترسم...
درد از گوشم میپیچد به طرف گردن و روی مهرهایم سر میخورد، لگدی به کلیهی چپم میزند، با رودهی باریکم تاب بازی میکند ، انگشتش را توی لوله فالوپم فرو میکند و شادمانه از انگشت شست پای چپم میزند به چاک.
جرات بیدار شدن ندارم، در خودم توان مواجهه با زندگی را نمییابم، تولد چهارده سالگی ات را ندیدی ، پس من چطور هنوز زندهام؟ تو مارسل لعنتی! چطور بعد از آلبرتین زنده ماندی؟ به منهم یاد بده. میگویی: لعنت به آدم، این حجم کثافت گوشت و خونِ فراموشکار .
دیشب اینجا یکهو خیلی سرد شد،تو هم زیر خاک سردت بود سیسی؟
آرزو میکنم کاش غول چراغ جادو حقیقت داشت...
صبح امروز با کاکتوسم کنار رودخانهای نشسته بودیم، روباهی آمد آب بخورد، یک دقیقه و ۷ ثانیه تمام به ما زل زد وبعد عذر خواهی کرد از اینکه خلوت عاشقانهمان را به هم زده و رفت. کاکتوس گفت چه لهجهی عجیبی داشت! بعد سوار حبابهای صابونمان شدیم و رفتیم بالا . از کاکتوسم دلگیر بودم که چرا سوار حباب من نشده بود. باید وقتی بیدار شدم ازش توضیح بخواهم ، خدا به دادش برسد اگر دلیل قانع کننده ای نداشته باشد.
وقتی بیدار شدم میخواهم امتحان کنم چند دقیقه طول میکشد تا امواج ماکروویو با قدرت ۱۰۰ درصد، مغز انسان را متلاشی کنند؟ اصلا متلاشی میشود یا میپزد بدون اینکه چیزی ازش بیرون بپاشد؟
یادم میآید آن کتاب راهنمای مومیایی کردن به روش مصر باستان را هیچوقت نخوانده ام. خودم باید بنویسمش. چون به قول آقای پروست محترم
""همهٔ چیزهایِ عظیم و مهمّی که میشناسیم کار عَصبیهاست!
همهٔ مکتبها را آنها بنیان گذاشتهاند و همهی شاهکارها را آنها ساختهاند و نه کسان دیگر. بشریت هرگز نخواهد فهمید که چقدر به آنها مدیون است""
................
چرا ترجمهی عنوان کتاب «در جستجوی زمان گمشده» است و نه مثلاً «زمان از دست رفته» یا «روزگار رفته» و نظایر آن؟ زیرا خود پروست در جایی از همین کتاب صریحاً به این معنی اشاره میکند: «این اعتقاد اقوام سلتی به گمان من بسیار معقول است که ارواح مردگان ما در موجود پستتری، حیوان یا گیاه یا شیای بیجان، گرفتار میشوند و از دست ما میروند تا روزی که ـــ و آن روز برای بسیاری هرگز نخواهد آمد ـــ ما از کنار درخت بگذریم و شیای را که زندان آنهاست تصاحب کنیم. آنوقت ارواح از جا میجهند و ما را میخوانند و به محض آنکه ما آنها را بازشناسیم طلسم میشکند و آنها به دست ما آزادی خود را مییابند، بر مرگ چیره میشوند و دوباره میآیند تا با ما زندگی کنند. گذشتهی ما هم به همینگونه است. کوشش برای یادآوری آن زحمت باطلی است و همهی تلاشهای هوش ما در این راه به هیچ نتیجهای نخواهد رسید، زیرا زمان گذشته، بیرون از قلمرو هوش و دسترس آن، در شیای مادی (در احساسی که این شی مادی به ما میدهد) پنهان است و ما هیچ نمیدانیم آن چیست. فقط به تصادف ممکن است که پیش از مردن آن را ببینیم یا هرگز نبینیم.»
◾️ابوالحسن نجفی
◾️◾️آیندگان ادبی، ۵ تیر ۱۳۵۴
| تاریکجا |
January 28, 2016
Longtemps I asked myself if, instead of reading Marcel Proust on my Kindle, I shouldn’t have bought physical books to read in my bed to perhaps be an inch closer to his conditions while he was writing his masterpiece, as having a cork-lined bedroom proved to be impossible this year. Each time I started and finished a volume, I would again ask myself if I should get a paperback edition instead. However, as I had already all seven volumes digitally, and I knew such a big commitment of reading weekly sections for the entire year would eventually clash with other obligations, I never got to switch and kept on reading on my Kindle for it was easier and more convenient than carrying tree books from one place to another and it also allowed me to read in the dark.
While I was reading tonight - just moments ago, actually - and I looked down at my Kindle screen (something that I do constantly and also happens to be a reason for this desire to stop reading digitally, as I feel it rushes my reading when I know that I’m near the end of a chapter or to finishing the book, and I keep calculating if the estimation is right or if it'll take me more or less time instead), I noticed the “Time remaining” information telling me that Time Regained would be over in 28 minutes.
Like quick flashes of lightning, memories of all the previous six moments of when I was this close to finishing each volume - along with the place I was reading them, the season of the year, the weather, my mood - jumped in front of me (perhaps it would be more accurate to say “out of me"), initially blurring my vision, and then completely blinding me, as if they were trying to stop me, because finishing this last volume would also end my first read of À la recherche du temps perdu, in which they were included and, because of that, still alive, but fearing their afterlife was bound to be over in mere 28 minutes. Wouldn’t you do all that you could to stop Time - or just to extend it a bit somehow - if you knew you’d be gone in a matter of minutes?
As quickly as these memories surrounded me - it’s amazing how many things can happen so fast in a second inside of our heads - I figured that they weren't trying to stop me from finishing the seventh volume, they were actually standing over my shoulder to watch the birth of their little sibling, the new special moment I would hold dear forever in myself, to welcome it and, of course, to watch over me as I finished reading the novel that would be forever considered my favorite and the best thing I have ever read in my life. Had I switched to physical books, these sensations wouldn’t have been triggered this way, or perhaps different ones would have appeared. Who knows? I’m just glad it all happened the way it did.
I know this isn’t a proper review as it only accounts for my reading experience instead of actually addressing the book. I made the conscious decision of not reviewing any of the volumes as I felt unprepared - for I believe I still have so much to extract from these beloved pages - and I want to wait until I do at least one more read - how could I stop now? Even so, I decided to acknowledge what just happened, for I think this was an experience that I couldn't let go without writing at least a few - as silly as they might be - words, specially after taking such a fondness for involuntary memories because of Proust.
Do yourself a favor: pick up Swann's Way and meet him, in case you haven’t yet.
You’re most welcome.
While I was reading tonight - just moments ago, actually - and I looked down at my Kindle screen (something that I do constantly and also happens to be a reason for this desire to stop reading digitally, as I feel it rushes my reading when I know that I’m near the end of a chapter or to finishing the book, and I keep calculating if the estimation is right or if it'll take me more or less time instead), I noticed the “Time remaining” information telling me that Time Regained would be over in 28 minutes.
Like quick flashes of lightning, memories of all the previous six moments of when I was this close to finishing each volume - along with the place I was reading them, the season of the year, the weather, my mood - jumped in front of me (perhaps it would be more accurate to say “out of me"), initially blurring my vision, and then completely blinding me, as if they were trying to stop me, because finishing this last volume would also end my first read of À la recherche du temps perdu, in which they were included and, because of that, still alive, but fearing their afterlife was bound to be over in mere 28 minutes. Wouldn’t you do all that you could to stop Time - or just to extend it a bit somehow - if you knew you’d be gone in a matter of minutes?
As quickly as these memories surrounded me - it’s amazing how many things can happen so fast in a second inside of our heads - I figured that they weren't trying to stop me from finishing the seventh volume, they were actually standing over my shoulder to watch the birth of their little sibling, the new special moment I would hold dear forever in myself, to welcome it and, of course, to watch over me as I finished reading the novel that would be forever considered my favorite and the best thing I have ever read in my life. Had I switched to physical books, these sensations wouldn’t have been triggered this way, or perhaps different ones would have appeared. Who knows? I’m just glad it all happened the way it did.
I know this isn’t a proper review as it only accounts for my reading experience instead of actually addressing the book. I made the conscious decision of not reviewing any of the volumes as I felt unprepared - for I believe I still have so much to extract from these beloved pages - and I want to wait until I do at least one more read - how could I stop now? Even so, I decided to acknowledge what just happened, for I think this was an experience that I couldn't let go without writing at least a few - as silly as they might be - words, specially after taking such a fondness for involuntary memories because of Proust.
Do yourself a favor: pick up Swann's Way and meet him, in case you haven’t yet.
You’re most welcome.
June 12, 2021
Le Temps retrouvé est, chez Proust, ce que le Götterdämmerung fut chez Wagner : le théâtre de la fin d’un monde. Siegfried, mort. Albertine, morte. Le drame amoureux est terminé. La Guerre de 14 éclate et marque la destruction cataclysmique d’une Belle Époque déjà décadente.
Ce dernier volume de la Recherche du temps perdu est aussi une sorte de Derniers jours de Pompéi, comme l’indique une réplique du vieillissant Charlus : « Quels documents pour l’histoire future, quand les gaz asphyxiants analogues à ceux qu’émettait le Vésuve et des écroulements comme ceux qui ensevelirent Pompéi garderont intactes toutes les dernières imprudentes qui n’ont pas fait encore filer pour Bayonne leurs tableaux et leurs statues » (Pléiade, t. 4, p. 385). Proust fait également allusion à d’autres catastrophes du même genre au cours du roman : l’iceberg du Titanic (p. 412), ou encore les menaces cosmiques qui pèsent sur l’écosystème de notre planète (p. 351).
Et quand bien même il n’y aurait pas de catastrophe, Le Temps retrouvé est aussi bien un roman de l’action corrosive du Temps. On y voit ses personnages, autrefois splendides, dévorés et corrompus de plus en plus profondément par leurs propres appétits. Témoin : la scène de sadomasochisme dans l’hôtel de Jupien. On les voit aussi, dans cette galerie carnavalesque du bal de têtes chez la princesse de Guermantes : Charlus, Lear délabré ; Bloch, vieux Shylock ; le duc de Guermantes, risible Géronte – tous irréparablement courbés, gâteux, blanchis, effrités, fardés et méconnaissables, liquéfiés ou rigidifiés, à jamais rongés par l’âge, portant déjà leur masque mortuaire sur le visage.
Mais, si Le Temps retrouvé est un livre sur la destruction et la décomposition (par la guerre, par les vices, par la vieillesse et la mort), c’est aussi et surtout le roman de la conservation éternelle et de l’immortalité. Il se trouve, comme pour les ruines de Pompéi, que tout ce monde frivole et inconséquent d’avant-guerre est désormais saisi dans la lave, comme des insectes fossilisés dans un galet de résine (ou comme les morceaux de viande en gelée de la recette de Françoise), en fin de compte cristallisé dans la mémoire, ce domaine supraterrestre qui fait irruption dans l’épisode quasi-mystique de la bibliothèque des Guermantes. Mais, plus encore, dans l’œuvre d’art qui, comme le disait jadis Elstir, « est un témoignage que nous avons vraiment vécu, que c’est selon les lois de la vie et de l’esprit que nous avons, des éléments communs de la vie […], extrait quelque chose qui les dépasse » (JF, t. 2, p. 219).
Et on ne trouvera pas plus belle apologie de l’art et de la littérature, comme remède à la finitude (tirant parti de l’espace, du temps, de la souffrance et de la subjectivité pour finalement s’en affranchir), que dans ces pages finales de la Recherche, où le Narrateur, tel un dragon se mordant la queue, réalise enfin sa vocation et s’engage dans l’écriture du roman que nous venons de terminer, achevant son œuvre à l’endroit même où il la démarre. Double renouvellement, de surcroît, car c’est ici, au terme des trois mille pages de cette cathédrale littéraire, qu’apparaît enfin celle en qui se rejoignent les ogives, se relient et se referment les deux côtés qui étaient jusque-là disjoints, le côté de chez Swann et le côté de Guermantes : le visage de Mlle de Saint-Loup, image florale d’un nouveau printemps.
> Vol. précédent : Albertine disparue
Ce dernier volume de la Recherche du temps perdu est aussi une sorte de Derniers jours de Pompéi, comme l’indique une réplique du vieillissant Charlus : « Quels documents pour l’histoire future, quand les gaz asphyxiants analogues à ceux qu’émettait le Vésuve et des écroulements comme ceux qui ensevelirent Pompéi garderont intactes toutes les dernières imprudentes qui n’ont pas fait encore filer pour Bayonne leurs tableaux et leurs statues » (Pléiade, t. 4, p. 385). Proust fait également allusion à d’autres catastrophes du même genre au cours du roman : l’iceberg du Titanic (p. 412), ou encore les menaces cosmiques qui pèsent sur l’écosystème de notre planète (p. 351).
Et quand bien même il n’y aurait pas de catastrophe, Le Temps retrouvé est aussi bien un roman de l’action corrosive du Temps. On y voit ses personnages, autrefois splendides, dévorés et corrompus de plus en plus profondément par leurs propres appétits. Témoin : la scène de sadomasochisme dans l’hôtel de Jupien. On les voit aussi, dans cette galerie carnavalesque du bal de têtes chez la princesse de Guermantes : Charlus, Lear délabré ; Bloch, vieux Shylock ; le duc de Guermantes, risible Géronte – tous irréparablement courbés, gâteux, blanchis, effrités, fardés et méconnaissables, liquéfiés ou rigidifiés, à jamais rongés par l’âge, portant déjà leur masque mortuaire sur le visage.
Mais, si Le Temps retrouvé est un livre sur la destruction et la décomposition (par la guerre, par les vices, par la vieillesse et la mort), c’est aussi et surtout le roman de la conservation éternelle et de l’immortalité. Il se trouve, comme pour les ruines de Pompéi, que tout ce monde frivole et inconséquent d’avant-guerre est désormais saisi dans la lave, comme des insectes fossilisés dans un galet de résine (ou comme les morceaux de viande en gelée de la recette de Françoise), en fin de compte cristallisé dans la mémoire, ce domaine supraterrestre qui fait irruption dans l’épisode quasi-mystique de la bibliothèque des Guermantes. Mais, plus encore, dans l’œuvre d’art qui, comme le disait jadis Elstir, « est un témoignage que nous avons vraiment vécu, que c’est selon les lois de la vie et de l’esprit que nous avons, des éléments communs de la vie […], extrait quelque chose qui les dépasse » (JF, t. 2, p. 219).
Et on ne trouvera pas plus belle apologie de l’art et de la littérature, comme remède à la finitude (tirant parti de l’espace, du temps, de la souffrance et de la subjectivité pour finalement s’en affranchir), que dans ces pages finales de la Recherche, où le Narrateur, tel un dragon se mordant la queue, réalise enfin sa vocation et s’engage dans l’écriture du roman que nous venons de terminer, achevant son œuvre à l’endroit même où il la démarre. Double renouvellement, de surcroît, car c’est ici, au terme des trois mille pages de cette cathédrale littéraire, qu’apparaît enfin celle en qui se rejoignent les ogives, se relient et se referment les deux côtés qui étaient jusque-là disjoints, le côté de chez Swann et le côté de Guermantes : le visage de Mlle de Saint-Loup, image florale d’un nouveau printemps.
> Vol. précédent : Albertine disparue
December 11, 2020
Viene de…
Este será, a la manera en la que Françoise cocinaba el famoso guiso que tanto apreciaba el Sr. de Norpois, el gran trozo de carne que Proust nos hará degustar en este séptimo plato y que encontraremos, como es su costumbre, copiosamente bañado en la gelatina que el autor gusta siempre de añadir con el fin de enriquecerlo. Asistiremos así a una nueva epifanía que echará por tierra todas sus dudas intelectuales, toda su inquietud por el futuro, justo cuando más intenso era su desencanto con la literatura y con sus dotes para con ella.
Aunque conociéndolo, no es extraño pensar que tanto desafecto con el arte no fuera más que su superlativa coquetería buscando nuestro inmediato halago en respuesta a su confesión de que “no sabía escuchar ni… mirar”, que solo era capaz de ver lo que previamente le había sugerido alguna lectura o alguna pintura y que más sacaba de estas visiones artísticas que de la realidad que las sustentaba. Una conexión entre vida y arte que rebajaba tanto el valor de la lectura, que le engrandecía lo que después se demostraba no merecerlo, como ponía en duda su valía al no saber encontrar la grandeza de lo que solo el arte le permitía descubrir.
Para su satisfacción, y la nuestra, Proust se reconcilió con su destino literario al descubrir que no era la inteligencia, la “memoria uniforme”, la que iba a salvarlo de la mediocridad de la vida, pues esas capacidades se descubren inútiles para su total y completa apreciación. Proust se abrió a una realidad que solo podía encontrar en el fondo de sí mismo, no surgida de la libertad pues le venía dada, con un certificado de autenticidad que radicaba precisamente en el “esfuerzo por emerger hacia la luz” y en “la alegría de la realidad recobrada”, y que solo aparecía cuando confluían en un todo la sensación pasada con la del momento actual, cuando ambos tiempos se entremezclaban en ese ser extratemporal que por fin podía gozar de la esencia de las cosas.
Marcel superó así la inevitable ley que siempre le había impedido gozar de una realidad que solo apreciaba en su imaginación, esto es, en su ausencia. Por fin su ser podía nutrirse de las esencias tanto tiempo anheladas que…” languidece en la observación del presente donde los sentidos no pueden llevarla, en la consideración de un pasado que la inteligencia le deseca, en la espera de un futuro que la voluntad construye con fragmentos del presente y del pasado”. Marcel renació.
¿La gelatina? Abundante: “Ya había observado yo en diferentes personas que el alarde de sentimientos loables no es el único disimulo de los malos, que hay otro más nuevo: la exhibición de los malos, para que, al menos, no parezca que se quiere ocultarlos”; “(la amistad) es el error de un loco que creyera que los muebles viven y hablara con ellos”; “Si no tuviéramos rivales, el placer no se transformaría en amor”; “la felicidad, apenas tiene más que una sola ventaja: hacer posible la desventura”; “toda muerte es para los demás una simplificación de la existencia, quita el escrúpulo de mostrarse agradecido, la obligación de hacer visitas”; “lo que parece único en una persona deseada no le pertenece… el tiempo transcurrido me daba de esto una prueba más completa, porque, pasados veinte años, yo quería, espontáneamente, buscar, en vez de las muchachas que había conocido, las que ahora poseían aquella juventud que las otras tenían entonces”…
Fin.
“La verdadera vida, la vida al fin descubierta y dilucidada, la única vida, por lo tanto, realmente vivida es la literatura”Todo empezó allá por el año 1 a.c. (antes del confinamiento) y termina rozando el año 1 d.c., casi dos años entre una magdalena y un mal paso provocado por la desigualdad en el nivel de unos adoquines, nimiedades que, sin embargo, abrieron un mundo nuevo al autor, que le reconciliaron con la vida cuando ya veía venir la muerte.
Este será, a la manera en la que Françoise cocinaba el famoso guiso que tanto apreciaba el Sr. de Norpois, el gran trozo de carne que Proust nos hará degustar en este séptimo plato y que encontraremos, como es su costumbre, copiosamente bañado en la gelatina que el autor gusta siempre de añadir con el fin de enriquecerlo. Asistiremos así a una nueva epifanía que echará por tierra todas sus dudas intelectuales, toda su inquietud por el futuro, justo cuando más intenso era su desencanto con la literatura y con sus dotes para con ella.
Aunque conociéndolo, no es extraño pensar que tanto desafecto con el arte no fuera más que su superlativa coquetería buscando nuestro inmediato halago en respuesta a su confesión de que “no sabía escuchar ni… mirar”, que solo era capaz de ver lo que previamente le había sugerido alguna lectura o alguna pintura y que más sacaba de estas visiones artísticas que de la realidad que las sustentaba. Una conexión entre vida y arte que rebajaba tanto el valor de la lectura, que le engrandecía lo que después se demostraba no merecerlo, como ponía en duda su valía al no saber encontrar la grandeza de lo que solo el arte le permitía descubrir.
Para su satisfacción, y la nuestra, Proust se reconcilió con su destino literario al descubrir que no era la inteligencia, la “memoria uniforme”, la que iba a salvarlo de la mediocridad de la vida, pues esas capacidades se descubren inútiles para su total y completa apreciación. Proust se abrió a una realidad que solo podía encontrar en el fondo de sí mismo, no surgida de la libertad pues le venía dada, con un certificado de autenticidad que radicaba precisamente en el “esfuerzo por emerger hacia la luz” y en “la alegría de la realidad recobrada”, y que solo aparecía cuando confluían en un todo la sensación pasada con la del momento actual, cuando ambos tiempos se entremezclaban en ese ser extratemporal que por fin podía gozar de la esencia de las cosas.
Marcel superó así la inevitable ley que siempre le había impedido gozar de una realidad que solo apreciaba en su imaginación, esto es, en su ausencia. Por fin su ser podía nutrirse de las esencias tanto tiempo anheladas que…” languidece en la observación del presente donde los sentidos no pueden llevarla, en la consideración de un pasado que la inteligencia le deseca, en la espera de un futuro que la voluntad construye con fragmentos del presente y del pasado”. Marcel renació.
“La obra de arte era el único medio de recobrar el tiempo perdido”Y, por tanto, el arte fue la piedra filosofal que le hizo recuperar el pasado (“los verdaderos paraísos son los paraísos que hemos perdido”) y, por tanto, a toda la gente que pasó por su vida y que ahora le parecían “que habían vivido una vida que sólo a mí había beneficiado, me parecía como si hubieran muerto por mí”, y, por tanto, todo el dolor, todo el sufrimiento experimentado, que no es sino el alimento del artista.
“Cuando un insolente nos insulta, seguramente preferiríamos que nos alabara, y sobre todo, cuando una mujer nos traiciona, ¡qué no daríamos porque no fuera así! Mas el resentimiento de la afrenta, los dolores del abandono serían entonces las tierras que nunca conoceríamos y cuyo descubrimiento, por penoso que le sea al hombre, resulta precioso para el artista.”
¿La gelatina? Abundante: “Ya había observado yo en diferentes personas que el alarde de sentimientos loables no es el único disimulo de los malos, que hay otro más nuevo: la exhibición de los malos, para que, al menos, no parezca que se quiere ocultarlos”; “(la amistad) es el error de un loco que creyera que los muebles viven y hablara con ellos”; “Si no tuviéramos rivales, el placer no se transformaría en amor”; “la felicidad, apenas tiene más que una sola ventaja: hacer posible la desventura”; “toda muerte es para los demás una simplificación de la existencia, quita el escrúpulo de mostrarse agradecido, la obligación de hacer visitas”; “lo que parece único en una persona deseada no le pertenece… el tiempo transcurrido me daba de esto una prueba más completa, porque, pasados veinte años, yo quería, espontáneamente, buscar, en vez de las muchachas que había conocido, las que ahora poseían aquella juventud que las otras tenían entonces”…
Fin.
January 15, 2014
This is not a review of this book. This is a testimony of having reached the end of marcel Proust’s La Recherche du temps perdu, as scheduled in The Year of Reading Proust 2013. I started on January 1st and finished it on December 29th.
I have actually read the 53 weekly reading divisions at least two times. So, I have read the full novel twice. I also listened, while reading, to the 111 CDs of the Thélème audio edition.
If the novel was written in bed with the light from one single side lamp, I have read it in bed with one single side lamp. The novel was written during the night. I have read it mostly in the early mornings and weekend afternoons. I can read other books no matter where, but Proust’s work I could only read it in a very secluded environment, with “recogimiento” or retrospection. Apart from Proust’s writing, may be it was also the audio edition, with all the pristine diction and melodic intonation of the six readers-actors that required this kind of cloistered setting.
The experience has felt like the preparation for a long distance run. The hardest part is not the run itself, nor the training runs, for running in the park with a cool air and a warm and loose body is a great pleasure. The tough thing is the discipline and the commitment to ranking this project atop any other priorities outside from my inescapable obligations. That means other pleasurable and important tasks are just abandoned. It happened similarly with this reading. The pleasure of Proust’s prose read and spoken seemed worth all sacrifice, but I have often been late for work, have missed films, exhibitions, have eschewed going to the gym too many times, and sat less at my piano.
I am very grateful for this project because I doubt I would have finished Proust’s work had it not been for the weekly discussions. And I certainly would not have absorbed so much out of my reading. Apart from the reading and listening, I have contributed with #2,906 comments to the Group. Those entailed sitting at the computer after having marked my books. Certainly, many were for social-bonding; a full year of sharing comments with the “fidèles” does create convivial community. But most of these comments were quotes or illustrations that explored the rich fountain of cultural – pictorial, musical, political, social – references. I spent a fair amount of time searching the internet.
In my initial enthusiasm I accumulated close to ten books of secondary reading. I will start tackling these in the medium term, but now I suspect that several of them will seem boring to me. They will contain little that was not already present in Proust’s work and which we have been discovering in the Group as we read along. Others will certainly add a deeper understanding with which I hope to reach a closer knowledge of this magnificent work. I am very much looking forward to these.
If I avoided secondary readings I read however other Proustian books. These were neither explanatory nor analytical, but either memoirs, or other novels by other writers which shed some light on the Recherche (the most significant is George’s Sand’s François Le Champi, since it is a key in Proust’s work). Of the art books the best was a selection of Ruskin’s Stones of Venice (Ruskin's Venice: The Stones Revisited).
My two vacations were also Proustian. One was entirely so, for other members of the Group offered me to join them in their Proustian pilgrimage: we went to Paris, Illiers-Combray, Cabourg and the “Many-villes” along the Norman coast (thank you to ·Karen· and Fionnuala for the invitation). The second trip had the Biennale as its main motif but it also had a strong Proustian side. Venice was one of the mythical places for Proust and it was also the home of the Spanish designer Fortuny y Madrazo, whose dresses are another key in La recherche. We visited the Palazzo Fortuny.
Now, I can relax and open up a bit my reading choices, although I shall remain a Proustian and will continue to explore Proust’s world. I am certainly feeling the blues now.
I am therefore thanking Proustitute for creating the Group and my fellow-fidèles for their company in the read… BookPortrait, CeCe, Elizabeth, Fionnuala, Jocelyne, Karen, Marcelita, Marcus, Martin, Patricia, Phillida, Reem….
But my deepest Merci and my red rose goes to Marcel Proust.
I have actually read the 53 weekly reading divisions at least two times. So, I have read the full novel twice. I also listened, while reading, to the 111 CDs of the Thélème audio edition.
If the novel was written in bed with the light from one single side lamp, I have read it in bed with one single side lamp. The novel was written during the night. I have read it mostly in the early mornings and weekend afternoons. I can read other books no matter where, but Proust’s work I could only read it in a very secluded environment, with “recogimiento” or retrospection. Apart from Proust’s writing, may be it was also the audio edition, with all the pristine diction and melodic intonation of the six readers-actors that required this kind of cloistered setting.
The experience has felt like the preparation for a long distance run. The hardest part is not the run itself, nor the training runs, for running in the park with a cool air and a warm and loose body is a great pleasure. The tough thing is the discipline and the commitment to ranking this project atop any other priorities outside from my inescapable obligations. That means other pleasurable and important tasks are just abandoned. It happened similarly with this reading. The pleasure of Proust’s prose read and spoken seemed worth all sacrifice, but I have often been late for work, have missed films, exhibitions, have eschewed going to the gym too many times, and sat less at my piano.
I am very grateful for this project because I doubt I would have finished Proust’s work had it not been for the weekly discussions. And I certainly would not have absorbed so much out of my reading. Apart from the reading and listening, I have contributed with #2,906 comments to the Group. Those entailed sitting at the computer after having marked my books. Certainly, many were for social-bonding; a full year of sharing comments with the “fidèles” does create convivial community. But most of these comments were quotes or illustrations that explored the rich fountain of cultural – pictorial, musical, political, social – references. I spent a fair amount of time searching the internet.
In my initial enthusiasm I accumulated close to ten books of secondary reading. I will start tackling these in the medium term, but now I suspect that several of them will seem boring to me. They will contain little that was not already present in Proust’s work and which we have been discovering in the Group as we read along. Others will certainly add a deeper understanding with which I hope to reach a closer knowledge of this magnificent work. I am very much looking forward to these.
If I avoided secondary readings I read however other Proustian books. These were neither explanatory nor analytical, but either memoirs, or other novels by other writers which shed some light on the Recherche (the most significant is George’s Sand’s François Le Champi, since it is a key in Proust’s work). Of the art books the best was a selection of Ruskin’s Stones of Venice (Ruskin's Venice: The Stones Revisited).
My two vacations were also Proustian. One was entirely so, for other members of the Group offered me to join them in their Proustian pilgrimage: we went to Paris, Illiers-Combray, Cabourg and the “Many-villes” along the Norman coast (thank you to ·Karen· and Fionnuala for the invitation). The second trip had the Biennale as its main motif but it also had a strong Proustian side. Venice was one of the mythical places for Proust and it was also the home of the Spanish designer Fortuny y Madrazo, whose dresses are another key in La recherche. We visited the Palazzo Fortuny.
Now, I can relax and open up a bit my reading choices, although I shall remain a Proustian and will continue to explore Proust’s world. I am certainly feeling the blues now.
I am therefore thanking Proustitute for creating the Group and my fellow-fidèles for their company in the read… BookPortrait, CeCe, Elizabeth, Fionnuala, Jocelyne, Karen, Marcelita, Marcus, Martin, Patricia, Phillida, Reem….
But my deepest Merci and my red rose goes to Marcel Proust.
June 22, 2018
take that, proust - i have finished you!!
summer of proust is OVER!!
if i were to make a collage of the final volume of proust, i would use the following images:
this one started off with some really tantalizing situations and then quickly backed off into more philosophical abstractions. dammit, proust, when you have gay bondage, stay with gay bondage!! and war!! these are exciting themes!! don't drift off into thinky time!!
the frustration i have with this one is the frustration i have with philosophy in general. the confidence to take abstractions and generalize them into absolutes - it just seems arrogant to me. don't tell me how to love, how to read, how to write - don't say "we" do this, because i think sometimes, prousty, it is just you. although i am with you on this one:
"it hurt me to think that i was obliged to look for them within myself, since Time which changes human beings does not alter the image which we have preserved of them. indeed nothing is more painful than this contrast between the mutability of people and the fixity of memory, when it is borne in upon us that what has preserved so much freshness in our memory can no longer possess any trace of that quality in life, that we cannot now, outside ourselves, approach and behold again what inside our mind seems so beautiful, what excites in us a desire (a desire apparently so individual) to see it again, except be seeking it in a person of the same age, by seeking it, that is to say, in a different person"
he loses me halfway through, because of course, he is using this as a justification for continuing to seek out "a little amorous dalliance with young girls in bloom", admitting "i should always enjoy being invited to meet young girls, poor girls if possible, to whom i could give pleasure by quite small gifts, without expecting anything of them in return except that they should serve to renew within me the dreams and the sadnesses of my youth, and perhaps, one improbable day, a single chaste kiss."
aren't the po-po already watching him because of all his dandling in the last book?? find more appropriate love-objects, please!
so this book is very much preoccupied with age - with the drying of the blooms and the withering of the formerly beautiful.... this is my favorite passage:
"there were women too whose graves were waiting open to receive them: half paralysed, they could not quite disentangle their dress from the tombstone in which it had got stuck, so that they were unable to stand up straight but remained bent towards the ground, with their head lowered, in a curve which seemed an apt symbol of their own position on the trajectory from life to death, with the final vertical plunge not far away. nothing now could check the momentum of this parabola upon which they were launched; they trembled all over if they attempted to straighten themselves, and their fingers let fall whatever they tried to grasp."
no wonder he wants the young'uns to gather at his feet...
but again - i love his views on friendship:
"our friends being friends only in the light of an agreeable folly which travels with us through life and to which we readily accommodate ourselves, but which at the bottom of our hearts we know to be no more reasonable than the delusion of the man who talks to the furniture because he believes that it is alive)"
proust=dick. in so many ways.
and those are all the quotes you are getting. go have your own summer of proust. when the other translations make their way over the ocean to my country, i am sure i will read these again, because reading the introduction, i find it hard to regard any translation as definitive - proust's method of writing, with pasted-on flaps and tangents and overwriting and marginal scribbling and putting the same paragraph into many different chapters - he sounds like a mess, and anyone taking on the task of translation has my sympathy and admiration.
now for some crappy books!!
oh, yeah, my ranking:
1) the captive
2) the guermantes way
3) within a budding grove
4) swann's way
5) sodom and gomorrah
6) time regained
7) the fugitive
come to my blog!
summer of proust is OVER!!
if i were to make a collage of the final volume of proust, i would use the following images:
this one started off with some really tantalizing situations and then quickly backed off into more philosophical abstractions. dammit, proust, when you have gay bondage, stay with gay bondage!! and war!! these are exciting themes!! don't drift off into thinky time!!
the frustration i have with this one is the frustration i have with philosophy in general. the confidence to take abstractions and generalize them into absolutes - it just seems arrogant to me. don't tell me how to love, how to read, how to write - don't say "we" do this, because i think sometimes, prousty, it is just you. although i am with you on this one:
"it hurt me to think that i was obliged to look for them within myself, since Time which changes human beings does not alter the image which we have preserved of them. indeed nothing is more painful than this contrast between the mutability of people and the fixity of memory, when it is borne in upon us that what has preserved so much freshness in our memory can no longer possess any trace of that quality in life, that we cannot now, outside ourselves, approach and behold again what inside our mind seems so beautiful, what excites in us a desire (a desire apparently so individual) to see it again, except be seeking it in a person of the same age, by seeking it, that is to say, in a different person"
he loses me halfway through, because of course, he is using this as a justification for continuing to seek out "a little amorous dalliance with young girls in bloom", admitting "i should always enjoy being invited to meet young girls, poor girls if possible, to whom i could give pleasure by quite small gifts, without expecting anything of them in return except that they should serve to renew within me the dreams and the sadnesses of my youth, and perhaps, one improbable day, a single chaste kiss."
aren't the po-po already watching him because of all his dandling in the last book?? find more appropriate love-objects, please!
so this book is very much preoccupied with age - with the drying of the blooms and the withering of the formerly beautiful.... this is my favorite passage:
"there were women too whose graves were waiting open to receive them: half paralysed, they could not quite disentangle their dress from the tombstone in which it had got stuck, so that they were unable to stand up straight but remained bent towards the ground, with their head lowered, in a curve which seemed an apt symbol of their own position on the trajectory from life to death, with the final vertical plunge not far away. nothing now could check the momentum of this parabola upon which they were launched; they trembled all over if they attempted to straighten themselves, and their fingers let fall whatever they tried to grasp."
no wonder he wants the young'uns to gather at his feet...
but again - i love his views on friendship:
"our friends being friends only in the light of an agreeable folly which travels with us through life and to which we readily accommodate ourselves, but which at the bottom of our hearts we know to be no more reasonable than the delusion of the man who talks to the furniture because he believes that it is alive)"
proust=dick. in so many ways.
and those are all the quotes you are getting. go have your own summer of proust. when the other translations make their way over the ocean to my country, i am sure i will read these again, because reading the introduction, i find it hard to regard any translation as definitive - proust's method of writing, with pasted-on flaps and tangents and overwriting and marginal scribbling and putting the same paragraph into many different chapters - he sounds like a mess, and anyone taking on the task of translation has my sympathy and admiration.
now for some crappy books!!
oh, yeah, my ranking:
1) the captive
2) the guermantes way
3) within a budding grove
4) swann's way
5) sodom and gomorrah
6) time regained
7) the fugitive
come to my blog!
June 5, 2019
Somehow, someway, Proust sticks the landing. This is the strongest part of the entire novel (even surpassing the wonderful SWANN IN LOVE), unifyiing both plot and thematics in an absolutely magical way. If you're considering starting Proust and find yourself lost in the weeds, know that all will become clear in the end. There is some amusing and shocking content in this book, which I'll avoid spoiling at all costs, but three instances stand out: The famous last party, where a justifiably legendary sea change occurs; the very end of the plot's time-line, when the narrator somehow unites seemingly every disparate thread of this winding novel in the body of a surprising new character; and most of all, pages 281-332 of this volume, the moment when the narrator awakens to the possibility of writing a novel. This sequence should serve as a call-to-action to all aspiring writers, and will galvanize anyone whose ambitions might be going through a rough patch. I'll teach it in all future writing classes.
I began this project hoping to reassess what I thought of as canon in college. Then, the puzzle and brilliance of ULYSSES most spoke to me. But no class can encapsulate the experience of living with Marcel that I've enjoyed over the last half-year. It was the slowest going I've ever had in reading, but my goodness, if you've ever thought about changing this book from an ambition to an accomplishment, you have to go for it. It is, I think, the most rewarding literary experience that I've had.
I began this project hoping to reassess what I thought of as canon in college. Then, the puzzle and brilliance of ULYSSES most spoke to me. But no class can encapsulate the experience of living with Marcel that I've enjoyed over the last half-year. It was the slowest going I've ever had in reading, but my goodness, if you've ever thought about changing this book from an ambition to an accomplishment, you have to go for it. It is, I think, the most rewarding literary experience that I've had.
August 17, 2025
Dear Marcel, I finished Time Regained - the final volume of your In Search of Lost Time. And with it, I've come to the end of your masterpiece. I read it for the past three years, and now that it's finished, I feel a bit lost. A feeling of emptiness embraces me. I step onto the balcony of my bedroom and stare at the sea. In its turquoise colour, and in the clear pale-blue sky, I search for my lost time, just like you did all those years ago.
I see the returning fishing boats at a distance, and in them, I see the tiny spots in the sea I saw while walking on the shore, hand in hand with my grandfather, long ago. The returning fishing boats were blinking on the horizon like dazzling stars at night. We waited patiently while they materialized in their true, magnificent form, triumphant in their acquired treasure. The strong salty breeze nauseated me momentarily. "You'll never get used to it", my grandmother's voice rang while she looked at me with sympathy. And now, pondering your philosophical musings, I understand the significance of those reminiscences. They are the imprints of a lost time, regained through my memory. In your almost reverent description of how the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea evoked the chain of sensations (which laid the foundation for your masterpiece), I see a seven-year-old who sat at the table in her grandmother's pantry, waiting patiently to be served with the freshly baked butter cookies and milk. I still feel the pure delight of the little girl who ate them one by one after dipping each in her milk in the manner she was taught. The pure and innocent sensations and observations of a child always provide the most valuable material for an artist.
Your explanation that lost time can be regained through memory fascinates me. Time is intangible, and one can only capture it by the impressions it produces. These impressions are deposited in our minds and can be evoked through our memories. However, you perceive the dangers of this proposition. Memories give us the illusion that time is fixed. But it's not so. Time moves on, changing everything it touches. We foolishly believe that time is fixed because memories can always bring us past lost times. But in reality, time overrides these memories. And that's why the places we've visited, people we've known before will not look the same for us. Time has wrought changes while we've been clinging to our illusive memory. In your masterpiece, Marcel, time is the protagonist. It's his story; you're only occupying his space.
And finally, I'd like to say your insightful philosophical musings are greatly valuable to me as a writer. When I started reading Swann's Way for the first time, I had no idea that it would profoundly influence my writing. You, along with Virginia and Italo Calvino, changed my writing from a caterpillar to a butterfly. And I'm grateful to you for that. While these reflections play on my mind, I stare at the sea; my heart fills with a deeper sense of gratitude. At the same time, the realization that now I must part with your seven-volume masterpiece, which served as an instructor to me for the past three years, fills me with melancholy. It's not a permanent separation; I have them all securely stored in my Kindle. But even though I might go through their pages once again in search of lost time, can it truly be regained? Wouldn't time prevent me from evoking the same sensations? I won't be the same person I am now. We grow. Age catches up. Nothing will stay the same, for as you so wisely say, time effaces everything.
More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/
I see the returning fishing boats at a distance, and in them, I see the tiny spots in the sea I saw while walking on the shore, hand in hand with my grandfather, long ago. The returning fishing boats were blinking on the horizon like dazzling stars at night. We waited patiently while they materialized in their true, magnificent form, triumphant in their acquired treasure. The strong salty breeze nauseated me momentarily. "You'll never get used to it", my grandmother's voice rang while she looked at me with sympathy. And now, pondering your philosophical musings, I understand the significance of those reminiscences. They are the imprints of a lost time, regained through my memory. In your almost reverent description of how the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea evoked the chain of sensations (which laid the foundation for your masterpiece), I see a seven-year-old who sat at the table in her grandmother's pantry, waiting patiently to be served with the freshly baked butter cookies and milk. I still feel the pure delight of the little girl who ate them one by one after dipping each in her milk in the manner she was taught. The pure and innocent sensations and observations of a child always provide the most valuable material for an artist.
Your explanation that lost time can be regained through memory fascinates me. Time is intangible, and one can only capture it by the impressions it produces. These impressions are deposited in our minds and can be evoked through our memories. However, you perceive the dangers of this proposition. Memories give us the illusion that time is fixed. But it's not so. Time moves on, changing everything it touches. We foolishly believe that time is fixed because memories can always bring us past lost times. But in reality, time overrides these memories. And that's why the places we've visited, people we've known before will not look the same for us. Time has wrought changes while we've been clinging to our illusive memory. In your masterpiece, Marcel, time is the protagonist. It's his story; you're only occupying his space.
And finally, I'd like to say your insightful philosophical musings are greatly valuable to me as a writer. When I started reading Swann's Way for the first time, I had no idea that it would profoundly influence my writing. You, along with Virginia and Italo Calvino, changed my writing from a caterpillar to a butterfly. And I'm grateful to you for that. While these reflections play on my mind, I stare at the sea; my heart fills with a deeper sense of gratitude. At the same time, the realization that now I must part with your seven-volume masterpiece, which served as an instructor to me for the past three years, fills me with melancholy. It's not a permanent separation; I have them all securely stored in my Kindle. But even though I might go through their pages once again in search of lost time, can it truly be regained? Wouldn't time prevent me from evoking the same sensations? I won't be the same person I am now. We grow. Age catches up. Nothing will stay the same, for as you so wisely say, time effaces everything.
More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/
March 1, 2019
Τελειώνοντας αυτό το έργο των χιλιάδων σελίδων αποκλείεται να είσαι ο ίδιος άνθρωπος, αυτός που ήσουν, όταν με δέος και άγνοια ξεκίνησες να μπαίνεις στον σκληρό κόσμο των ναρκωτικών του Προύστ.
Είναι πραγματικά αρρωστημένος εθισμός η γραφή του σαν τον κρυφό, απαράδεκτο, έντονο,παράνομο, διεισδυτικό, απαιτητικό, κτητικό, δοτικό, παθιασμένο, ξετσίπωτο και υπερτέλειο έρωτα, σε μια σχέση ζωής, σε μια θυελλώδη και εκφυλιστική σχέση αγάπης που σε ανανεώνει, σε θρέφει, με την νομοτέλεια του απαράβατου ερωτισμού.
Σε ταΐζει με ηδονή, προβλήματα, δάκρυα, τρέλα, απόγνωση, πόνο, πάθος και ατελείωτη απογοήτευση. Και φαίνεται πως το θέλεις, βυθίζεσαι, λαχταράς να παραδίνεις τον εαυτό σου σε αυτά τα μαρτύρια ψυχής και σώματος. Διότι καλύτερα να πεθάνεις χρονικά ή ολοκληρωτικά απο αγάπη παρά να μην αγαπήσεις καθόλου.
Και κάπως έτσι, μάλλον ακριβώς έτσι, αναζητάς τον χαμένο χρόνο.
Η αποστολή του Προύστ δεν είναι συμβατή με τον χρόνο και την εξερεύνηση του.
Σκοπός του είναι να εξετάσει πως αλλάζουν τα ανθρώπινα όντα σε σχέση με το παρελθόν τους και τις νοσταλγικές τους μνήμες. Πως η θύμηση, η προσμονή, η απαντοχή, η πλησμονή, η έλλειψη, οι αισθήσεις και η πραγματικότητα, παίζουν κρυφτό πάνω στην ανθρώπινη συνείδηση.
Για να εκτιμήσουμε τον υπέρ ευαίσθητο και υπέρ συναισθηματικό Προύστ θα πρέπει αναγκαστικά να διανύσουμε χιλιάδες χιλιόμετρα σελίδων.
Πάνω σε αυτά ακριβώς που έχει χαράξει την παλινδρομική του πορεία.
Επομένως το μήκος του μυθιστορήματ��ς απο την αφετηρία εως το τέρμα είναι μια πρόκληση ζωής, με σκοπό να επενδύσουμε ένα σημαντικό μέρος του δικού μας Χρόνου, για να συμμετάσχουμε σε αυτήν την Προυστικού καιρού ανυπέρβλητη και θριαμβευτική οδύσσεια.
Η οδύσσεια τούτη απαιτεί τη δική μας συμμετοχή και τον χρόνο μας προσπαθώντας μέσα απο τον νόστο του εαυτού μας να «ανακτήσει» τον Δικό του Χρόνο.
Θα καταλήξουμε στην Ιθάκη ή θα χαθούμε στο ταξίδι μας προς τα Κύθηρα;
Κανείς δεν επιστρέφει όταν φύγει μακριά, προς το φως, κανείς δεν περιμένει όταν μείνει στην σκιά, που τείνει να βυθιστεί στο σκοτάδι.
Επομένως η πράξη της ανάγνωσης είναι μέρος της ιστορίας αυτού του έργου.
Και κάπου εδώ με απέραντη χαρά και ανυπολόγιστη θλίψη τελείωσε η αναζήτηση και, ίσως, επήλθε η ανάκτηση του δικού μου Χρόνου μέσα απο άλλους, νέους και αιώνιους, ατέλειωτους χρονικούς διαδρόμους απογείωσης προς τα εσωτερικά τα βαθιά, τα σκοτεινά ταξίδια της συνείδησης χαμένων εαυτών που δεν αγαπήθηκαν όσο έπρεπε.
Μια φορά χαμένου χρόνου κι έναν καιρό που τον έλεγαν εθισμό ζούσε το παρελθόν που δεν υπήρχε, το παρόν που χανόταν διότι έψαχνε να βρει το μελλοντικό παρελθόν και το μέλλον που μας χλεύαζε επιδεικτικά διότι γνώριζε πότε θα τελειώσει αλλά δεν θα το μαρτυρούσε ποτέ και σε κανέναν.
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
*Ό,τι γράφτηκε παραπάνω αποτελεί προσωπική άποψη με
συναισθηματική έξαρση προερχόμενη απο την ολοκλήρωση αυτού του τιτανομέγιστου έργου.
Σε καμία περίπτωση δεν είναι κριτική ή σχολιασμός για την αναζήτηση του ανακτημένου χρόνου.
Να έγραφα κριτική;;;;;
Θα αστειεύεστε βέβαια.
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς!!
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
ΥΣ. Δεν χρειάζεται να είσαι πρύτανης πανεπιστημίου για να διαβάσεις αυτό το μοναδικό και ανεπανάληπτο αριστούργημα.
Είναι πραγματικά αρρωστημένος εθισμός η γραφή του σαν τον κρυφό, απαράδεκτο, έντονο,παράνομο, διεισδυτικό, απαιτητικό, κτητικό, δοτικό, παθιασμένο, ξετσίπωτο και υπερτέλειο έρωτα, σε μια σχέση ζωής, σε μια θυελλώδη και εκφυλιστική σχέση αγάπης που σε ανανεώνει, σε θρέφει, με την νομοτέλεια του απαράβατου ερωτισμού.
Σε ταΐζει με ηδονή, προβλήματα, δάκρυα, τρέλα, απόγνωση, πόνο, πάθος και ατελείωτη απογοήτευση. Και φαίνεται πως το θέλεις, βυθίζεσαι, λαχταράς να παραδίνεις τον εαυτό σου σε αυτά τα μαρτύρια ψυχής και σώματος. Διότι καλύτερα να πεθάνεις χρονικά ή ολοκληρωτικά απο αγάπη παρά να μην αγαπήσεις καθόλου.
Και κάπως έτσι, μάλλον ακριβώς έτσι, αναζητάς τον χαμένο χρόνο.
Η αποστολή του Προύστ δεν είναι συμβατή με τον χρόνο και την εξερεύνηση του.
Σκοπός του είναι να εξετάσει πως αλλάζουν τα ανθρώπινα όντα σε σχέση με το παρελθόν τους και τις νοσταλγικές τους μνήμες. Πως η θύμηση, η προσμονή, η απαντοχή, η πλησμονή, η έλλειψη, οι αισθήσεις και η πραγματικότητα, παίζουν κρυφτό πάνω στην ανθρώπινη συνείδηση.
Για να εκτιμήσουμε τον υπέρ ευαίσθητο και υπέρ συναισθηματικό Προύστ θα πρέπει αναγκαστικά να διανύσουμε χιλιάδες χιλιόμετρα σελίδων.
Πάνω σε αυτά ακριβώς που έχει χαράξει την παλινδρομική του πορεία.
Επομένως το μήκος του μυθιστορήματ��ς απο την αφετηρία εως το τέρμα είναι μια πρόκληση ζωής, με σκοπό να επενδύσουμε ένα σημαντικό μέρος του δικού μας Χρόνου, για να συμμετάσχουμε σε αυτήν την Προυστικού καιρού ανυπέρβλητη και θριαμβευτική οδύσσεια.
Η οδύσσεια τούτη απαιτεί τη δική μας συμμετοχή και τον χρόνο μας προσπαθώντας μέσα απο τον νόστο του εαυτού μας να «ανακτήσει» τον Δικό του Χρόνο.
Θα καταλήξουμε στην Ιθάκη ή θα χαθούμε στο ταξίδι μας προς τα Κύθηρα;
Κανείς δεν επιστρέφει όταν φύγει μακριά, προς το φως, κανείς δεν περιμένει όταν μείνει στην σκιά, που τείνει να βυθιστεί στο σκοτάδι.
Επομένως η πράξη της ανάγνωσης είναι μέρος της ιστορίας αυτού του έργου.
Και κάπου εδώ με απέραντη χαρά και ανυπολόγιστη θλίψη τελείωσε η αναζήτηση και, ίσως, επήλθε η ανάκτηση του δικού μου Χρόνου μέσα απο άλλους, νέους και αιώνιους, ατέλειωτους χρονικούς διαδρόμους απογείωσης προς τα εσωτερικά τα βαθιά, τα σκοτεινά ταξίδια της συνείδησης χαμένων εαυτών που δεν αγαπήθηκαν όσο έπρεπε.
Μια φορά χαμένου χρόνου κι έναν καιρό που τον έλεγαν εθισμό ζούσε το παρελθόν που δεν υπήρχε, το παρόν που χανόταν διότι έψαχνε να βρει το μελλοντικό παρελθόν και το μέλλον που μας χλεύαζε επιδεικτικά διότι γνώριζε πότε θα τελειώσει αλλά δεν θα το μαρτυρούσε ποτέ και σε κανέναν.
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
*Ό,τι γράφτηκε παραπάνω αποτελεί προσωπική άποψη με
συναισθηματική έξαρση προερχόμενη απο την ολοκλήρωση αυτού του τιτανομέγιστου έργου.
Σε καμία περίπτωση δεν είναι κριτική ή σχολιασμός για την αναζήτηση του ανακτημένου χρόνου.
Να έγραφα κριτική;;;;;
Θα αστειεύεστε βέβαια.
Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς!!
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
ΥΣ. Δεν χρειάζεται να είσαι πρύτανης πανεπιστημίου για να διαβάσεις αυτό το μοναδικό και ανεπανάληπτο αριστούργημα.
September 28, 2020
"في الحقيقة كل قارىء عندما يقرأ هو قارئ نفسه. وما كتاب الكاتب إلّا نوع من الأدوات البصرية التي يقدمها للقارئ كي يتيح له أن يستوعب ما لم يره هو وحده، لولا هذا الكتاب."
قبل ما يقارب الأربع سنوات بحثت عن رواية "بحثاً عن الزمن المفقود" رائعة مارسيل بروست، بحثت عنها في الكثير من المكتبات والمواقع الإلكترونية، إلّا أنني لم أجدها، وأصطدم دائماً بالرد المكرر: "أُغلقت دار النشر التي أصدرتها ولم تعد تتوفر في المكتبات للشراء". حاولت البحث عنها بصيغة الـ pdf وفعلاً وجدتها لكنه كان مشروعاً فاشلاً فلم أستطع تجاوز أول خمسين صفحة. وتراجع حلم قرائتها وتوارى بعيداً. وحين أعلنت دار الجمل نهاية العام الماضي عن مشروعها لإعادة طباعة ونشر هذه الرائعة تجد الأمل بالحصول عليها وقرائتها، وكان هذا ما حدث بالفعل.
لا أستطيع أن أصدق بأني أنهيت سباعية مارسيل بروست الخالدة، شرعت في قرائتها بداية هذا العام وجعلتها مشروعاً طويل الأمد، ولم أضع له وقت نهاية فهي تختلف عن غيرها من الأعمال الأخرى التي قرأتها في حياتي كلها وربما –ما سأقرؤه لاحقاً-، فهي مرهقة ومُجهدة بجملها الطويلة بدون فواصل ولا انتهاء، رواية تستنزف القدرة على الاستمرارية في القراءة لوقت طويل، فلم يكن باستطاعتي أن اقرأ في اليوم الواحد أكثر من 50 صفحة. عدا عن التوقفات الكثيرة عند العديد من الجمل، فلا يمكن أن أمرّ عليها سريعاً!
لا يمكنني تخيّل أي عقل عبقري فذّ تمكّن من خلق تحفة فريدة كهذه، رواية عصيّة على النسيان، عصيّة على الوصف كذلك. جعلني بروست أتماهى مع الراوي في رحلة بحثه عن إجابات متعلّقة بالحياة والوجود. شخصيات كثيرة معقّدة. شبكة الزمن والذكريات التي تنفلت منّا ثم نعود للإمساك بها واستعادتها في صراع متكرر مع الزمن. أسئلة عن الحب والفن والذكريات والحرب والعلاقات المتشابكة.
ونحن في ملحمة بروست هذه نقرأ أنفسنا وكل ما يعتمل فيها من أحاسيس وعواطف وذكريات.
"لا شيء أكثر إيلاماً من ذلك التعارض بين تغيّر البشر وثبات الذكرى."
--------
وفي ختام هذه الملحمة الفريدة يقول بروست:
"إن الأزمنة التي عاشوها متباينة جداً، وتخلّلتها أيام وأيام عبر الزمان."
...
August 29, 2021
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یاد یک تصویر چیزی جز حسرت یک لحظه نیست، و افسوس که خانهها، راهها، خیابانها، هم چون سالها گریزانند.
🕰
... چون که شاید میشد از این گرایش چنین نتیجه بگیرم که زندگی به ما میآموزد که برای ادبیات کمتر ارزش قائل باشیم و نشانمان میدهد که آنچه نویسنده از آن دم میزند چندان ارزشی ندارد؛ اما این نتیجهگیری را هم میتوانستم بکنم که برعکس ادبیات به ما میآموزد که به زندگی بیشتر ارزش بدهیم، ارزشی که خود نتوانستیم درک کنیم و تنها به یاری کتاب میفهمیم که چقدر عظیم بوده است.
🕰
از پاراگراف بالا که در جلد آخر آمده، میشه نتیجه گرفت که چقدر ادبیات تو زندگیهامون نقش پررنگی داره و این کاملا قابل درکه. جلد آخر هم به پایان رسید... از اینکه این مجموعه رو خوندم خیلی خوشحالم و واقعا برام دستاورد و تجربهی خوبی بود. جلد آخر رو خیلی دوست داشتم و حتما اگر فرصت بشه دوباره بازخوانیش میکنم. اهمیتی که پروست به هنر و ادبیات داده در این جلد خیلی ملموس تره. چیزی که برام خیلی جالب بود عقیدش در مورد مقایسهی جهان خودمون و جهانهای بسیاری که در اطرافمون از آدمهای مختلف شاهدش هستیم، جهانهایی که به افراد دیگری تعلق دارند که همه در نهایت باهم متفاوتند، به نظرم باید این دید عمیق و زیبا رو مدیون ادبیات باشیم و امیدوارم که خودم بیشتر از قبل بتونم این موضوع رو درک و هضم کنم... عمر هنر دراز و زندگی کوتاه است.
یاد یک تصویر چیزی جز حسرت یک لحظه نیست، و افسوس که خانهها، راهها، خیابانها، هم چون سالها گریزانند.
🕰
... چون که شاید میشد از این گرایش چنین نتیجه بگیرم که زندگی به ما میآموزد که برای ادبیات کمتر ارزش قائل باشیم و نشانمان میدهد که آنچه نویسنده از آن دم میزند چندان ارزشی ندارد؛ اما این نتیجهگیری را هم میتوانستم بکنم که برعکس ادبیات به ما میآموزد که به زندگی بیشتر ارزش بدهیم، ارزشی که خود نتوانستیم درک کنیم و تنها به یاری کتاب میفهمیم که چقدر عظیم بوده است.
🕰
از پاراگراف بالا که در جلد آخر آمده، میشه نتیجه گرفت که چقدر ادبیات تو زندگیهامون نقش پررنگی داره و این کاملا قابل درکه. جلد آخر هم به پایان رسید... از اینکه این مجموعه رو خوندم خیلی خوشحالم و واقعا برام دستاورد و تجربهی خوبی بود. جلد آخر رو خیلی دوست داشتم و حتما اگر فرصت بشه دوباره بازخوانیش میکنم. اهمیتی که پروست به هنر و ادبیات داده در این جلد خیلی ملموس تره. چیزی که برام خیلی جالب بود عقیدش در مورد مقایسهی جهان خودمون و جهانهای بسیاری که در اطرافمون از آدمهای مختلف شاهدش هستیم، جهانهایی که به افراد دیگری تعلق دارند که همه در نهایت باهم متفاوتند، به نظرم باید این دید عمیق و زیبا رو مدیون ادبیات باشیم و امیدوارم که خودم بیشتر از قبل بتونم این موضوع رو درک و هضم کنم... عمر هنر دراز و زندگی کوتاه است.
March 6, 2022
“And like an aviator who rolls painfully along the ground until, abruptly, he breaks away from it, I felt myself being slowly lifted towards the silent peaks of memory.”
In Time Regained, the final installment of Marcel Proust's epic In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust's attention focuses on both the world left behind at the end of WWI (and how it compares to his memory of that world) and increasingly whether he can accomplish his literary ambitions. With each volume, I felt more and more immersed in Proust's milieu. and his mind And up until Time Regained, it felt like Proust had all the time in the world at his disposal.
Even as Proust presents moments in time nearly as a series of paintings or a slow-moving river, there is a sense of urgency here. Marcel is in a race with death to complete his masterpiece. Swann's Way and Guermantes Way come full circle. Some of the pivotal characters are gone, but some, including his servant from childhood, Francoise, is still here, almost blind but helping her young master pin up his manuscript pages. I wondered, when I had finished the book, how or whether it had actually ended. Such a fantastic conclusion! It nearly felt like the right thing to do would be to start again from the beginning, but...not today!
“For although we know that the years pass, that youth gives way to old age, that fortunes and thrones crumble (even the most solid among them) and that fame is transitory, the manner in which—by means of a sort of snapshot—we take cognisance of this moving universe whirled along by Time, has the contrary effect of immobilising it.”
In Time Regained, the final installment of Marcel Proust's epic In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust's attention focuses on both the world left behind at the end of WWI (and how it compares to his memory of that world) and increasingly whether he can accomplish his literary ambitions. With each volume, I felt more and more immersed in Proust's milieu. and his mind And up until Time Regained, it felt like Proust had all the time in the world at his disposal.
Even as Proust presents moments in time nearly as a series of paintings or a slow-moving river, there is a sense of urgency here. Marcel is in a race with death to complete his masterpiece. Swann's Way and Guermantes Way come full circle. Some of the pivotal characters are gone, but some, including his servant from childhood, Francoise, is still here, almost blind but helping her young master pin up his manuscript pages. I wondered, when I had finished the book, how or whether it had actually ended. Such a fantastic conclusion! It nearly felt like the right thing to do would be to start again from the beginning, but...not today!
“For although we know that the years pass, that youth gives way to old age, that fortunes and thrones crumble (even the most solid among them) and that fame is transitory, the manner in which—by means of a sort of snapshot—we take cognisance of this moving universe whirled along by Time, has the contrary effect of immobilising it.”
August 5, 2025
من تسلیم شدم.
این چند ماهی که با پروست گذروندم، جزو بهترین لحظههای زندگیم بود. بالاخره اون "بهترین کتاب زندگیم" رو پیدا کردم و از خط به خطش لذت بردم.
دوست داشتم یه ریویوی مفصل و زیبا واسه خودم بنویسم که بعدا با خوندنش به یاد بیارم که چرا شیفتهی پروست شدم. حقیقت اینه که من خیلی حرف راجع به این مجموعه دارم. واقعا میتونم ساعتها راجع بهش حرف بزنم و ستایشش کنم ولی کلمهها توی سرم گره خوردن و نمیتونم به جمله تبدیلشون کنم و امروز با مرور خلاصهی آخر تمام جلدها، متوجه شدم که هیچوقت نخواهم تونست. برای همینه که تسلیم شدم.
فقط میتونم تمام لحظات زندگی واقعیم که مشغول خوندن این مجموعه بودم (توی تاریکی، نااُمیدی، خوشحالیهای بزرگ، جنگ، بیماری، حملههای اضطراب، دلخوشی...) و لحظاتی که توی این مجموعه زندگی کردم (کلیساها، کنار دریا، محافل رقص، پاریس، باز هم جنگ...) رو در اعماق قلبم حفظ کنم و هر بار با یادآوریشون لبخند بزنم و قلبم تندتر بتپه.
من هیچوقت کتابی رو دو بار نخوندم و همیشه اینجوری بودم که وقتی میتونم کتابهای جدید و دنیاهای جدید رو کشف کنم، چرا باید به یه دنیای تکراری برگردم. ولی قطعا و حتما چند سال دیگه این مجموعه رو دوباره بازخوانی میکنم. از اولین خط تا آخرین خط.
این مجموعه برای من [به قول آقای اخوت] تبدیل به مجموعه دلی شده. مجموعهای که هیچوقت ازش رهایی نخواهم داشت. هیچوقت!😭🩵✨️
این چند ماهی که با پروست گذروندم، جزو بهترین لحظههای زندگیم بود. بالاخره اون "بهترین کتاب زندگیم" رو پیدا کردم و از خط به خطش لذت بردم.
دوست داشتم یه ریویوی مفصل و زیبا واسه خودم بنویسم که بعدا با خوندنش به یاد بیارم که چرا شیفتهی پروست شدم. حقیقت اینه که من خیلی حرف راجع به این مجموعه دارم. واقعا میتونم ساعتها راجع بهش حرف بزنم و ستایشش کنم ولی کلمهها توی سرم گره خوردن و نمیتونم به جمله تبدیلشون کنم و امروز با مرور خلاصهی آخر تمام جلدها، متوجه شدم که هیچوقت نخواهم تونست. برای همینه که تسلیم شدم.
فقط میتونم تمام لحظات زندگی واقعیم که مشغول خوندن این مجموعه بودم (توی تاریکی، نااُمیدی، خوشحالیهای بزرگ، جنگ، بیماری، حملههای اضطراب، دلخوشی...) و لحظاتی که توی این مجموعه زندگی کردم (کلیساها، کنار دریا، محافل رقص، پاریس، باز هم جنگ...) رو در اعماق قلبم حفظ کنم و هر بار با یادآوریشون لبخند بزنم و قلبم تندتر بتپه.
من هیچوقت کتابی رو دو بار نخوندم و همیشه اینجوری بودم که وقتی میتونم کتابهای جدید و دنیاهای جدید رو کشف کنم، چرا باید به یه دنیای تکراری برگردم. ولی قطعا و حتما چند سال دیگه این مجموعه رو دوباره بازخوانی میکنم. از اولین خط تا آخرین خط.
این مجموعه برای من [به قول آقای اخوت] تبدیل به مجموعه دلی شده. مجموعهای که هیچوقت ازش رهایی نخواهم داشت. هیچوقت!😭🩵✨️
June 15, 2022
60th book of 2022.
Six volumes of Proust's novel, the longest novel ever written, lead to this point. Sadly, Proust never edited a single volume after Vol. 4 because he finally died in 1922 in Paris. His brother oversaw the publication of the final three volumes. In Vol. 7 Proust finally begins to ruminate on why he decided to dedicate his already sickly life to such a long novel. He began in 1909: thirteen years of his life. In some ways, and Proust also confirms this in many other ways, this is a giant autobiography. It is the autobiography of a sickly man, of his failings in love, his sadness and his success. The entire thing spins from that first madeleine taste, that goodnight kiss. It begins to circle back to those early moments and the word Combray, reappearing again and again, as Marcel (narrator) casts his mind back. I thought it would be predictable if I gave the final volume 5-stars, and presumed I would inevitably be blown over by it, if not simply because I finished the whole thing. The final volume is good, the best passages are when Proust turns his attention to Lost Time and his reasons for writing, the reasons why anyone writes, the meaning of the very process of writing. I was going to share some quotes but I wondered if it was worth spoiling a single line of this volume when it could take someone so long to get to it. So maybe I won't.
Paris is presently hot. The last few months I have been reading a lot of Proust so I could finish it here in the city. As it turns out, on the days where I wasn't falling asleep before I got into the apartment on my feet, I managed to read some good chunks. On the final morning, before walking to the Metro to take us to the Père Lachaise Cemetery, I read almost to the end. I slid the novel into my bag with just two pages unread. I decided I would squat/sit in front of Proust's very tomb in the Cemetery and read the final two pages of his novel there, before the man himself. The Metro line 2 took us overground towards Père Lachaise Cemetery. We walked the cemetery's quiet cobbled paths. It was about eleven o'clock in the morning and the sun was just starting to pinpoint its way between the leaves of the trees. It was as if we were walking through a forest and not a cemetery. We saw Colette's tomb, Jim Morrison's, Oscar Wilde's, Gertrude Stein's, Chopin's, Honoré de Balzac's. At last we came to Proust's. It was not directly facing a main path. I had to step towards it. There were flowers thrown onto it and a small note written in Spanish. I used my phone to translate it (perhaps very poorly), 'Thanks for recovering lost time to several bugs from multiple latitudes.' His tomb was simple. I finished the book there on my haunches and put it back into my bag. Afterwards, we walked south down Boulevard de Ménilmontant and fell into a café-restaurant. Our table had a typewriter in the middle of it. We all ate burgers and beer, the walls of Père Lachaise just outside the thrown-open doors. L. asked me if I felt changed, if Proust had changed my life as sometimes people often say he does. She asked me what I felt like. I replied as honestly as I could and answered, Relieved. I felt no great epiphany, no tears came to my eyes from the sheer beauty or majesty of the novel, I felt simply content; I also felt surreal, as if there was another volume, as if it would continue for the rest of my life, as if there would always be another volume, every time I thought I was nearly finished, so I became a sort of Sisyphus. And, drinking the last gulp of beer and stepping back onto Boulevard de Ménilmontant, I realised that perhaps that was my grand epiphany, that I would be reading Proust for the rest of my life, that he would remain unfinished, constant, endless, immortal.
Me, this morning (13/06/22), closing the final page of In Search of Lost Time before Proust's tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.
Other Proust related pictures from my time in the city.
Six volumes of Proust's novel, the longest novel ever written, lead to this point. Sadly, Proust never edited a single volume after Vol. 4 because he finally died in 1922 in Paris. His brother oversaw the publication of the final three volumes. In Vol. 7 Proust finally begins to ruminate on why he decided to dedicate his already sickly life to such a long novel. He began in 1909: thirteen years of his life. In some ways, and Proust also confirms this in many other ways, this is a giant autobiography. It is the autobiography of a sickly man, of his failings in love, his sadness and his success. The entire thing spins from that first madeleine taste, that goodnight kiss. It begins to circle back to those early moments and the word Combray, reappearing again and again, as Marcel (narrator) casts his mind back. I thought it would be predictable if I gave the final volume 5-stars, and presumed I would inevitably be blown over by it, if not simply because I finished the whole thing. The final volume is good, the best passages are when Proust turns his attention to Lost Time and his reasons for writing, the reasons why anyone writes, the meaning of the very process of writing. I was going to share some quotes but I wondered if it was worth spoiling a single line of this volume when it could take someone so long to get to it. So maybe I won't.
Paris is presently hot. The last few months I have been reading a lot of Proust so I could finish it here in the city. As it turns out, on the days where I wasn't falling asleep before I got into the apartment on my feet, I managed to read some good chunks. On the final morning, before walking to the Metro to take us to the Père Lachaise Cemetery, I read almost to the end. I slid the novel into my bag with just two pages unread. I decided I would squat/sit in front of Proust's very tomb in the Cemetery and read the final two pages of his novel there, before the man himself. The Metro line 2 took us overground towards Père Lachaise Cemetery. We walked the cemetery's quiet cobbled paths. It was about eleven o'clock in the morning and the sun was just starting to pinpoint its way between the leaves of the trees. It was as if we were walking through a forest and not a cemetery. We saw Colette's tomb, Jim Morrison's, Oscar Wilde's, Gertrude Stein's, Chopin's, Honoré de Balzac's. At last we came to Proust's. It was not directly facing a main path. I had to step towards it. There were flowers thrown onto it and a small note written in Spanish. I used my phone to translate it (perhaps very poorly), 'Thanks for recovering lost time to several bugs from multiple latitudes.' His tomb was simple. I finished the book there on my haunches and put it back into my bag. Afterwards, we walked south down Boulevard de Ménilmontant and fell into a café-restaurant. Our table had a typewriter in the middle of it. We all ate burgers and beer, the walls of Père Lachaise just outside the thrown-open doors. L. asked me if I felt changed, if Proust had changed my life as sometimes people often say he does. She asked me what I felt like. I replied as honestly as I could and answered, Relieved. I felt no great epiphany, no tears came to my eyes from the sheer beauty or majesty of the novel, I felt simply content; I also felt surreal, as if there was another volume, as if it would continue for the rest of my life, as if there would always be another volume, every time I thought I was nearly finished, so I became a sort of Sisyphus. And, drinking the last gulp of beer and stepping back onto Boulevard de Ménilmontant, I realised that perhaps that was my grand epiphany, that I would be reading Proust for the rest of my life, that he would remain unfinished, constant, endless, immortal.
Me, this morning (13/06/22), closing the final page of In Search of Lost Time before Proust's tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.
Other Proust related pictures from my time in the city.
July 11, 2021
You made it! After 2000 some-odd pages, you made it to the end of La Recherche. Your reward is a breath-taking description of Paris under falling bombs during WW I, one of the most incredible passages that Proust ever wrote, "La Bal des Masques" (The Masked Ball), and an end to the most incredible literary voyage ever attempted by an author. He, like Mozart and Bach, literally died with the pen in his hand finishing his blessed cahiers (notebooks) in a race against death. It is a perfect ending to one of the greatest stories ever put on paper and a worthy finish.
Don't forget to read Jean-Yves Tadie's incredible biography of Proust (available in both French and English), George Painter's biography in two volumes (also translated in French and English) and enjoy the world of Marcel even more.
Don't forget to read Jean-Yves Tadie's incredible biography of Proust (available in both French and English), George Painter's biography in two volumes (also translated in French and English) and enjoy the world of Marcel even more.
February 16, 2023
My ISOLT Mesostic Poem
Note: I started the first volume in the ISOLT series back in 2015. It has taken me nearly 8 years to go full circle to the famous madeleine. Like Proust realizes in “Time Regained”, I am no longer the person who started “Swann’s Way” some years ago, I have become a new person, but no matter how many versions of myself I become until the day I cease to be, one thing will remain a constant, and that is my love and awe for this monumental, unique, extraordinary work of art.
September 27, 2021
Proust is lauded for his pioneering insights into the relationship of the human mind with time. This is when he's his most inspired and dazzling. But I've spoken about that in my reviews of the other parts. What I liked a lot less was -
1) The social climbing. A lot of the book deals with social hierarchies and the jockeying for position. Reading between the lines it's clear Proust himself was something of a social climber. And probably wasted a good deal of time and energy in the pursuit. He's writing about what he knows. Potentially there was a feast of fabulous comedy to be had and sometimes he did find it but mostly I found his tapestries of social snobbery boring.
2) Love. Proust also has a lot to say about love. Or rather he talks about love a lot. I found it's usually when he's at his most irritating. He isn't the great seer on love he parades himself as. In life one might say there is active love and imaginative love. Proust is knowledgably incisive about imaginative love (desire and jealousy essentially) but knows next to nothing about active love. So when he makes these sweeping statements about the nature of love he sometimes sounds like the drunk at a dinner party. He's also oddly disparaging of same sex love. If there was irony I missed it. (And not only can he seem a homophobic homosexual he also veers close to being an anti-semitic Jew.)
3) The biggest problem of all I have with Proust is I don't like the way he constructs his sentences. Too often for me they're like overpacked suitcases. You have sit on them with all your weight to get them to close. In part no doubt because I can't read him in French and because my intellect isn't quite up to the task of always following him. For me it never again reached the dizzying heights of book one with Swann and Odette.
1) The social climbing. A lot of the book deals with social hierarchies and the jockeying for position. Reading between the lines it's clear Proust himself was something of a social climber. And probably wasted a good deal of time and energy in the pursuit. He's writing about what he knows. Potentially there was a feast of fabulous comedy to be had and sometimes he did find it but mostly I found his tapestries of social snobbery boring.
2) Love. Proust also has a lot to say about love. Or rather he talks about love a lot. I found it's usually when he's at his most irritating. He isn't the great seer on love he parades himself as. In life one might say there is active love and imaginative love. Proust is knowledgably incisive about imaginative love (desire and jealousy essentially) but knows next to nothing about active love. So when he makes these sweeping statements about the nature of love he sometimes sounds like the drunk at a dinner party. He's also oddly disparaging of same sex love. If there was irony I missed it. (And not only can he seem a homophobic homosexual he also veers close to being an anti-semitic Jew.)
3) The biggest problem of all I have with Proust is I don't like the way he constructs his sentences. Too often for me they're like overpacked suitcases. You have sit on them with all your weight to get them to close. In part no doubt because I can't read him in French and because my intellect isn't quite up to the task of always following him. For me it never again reached the dizzying heights of book one with Swann and Odette.
June 3, 2023
ces dernières pages, une des plus belles lectures de ma vie
July 8, 2017
My clearest memory of reading Swann's Way consists of pouring over one of the large illustrations, softly colored and darkly lit and so much more interesting than the Biomaterials lecture I was sitting in, an aisle-edged seat that necessitated swift cover ups from the professor's gaze as well as ensured a swift getaway at the ring of the bell. Now, I am at the close of eleven months on, more than three hundred miles away from the beginning and likely to never join in on such a high and mighty science lecture ever again. Older, and wiser, I would hope, but as the latter lacks as much concreteness that stuffs the former to a painfully nostalgic brim, I will leave it to others to determine that particular note.
I had been wondering whether I would need two reviews, one for the parcel and one for the whole, but this is Proust. Forty two hundred pages and counting, an author that died before the work had ripened into a fully snipped and spliced together piece, and still it all comes together. The color, the music, the people, the literature, the feverish thralls of machinated society culminating at long last in war, Paris' own Pompeii. And Time. Always Time.
I will still put something down for the megalodon of the complete edition, but later, I think. I think, in that I will leave it to Time to determine whether it is truly necessary or right to an attempt an encompassing of my first experience in Searching for Lost Time, a Time spent alongside my own Time so full of turmoil, temperament, and translation. French and I did not part on the best of terms after so many years of it being just another grindstone for my unwilling youth, but I still remember. And after this work, I begin to wonder, if it would not perhaps be worth it. For Le deuxième sexe, for Les Misérables, for this. That question I will leave to Time as well, for unlike the narrator finally embarking on his composition at the end of so many pages, that I have in plenty.
I didn't used to think so. Decide your career at 17, obtain a career at 21, work at said career for the rest of your life. It wasn't so long ago that books seemed the only future left to my own true volition, and I still find myself speeding ahead into the void if I'm not too careful. The thing about writing is the cultivation of it; a reading here, a friendship there, a life that does not require a filled résumé to be worthy of script. The path I am walking now is slower, but surer, and the beauty found in its natural growth of passionate productivity is all its own. I am not so set in the concept of interchangeability of people and places as Proust, but I do see the wisdom in living for the sake of living, letting the gardens grow without worrying too much about the resulting opus.
If you wish to write: read, watch, listen, think, live. A piece here, a piece there, when the spirit takes you. Look for beauty, look for hypocrisy, look for the intersection of details in reality, memory, and iridescent mist that lies between. Mind your illusions, but also love them, for as long as you are able. Find your niche, pursue your instincts, and no one will be able to say that your Time has been wasted. Every so often, cast your line back, far back into that cloaking brilliance and those soft-edged shadows, and wonder.
Thank you, Proustitute, for your leadership as both coordinator and titular figurehead of the most witty sort. Thank you Kalliope, Aloha, Kris, for your efforts within the group as well as without. Thank you one and all for every like, every comment, every spur onward towards this final conclusion, the culminating finality of the first journey through word, through page, through volume, through Proust. Much has changed since that first library check out of that first ponderous edition, and much remains the same. The entirety of all that is what this reading experience has given me, that which will play out for the rest of my days as both influence and insight and whatever saying that one has read the entirety of ISoLT is worth in the world these days. Not much to most, quite a bit to those who count, and most importantly, however I see fit to me. And I see fit to value it very, very much.
I know that I am far too quick in my finishing for most, so for those in the midst, those in the beginning, those on the cusp of finishing, those who have finished within the last month or so and still bear the flitting of certain pages on the borders of that electric spitfire of the brain, those who made their last way long ago enough to be thinking on another journey. Those who are halted partway, those who view with trepidation, those who have yet to come. Good luck, good reading, good living. Come for the reputation, come for the incentive, come for the love of others past, present, future. Proust is not perfect, but by god he is something special.
I had been wondering whether I would need two reviews, one for the parcel and one for the whole, but this is Proust. Forty two hundred pages and counting, an author that died before the work had ripened into a fully snipped and spliced together piece, and still it all comes together. The color, the music, the people, the literature, the feverish thralls of machinated society culminating at long last in war, Paris' own Pompeii. And Time. Always Time.
I will still put something down for the megalodon of the complete edition, but later, I think. I think, in that I will leave it to Time to determine whether it is truly necessary or right to an attempt an encompassing of my first experience in Searching for Lost Time, a Time spent alongside my own Time so full of turmoil, temperament, and translation. French and I did not part on the best of terms after so many years of it being just another grindstone for my unwilling youth, but I still remember. And after this work, I begin to wonder, if it would not perhaps be worth it. For Le deuxième sexe, for Les Misérables, for this. That question I will leave to Time as well, for unlike the narrator finally embarking on his composition at the end of so many pages, that I have in plenty.
I didn't used to think so. Decide your career at 17, obtain a career at 21, work at said career for the rest of your life. It wasn't so long ago that books seemed the only future left to my own true volition, and I still find myself speeding ahead into the void if I'm not too careful. The thing about writing is the cultivation of it; a reading here, a friendship there, a life that does not require a filled résumé to be worthy of script. The path I am walking now is slower, but surer, and the beauty found in its natural growth of passionate productivity is all its own. I am not so set in the concept of interchangeability of people and places as Proust, but I do see the wisdom in living for the sake of living, letting the gardens grow without worrying too much about the resulting opus.
If you wish to write: read, watch, listen, think, live. A piece here, a piece there, when the spirit takes you. Look for beauty, look for hypocrisy, look for the intersection of details in reality, memory, and iridescent mist that lies between. Mind your illusions, but also love them, for as long as you are able. Find your niche, pursue your instincts, and no one will be able to say that your Time has been wasted. Every so often, cast your line back, far back into that cloaking brilliance and those soft-edged shadows, and wonder.
Fragments of existence withdrawn from Time: these then were perhaps what the being three times, four times brought back to life within me had just now tasted, but the contemplation, though it was of eternity, had been fugitive. And yet I was vaguely aware that the pleasure which this contemplation had, at rare intervals, given me in my life, was the only genuine and fruitful pleasure that I had known.I do not agree with everything Proust has said, but what I do is of immense value and phenomenal insight. I do not view my loves the way Proust did, but much of it I recognize in parts of pain and parcels of profundity, and will color my effects forever on. Ever so often I snorted and sneered at his pompous pratfalls, and more times than I can count was I lost in a rapture of sight, of sound, of trains of lines of letters flitting this way and that over coursing streams of thought and form and sometimes, sometimes, the very soul of a name, a place, a pleasure. I have spent a longer length of effort in his pages than I have with any other author, a plunge that was in no way previously prepared for to any practical extent. Fifteen hundred and fifty-six people there are now in '2013: The Year of Reading Proust' group, and the percent I've interacted with is a mere smidgen of a handful of a precious few. I am a poor player in the daily discussion realm, but I do hope that my small contribution of reviews have helped.
Thank you, Proustitute, for your leadership as both coordinator and titular figurehead of the most witty sort. Thank you Kalliope, Aloha, Kris, for your efforts within the group as well as without. Thank you one and all for every like, every comment, every spur onward towards this final conclusion, the culminating finality of the first journey through word, through page, through volume, through Proust. Much has changed since that first library check out of that first ponderous edition, and much remains the same. The entirety of all that is what this reading experience has given me, that which will play out for the rest of my days as both influence and insight and whatever saying that one has read the entirety of ISoLT is worth in the world these days. Not much to most, quite a bit to those who count, and most importantly, however I see fit to me. And I see fit to value it very, very much.
I know that I am far too quick in my finishing for most, so for those in the midst, those in the beginning, those on the cusp of finishing, those who have finished within the last month or so and still bear the flitting of certain pages on the borders of that electric spitfire of the brain, those who made their last way long ago enough to be thinking on another journey. Those who are halted partway, those who view with trepidation, those who have yet to come. Good luck, good reading, good living. Come for the reputation, come for the incentive, come for the love of others past, present, future. Proust is not perfect, but by god he is something special.
Sweet Sunday afternoons, beneath the chestnut-tree in our Combray garden, from which I was careful to eliminate every commonplace incident of my actual life, replacing them by a career of strange adventures and ambitions in a land watered by living streams, you still recall those adventures and ambitions to my mind when I think of you, and you embody and preserve them by virtue of having little by little drawn round and enclosed them (which I went on with my book and the heat of the day declined) in the gradual crystallization, slowly altering in form and dappled with a pattern of chestnut-leaves, of your silent, sonorous, fragrant, limpid hours.Adieu, Marcel Proust, adieu. Till we meet again.
-Swann's Way
June 5, 2023
When it comes to Proust’s writing, it’s important to remember that Proust was heavily influenced by the Impressionist painters, including Monet, who Proust calls Elstir in the book. Monet’s renditions of the sea and the sky echo the novel's theme of the mutability of human life. It also explains the extended descriptions that result in long, often poetic sentences, that sometimes can be hard to follow.
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“The true greatness of art is to find, grasp, and bring out that reality which we all live a great distance from; that reality which we run the risk of dying without having known, which is quite simply our own life.”
-Proust
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"Our greatest fears, like our greatest ambitions, are not beyond our strength, and we are able in the end to overcome the one and to realize the other."
-Proust
======
"Time Regained" [an alternative title for the volume] brings together the two themes of the book, ‘Time Lost’ and ‘Time Re-discovered’. The novel’s original title in French, A La Recherché du Temps Perdu translates literally into ‘In Search of Lost Time’, and the phrase ‘lost time’ may be taken to refer both to time which has passed, and time which has been wasted.
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during the WW I blackout in Paris..
The moonlight created effects that are normally unknown in the city, even in the middle of winter; its beams spreading across the snow on the boulevard Haussmann that there was nobody now to shovel away, just as they might have done on a glacier in the Alps. The outlines of the trees were revealed, sharp and pure against the golden-blue snow, with all the delicacy of a Japanese painting or a Raphael background; as shadows, they stretched out over the ground from the very foot of each tree, as one often sees them in the country when the rays of the setting sun flood the meadows, creating reflections of their evenly spaced trees. But by a wonderfully delicate subtlety, the meadows over which these tree shadows, weightless as souls, extended was a paradisal meadow, not green but of a white so dazzling, by virtue of the moonlight which shone on to the jade snow, that it might have been woven entirely from the petals of flowering pear trees. And in the squares, the divinities of the public fountains holding jets of ice in their hands looked like statues made of some twofold material, for whose creation the artist had set out to make a pure marriage of bronze and crystal. On rare days such as these the houses were all completely dark.
But in the spring, on the other hand, every now and then, in defiance of police regulations, a private town house, or just one floor of a house, or even just one room of one floor, not having closed its shutters, appeared, as if independently supported by the impalpable darkness, like a projection of pure light, like an apparition without substance. And the woman whom, lifting up one's eyes, one could make out in that gilded shadow, took on, in this night in which one was lost and in which she too seemed cloistered, the veiled and mysterious charm of an oriental vision.
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In the previous volume, The Fugitive, the Narrator begins a major reassessment of his life, values, and relationships, including his obsession with the late Albertine and the aristocrats he was once so eager to socialize with. This continues in "Finding Time Again."
Robert de Saint-Loup, an aristocrat, erstwhile army officer, and former best friend of the Narrator, gets a fresh assessment with the advance of years.
"Robert had become slimmer and taken to moving more rapidly. This swiftness of movement had, moreover, various psychological causes, the fear of being seen, the wish to conceal that fear, the feverishness which is generated by self-dissatisfaction and boredom. This manner of moving like a gust of wind had become a habit. Perhaps also it symbolized the superficial intrepidity of a man who wants to show that he is not afraid and does not want to give himself time to think.
We must mention too, if our account is to be complete, a desire, the older he grew, to appear young, and also the impatience characteristic of those perpetually bored and perpetually cynical men that people inevitably turn into when they are too intelligent for the relatively idle lives they lead, in which their faculties do not have full play. In these days especially, when physical exercise is so much in favor, there exists also, even outside the actual hours of sport, an athletic form of idleness which finds expression not in inertia but in a feverish vivacity that hopes to leave boredom neither time nor space to develop in."
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For some of us, the worst prospect is for us to become more like a parent. This seems to be Robert's fate....
"I once had an opportunity of observing him at a party and from a distance. I was struck by the great changes taking place in him. More and more he resembled his mother: the haughtily elegant manner which he had inherited from her and which she, by means of the most elaborate training, had perfected in him was now freezing into exaggeration; the penetrating glance proper to him as a Guermantes gave him the air of inspecting every place in which he happened to be. Even when he was at rest, the colouring which he possessed in a greater degree than any other Guermantes—that air of being merely the solidified sunniness of a golden day—gave him as it seemed a plumage so strange, made of him a species so rare and so precious, that one would have liked to acquire him for an ornithological collection; but when, in addition, this ray of light, metamorphosed into a bird, set itself in motion, when for instance I saw Robert de Saint-Loup enter this evening party at which I was present, the way in which he tossed back his head, so silkily and proudly crested with the golden tuft of his slightly moulting hair, and moved his neck from side to side, was so much more supple, so much more aloof and yet more delicate than anything to be expected of a human being that, fired by the sight with curiosity and wonder, half social and half zoological, one asked oneself whether one was really in the Faubourg Saint-Germain and not rather in the Zoological Gardens."
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“For a long time, I went to bed early.” This is the first line in the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, Swann’s Way. Sleep was to remain a theme in Proust’s writing, but it was not a good sell to publishers.
One of the many publishers who rejected his work, responding to the beginning of the novel, wrote:
“I fail to see why a chapter needs 30 pages to describe how he tosses and turns in bed before falling asleep.”
Proust was, indeed, an insomniac and speaks of sleep again in the final volume, Finding Time. Sleep as his master....
“There I stopped, because I was leaving in the morning; and besides it was the hour at which I was customarily claimed by my master in whose service we spend, each day, a large part of our time. The work to which he compels us, we accomplish with our eyes shut. Each morning he returns us to our other master who shares us with him, knowing that, unless he did so, we should be remiss in his own service. Curious, when our intelligence reopens its eyes, to know what we may have done in the house of the master, who has his slaves lie down before putting them so rapidly to work, the shrewdest of them, their task scarcely finished, try to steal a clandestine glance of it.”
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In the first third of this volume, the Baron de Charlus, a wealthy aristocrat, sophisticated, educated and conversant in the arts, is brought to the fore once again. Because of his German heritage, the Baron defends the Boche. He holds forth fatalistically about the conflict. His decadence had already been exposed in volume IV, Sodom and Gomorrah, but he is older now, in bad health and socially isolated.
While wandering around in the dark streets of Paris, finding all the bars closed, the Narrator enters a rather rundown hotel looking for a drink. The lobby is full of young, working class soldiers who are either on furlough or are waiting to be deployed. They are drinking heavily and very boisterous.
The Narrator goes upstairs for some quiet and discovers he has entered the demimonde. The Narrator hears cries of pain, begging, and investigating finds a peep hole where he sees what’s happening. It’s the Baron being whipped, willingly, by young men.
Going back downstairs, the Narrator encounters the proprietor, Jupien, a former tailor and one time lover of the Baron. He takes the Narrator outside and asks for his discretion. Most of clientele are rich aristocrats, they must not be exposed.
Back inside, the Narrator sees the Baron come downstairs, limping, but acting as if nothing happened. The Baron flirts with the young men in the lobby. The Baron has come to a very sad place and will likely die soon.
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[The family butler would make a good Trump supporter. He's out to prove that he's just as smart as the author, although he continues to mispronounce, willfully, many words (e.g "battle-lions" instead of battalions) More to the point, he likes to draw on rumors and hearsay to construct wild conspiracy theories and use them to alarm the other servant, Françoise].
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After the Narrator returns to Paris from another long stay in a sanatorium, which he feels has done nothing for his health, he is, again, full of doubts about having any literary talent. None of the physical beauty he encounters moves him. He has received an invitation to join a gathering at the mansion of the Prince de Guermantes. Entering the courtyard to the Guermantes's house, he dodges an approaching car and steps on some uneven paving stones, triggering the first of a series of epiphanies:
"But at the moment when, regaining my balance, I set my foot down on a stone which was slightly lower than the one next to it, all my discouragement vanished in the face of the same happiness that, at different points in my life, had given me the sight of trees I had thought I recognized when I was taking a drive around Balbec, the sight of the steeples of Martinville, the taste of a madeleine dipped in herb tea, and all the other sensations I have spoken about, and which the last works of Vinteuil had seemed to me to synthesize. Just as at the moment when I tasted the madeleine, all uneasiness about the future and all intellectual doubt were gone. Those that had assailed me a moment earlier about the reality of my intellectual talent, even the reality of literature, were lifted as if by enchantment."
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Inside the Guermantes’ mansion---known as the famous episode of “Le Bal des têtes”(death-masks' ball)---the Narrator encounters many old aristocrats he has not seen for a long time. Now middle-aged himself, he is nevertheless stunned at how these people, who he once knew so well, have aged. Many of them he doesn’t even recognize.
"For a few seconds, I did not understand why it was that I had difficulty in recognizing the master of the house and the guests and why everyone in the room appeared to have put on a disguise—in most cases a powdered wig.... I do not know what young Fezensac had put on his face, but, while others had whitened either half their beard or merely their moustache, he had not bothered to use a dye like the rest but had found some means of covering his features with wrinkles and making his eyebrows sprout with bristles; and all this did not suit him in the least, it had the effect of making his face look hardened, bronzed, rigid and solemn, and aged him to such an extent that one would no longer have said he was a young man at all."
Gradually, The Narrator realizes that these strange, white-haired, wrinkly people are all his old friends and contemporaries and it is not fancy dress or makeup that has changed them but the passage of time.
"The patches of white in beards hitherto entirely black rendered the human landscape of the party somewhat melancholy, like the first yellow leaves on the trees when one is still thinking one can count on a long summer, when before one has started to enjoy it, one sees that it has already turned to autumn."
The next painful insight for the Narrator is the realization that he too has grown old and that in the eyes of the young people at the party he himself is now “an old gentleman.” At one point, he deliberately refers to himself in conversation as “an old man like myself,” in the hope of being contradicted. He is not contradicted and he sees no glimmer of protest in his listeners’ faces.
"And now I began to understand what old age was—old age, which perhaps of all the realities is the one of which we preserve for longest in our life a purely abstract conception, looking at calendars, dating our letters, seeing our friends marry and then in their turn the children of our friends, and yet, either from fear or from sloth, not understanding what all this means ... until the day when a grandson of a woman we once knew, a young man whom instinctively we treat as a contemporary of ours, smiles as though we were making fun of him because to him it seems that we are old enough to be his grandfather."
While here, he experiences several more episodes of involuntary memory in which the past is so vividly re-created, that it becomes indistinguishable from the present. It is this power of involuntary memory that enables him to experience the past, rather than merely to visualize it. These experiences help him discover that the theme he has been searching for is his own life.
Proust must now make a choice between continuing in the social whirl or beginning in earnest on his novel. To the benefit of posterity, he chose his work.
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“The true greatness of art is to find, grasp, and bring out that reality which we all live a great distance from; that reality which we run the risk of dying without having known, which is quite simply our own life.”
-Proust
=============
"Our greatest fears, like our greatest ambitions, are not beyond our strength, and we are able in the end to overcome the one and to realize the other."
-Proust
======
"Time Regained" [an alternative title for the volume] brings together the two themes of the book, ‘Time Lost’ and ‘Time Re-discovered’. The novel’s original title in French, A La Recherché du Temps Perdu translates literally into ‘In Search of Lost Time’, and the phrase ‘lost time’ may be taken to refer both to time which has passed, and time which has been wasted.
=======
during the WW I blackout in Paris..
The moonlight created effects that are normally unknown in the city, even in the middle of winter; its beams spreading across the snow on the boulevard Haussmann that there was nobody now to shovel away, just as they might have done on a glacier in the Alps. The outlines of the trees were revealed, sharp and pure against the golden-blue snow, with all the delicacy of a Japanese painting or a Raphael background; as shadows, they stretched out over the ground from the very foot of each tree, as one often sees them in the country when the rays of the setting sun flood the meadows, creating reflections of their evenly spaced trees. But by a wonderfully delicate subtlety, the meadows over which these tree shadows, weightless as souls, extended was a paradisal meadow, not green but of a white so dazzling, by virtue of the moonlight which shone on to the jade snow, that it might have been woven entirely from the petals of flowering pear trees. And in the squares, the divinities of the public fountains holding jets of ice in their hands looked like statues made of some twofold material, for whose creation the artist had set out to make a pure marriage of bronze and crystal. On rare days such as these the houses were all completely dark.
But in the spring, on the other hand, every now and then, in defiance of police regulations, a private town house, or just one floor of a house, or even just one room of one floor, not having closed its shutters, appeared, as if independently supported by the impalpable darkness, like a projection of pure light, like an apparition without substance. And the woman whom, lifting up one's eyes, one could make out in that gilded shadow, took on, in this night in which one was lost and in which she too seemed cloistered, the veiled and mysterious charm of an oriental vision.
==========
In the previous volume, The Fugitive, the Narrator begins a major reassessment of his life, values, and relationships, including his obsession with the late Albertine and the aristocrats he was once so eager to socialize with. This continues in "Finding Time Again."
Robert de Saint-Loup, an aristocrat, erstwhile army officer, and former best friend of the Narrator, gets a fresh assessment with the advance of years.
"Robert had become slimmer and taken to moving more rapidly. This swiftness of movement had, moreover, various psychological causes, the fear of being seen, the wish to conceal that fear, the feverishness which is generated by self-dissatisfaction and boredom. This manner of moving like a gust of wind had become a habit. Perhaps also it symbolized the superficial intrepidity of a man who wants to show that he is not afraid and does not want to give himself time to think.
We must mention too, if our account is to be complete, a desire, the older he grew, to appear young, and also the impatience characteristic of those perpetually bored and perpetually cynical men that people inevitably turn into when they are too intelligent for the relatively idle lives they lead, in which their faculties do not have full play. In these days especially, when physical exercise is so much in favor, there exists also, even outside the actual hours of sport, an athletic form of idleness which finds expression not in inertia but in a feverish vivacity that hopes to leave boredom neither time nor space to develop in."
==========
For some of us, the worst prospect is for us to become more like a parent. This seems to be Robert's fate....
"I once had an opportunity of observing him at a party and from a distance. I was struck by the great changes taking place in him. More and more he resembled his mother: the haughtily elegant manner which he had inherited from her and which she, by means of the most elaborate training, had perfected in him was now freezing into exaggeration; the penetrating glance proper to him as a Guermantes gave him the air of inspecting every place in which he happened to be. Even when he was at rest, the colouring which he possessed in a greater degree than any other Guermantes—that air of being merely the solidified sunniness of a golden day—gave him as it seemed a plumage so strange, made of him a species so rare and so precious, that one would have liked to acquire him for an ornithological collection; but when, in addition, this ray of light, metamorphosed into a bird, set itself in motion, when for instance I saw Robert de Saint-Loup enter this evening party at which I was present, the way in which he tossed back his head, so silkily and proudly crested with the golden tuft of his slightly moulting hair, and moved his neck from side to side, was so much more supple, so much more aloof and yet more delicate than anything to be expected of a human being that, fired by the sight with curiosity and wonder, half social and half zoological, one asked oneself whether one was really in the Faubourg Saint-Germain and not rather in the Zoological Gardens."
====
“For a long time, I went to bed early.” This is the first line in the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, Swann’s Way. Sleep was to remain a theme in Proust’s writing, but it was not a good sell to publishers.
One of the many publishers who rejected his work, responding to the beginning of the novel, wrote:
“I fail to see why a chapter needs 30 pages to describe how he tosses and turns in bed before falling asleep.”
Proust was, indeed, an insomniac and speaks of sleep again in the final volume, Finding Time. Sleep as his master....
“There I stopped, because I was leaving in the morning; and besides it was the hour at which I was customarily claimed by my master in whose service we spend, each day, a large part of our time. The work to which he compels us, we accomplish with our eyes shut. Each morning he returns us to our other master who shares us with him, knowing that, unless he did so, we should be remiss in his own service. Curious, when our intelligence reopens its eyes, to know what we may have done in the house of the master, who has his slaves lie down before putting them so rapidly to work, the shrewdest of them, their task scarcely finished, try to steal a clandestine glance of it.”
=====
In the first third of this volume, the Baron de Charlus, a wealthy aristocrat, sophisticated, educated and conversant in the arts, is brought to the fore once again. Because of his German heritage, the Baron defends the Boche. He holds forth fatalistically about the conflict. His decadence had already been exposed in volume IV, Sodom and Gomorrah, but he is older now, in bad health and socially isolated.
While wandering around in the dark streets of Paris, finding all the bars closed, the Narrator enters a rather rundown hotel looking for a drink. The lobby is full of young, working class soldiers who are either on furlough or are waiting to be deployed. They are drinking heavily and very boisterous.
The Narrator goes upstairs for some quiet and discovers he has entered the demimonde. The Narrator hears cries of pain, begging, and investigating finds a peep hole where he sees what’s happening. It’s the Baron being whipped, willingly, by young men.
Going back downstairs, the Narrator encounters the proprietor, Jupien, a former tailor and one time lover of the Baron. He takes the Narrator outside and asks for his discretion. Most of clientele are rich aristocrats, they must not be exposed.
Back inside, the Narrator sees the Baron come downstairs, limping, but acting as if nothing happened. The Baron flirts with the young men in the lobby. The Baron has come to a very sad place and will likely die soon.
======
[The family butler would make a good Trump supporter. He's out to prove that he's just as smart as the author, although he continues to mispronounce, willfully, many words (e.g "battle-lions" instead of battalions) More to the point, he likes to draw on rumors and hearsay to construct wild conspiracy theories and use them to alarm the other servant, Françoise].
=========
After the Narrator returns to Paris from another long stay in a sanatorium, which he feels has done nothing for his health, he is, again, full of doubts about having any literary talent. None of the physical beauty he encounters moves him. He has received an invitation to join a gathering at the mansion of the Prince de Guermantes. Entering the courtyard to the Guermantes's house, he dodges an approaching car and steps on some uneven paving stones, triggering the first of a series of epiphanies:
"But at the moment when, regaining my balance, I set my foot down on a stone which was slightly lower than the one next to it, all my discouragement vanished in the face of the same happiness that, at different points in my life, had given me the sight of trees I had thought I recognized when I was taking a drive around Balbec, the sight of the steeples of Martinville, the taste of a madeleine dipped in herb tea, and all the other sensations I have spoken about, and which the last works of Vinteuil had seemed to me to synthesize. Just as at the moment when I tasted the madeleine, all uneasiness about the future and all intellectual doubt were gone. Those that had assailed me a moment earlier about the reality of my intellectual talent, even the reality of literature, were lifted as if by enchantment."
=========
Inside the Guermantes’ mansion---known as the famous episode of “Le Bal des têtes”(death-masks' ball)---the Narrator encounters many old aristocrats he has not seen for a long time. Now middle-aged himself, he is nevertheless stunned at how these people, who he once knew so well, have aged. Many of them he doesn’t even recognize.
"For a few seconds, I did not understand why it was that I had difficulty in recognizing the master of the house and the guests and why everyone in the room appeared to have put on a disguise—in most cases a powdered wig.... I do not know what young Fezensac had put on his face, but, while others had whitened either half their beard or merely their moustache, he had not bothered to use a dye like the rest but had found some means of covering his features with wrinkles and making his eyebrows sprout with bristles; and all this did not suit him in the least, it had the effect of making his face look hardened, bronzed, rigid and solemn, and aged him to such an extent that one would no longer have said he was a young man at all."
Gradually, The Narrator realizes that these strange, white-haired, wrinkly people are all his old friends and contemporaries and it is not fancy dress or makeup that has changed them but the passage of time.
"The patches of white in beards hitherto entirely black rendered the human landscape of the party somewhat melancholy, like the first yellow leaves on the trees when one is still thinking one can count on a long summer, when before one has started to enjoy it, one sees that it has already turned to autumn."
The next painful insight for the Narrator is the realization that he too has grown old and that in the eyes of the young people at the party he himself is now “an old gentleman.” At one point, he deliberately refers to himself in conversation as “an old man like myself,” in the hope of being contradicted. He is not contradicted and he sees no glimmer of protest in his listeners’ faces.
"And now I began to understand what old age was—old age, which perhaps of all the realities is the one of which we preserve for longest in our life a purely abstract conception, looking at calendars, dating our letters, seeing our friends marry and then in their turn the children of our friends, and yet, either from fear or from sloth, not understanding what all this means ... until the day when a grandson of a woman we once knew, a young man whom instinctively we treat as a contemporary of ours, smiles as though we were making fun of him because to him it seems that we are old enough to be his grandfather."
While here, he experiences several more episodes of involuntary memory in which the past is so vividly re-created, that it becomes indistinguishable from the present. It is this power of involuntary memory that enables him to experience the past, rather than merely to visualize it. These experiences help him discover that the theme he has been searching for is his own life.
Proust must now make a choice between continuing in the social whirl or beginning in earnest on his novel. To the benefit of posterity, he chose his work.
======
December 21, 2025
201119: well this is conundrum for though it is not like there are no other books to read, the question is- should i try to read it in French? yes say some, no say others- the translations are good enough... cannot decide... i am told to try Les Liaisons dangereuses by de laclos maybe...
there are two reviews of 'proust', this one i think has everything the other has on 'swann's way'Swann's Way... maybe? (41 likes here, 18 there...) same difference...c'est le meme chose...
230619: looking at books that are more ‘achievements’ than necessarily ‘great reads’, i decide to focus on this most emblematic former, this we readers can simply announce author’s name and bask in general approval/annoying dismissal (not read in french though? pity...) and feel for few minutes have accomplished something. more than reading real long classic. i am thinking about this, about academic markers in general, because my father must face now losing all those years of knowledge learned, books read, seminars attended or taught, experiments, papers, etc as his alzheimer’s takes this away... is he/was he ever more than the scientist this made him...? and how does this play out for his elder sister my aunt a who is further on the degenerative slide? is she/was she ever more than the author all her work made her? aunt a is Alice Munro so her work remains and i certainly value her... but does she recall recommending all of proust to me? let alone reading it all herself? and should i recommend this long classic to you unknown reviews readers...? for yes i do remember reading it and it has become more than just ‘achievement’ but then that is me... i read a lot...
180119: as many readers will not read the entirety of proust, i have decided to place my series review from volume 7 here at the end of the first book. which is often all most readers ever read and some may argue ever need read to get an understanding/idea of what 'proust' is...
much later later later later later addition: when i read the seven volumes of this kilmartin translation is not clear but sometime in the early 2000s. i feel sudden need to read modern classics and find this on millenium-end lists that includes joyce (who feels still rather an acrostic than novel), musil (said to be like proust?... i do not think so) beckett (whose plays but not novels i really like), james, dos passos, hemingway, faulkner, pynchon, rushdie... so i get carried away and read many of these Important Authors. i am not always pleased. in some ways i like short short novels that are no longer than needed for an idea rather than story to be recounted. Pereira Declares: A Testimony by tabucchi, Chess Story by zweig etc. vs The Man Without Qualities by musil... but after struggling again with and failing again to engage with 'ulysses', i decided to try proust. aunt a (alice munro) told me of course she had read him. then, after a pause, she said 'all of him', so this is reason enough to order him new, to read one volume/month slowly, only because my finances are limited in purchase, not because, at least in this translation, he is particularly difficult to read. i read somewhere that there is another translation with individual author's interpretations according to the voice of each volume, but i never purchase it. i am not sure i want to read him again, or if so maybe rather in french...
so i read this say 18 or so years ago. i did not study it. i only briefly talked with aunt a about it, and certainly to no one else, friends who are like normal people who are not too excited by reading long long books unless maybe they are about wizards or vampires etc. i did think about this book. in france i think the students may study some of this in secondary maybe as in english-speaking countries we read... shakespeare? maybe it has beautiful language. maybe it has culture/place/time-specific references. maybe it is even concise, though that seems against its entire nature. i contrast this with modern and contemporary authors i do really enjoy who are maybe not literary canon The Postman Always Rings Twice by cain, The Palm-Wine Drinkard by tutuola, Solaris by lem, some that maybe are Naked Lunch by burroughs, Jealousy & In the Labyrinth by robbe-grillet, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by calvino, The Prospector by le clezio... i have read far too many books. or is that possible. some of which are fourteen novels of 350 pages rather than say one novel of seven volumes of 700 pages. some which i also remember 18 years later and inflect whatever read since. none of which are this book...
so what is 'proust'? i read his work of his writing of his life by his critics but it is the book that matters in the end. the art is the art and everything else is everything else. i am glad to read him. all of him. there is maybe some proud glow of actually finishing him, but this lasts only one or two coffees then like normal people just shake their heads and talk about sports or politics, and give voice to the idea that maybe you should get a real life and not just read those old long literary books from another language... and then the glow is deservedly forgotten. for reading anything of any length is not an accomplishment, though being able to sort of sound like you 'understand' it may count. this book is probably review proof: if you read this site, read much, read many, you will hear of proust and make your own proud decision to tackle him. or not. i am glad aunt a rec's the entire book. so i do not necessarily like obsessive involved endless punctuation. or some empty politics/lack of. so i may not immediately see relevance. so interminable emotional self-absorption may be tiring/boring. so there is no great sex, great wars, great loves. and no car crashes and explosions. but i am glad i have read all seven volumes. of course, maybe i am just slow to 'get it' and maybe you do well to read one volume and maybe you have that 'real life' normal people often refer to... all i can say is my rating on completion is sincere. this rating is for me...
this is a short note (061118) if you don’t want to read this long review: so you have finished this book. congratulations. what have you learned? this is a long book. everything you had heard of it is true, but no awards for you yet. now you must read it in french...
this is another much later later later later addition: having fun right now reading a graphic adaptation of volume 1: Swann's Way- review is here: In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel, so maybe you want to read this book first or that book first...?
this is another much later later later addition: if i am recalling the very beginning of proust correctly, there is a passage connecting a 'magic lantern' and sleeping disorientation, freedom physical, from temporal, locales, and some indication this dreaming status is what he tries to investigate, offer, recreate for the reader. have been thinking that this obvious claim of fantasy of reality, this escape, is mostly why i read anything. reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and William Seward Burroughs, thinking about proust, must suggest that it is unvoiced, immaterial, territory of the mind, of moods, of all emotions, which makes me recall pleasure of this read. it has become a part of my life...
this is a much later later addition: i have just been reading works of pulp action-adventure writer er burroughs, some written at the same time, compare, contrast, the experience of reading, the nature of writing, the probable readers addressed. not much overlap. in this book, it is necessary that the reader be appreciative, enjoy, most detailed, most ironic, most endless progression of emotional experience. in Edgar Rice Burroughs, it is all action all the time, and the emotional terrain is obvious, coherent, unchanging, not ironic in the least. this has been great to sense through these authors exactly how diverse are the world, the cultures, the readers of that era...
this is a later addition: and now now, four years past this review (now six more years...), i am reading a lot, a lot of philosophy, mostly continental, mostly far too 'dry' for most readers and as with heidegger am drawn to read more. now, having read more bergson, some postmodernism, i wonder if there is something else i am missing, there is suspicion that even without learning the language, i might read him again...
first review : i have decided to offer this anecdotal criticism, otherwise known as a review, only now, at time of review about ten years after i read it (early 2000s?), because it seems only now- after having read much other work and so better able to judge it without being simply overwhelmed by scale- that i can characterize the experience...
should readers on completion get some award? do you need to read it all to get the ideas? for it was/is an experience. whether you want to or not, it makes you think. about the long, long, very long, very detailed story, certainly there is much room for thought. but it is how the story is told is what the story is told. have mentioned before that i am not likely to read again unless i learn to read french, as yes apparently each volume has been translated by appropriate voices in another translation than the one i read, to try and capture proust's tone, so i have missed who knows how much language-specific aspects of his work...
after proust there is no such thing as a book that fails simply because it is too long. certainly there are books that are too long for what they offer. there are books that fail to justify their length. in this case, in what proust offers, it does help to be so long. on the other, most people also have a life independent of reading, therefore perhaps limited time to read, perhaps limited expectations of what any book of any length can offer, perhaps only so much thought, reading, meditating, they want to pass on a book. someone i respect greatly (alice munro)(aunt a) says she read the entire book, and i can certainly see how the ongoing topography of close delineation of social being and world, does not resolve here or here or here or even here or here or (this can be seen as a model for her work, as if the threads of stories are untangled and each formed into one of her short stories)... in anything like a climax, a revelation, any sort of conventional plot resolution. (aunt a even in her longer stories, even compiling all her collections, is able to find the right architecture, the right ending, but the 'epiphany' may be the entire story, the entire world, summed up only for that story) i find unlikely the idea proust would have resolved this book had he lived, as the unfinished work is all about the unfinished, the ungrasped, the passage of time without resolution but reverberations of nostalgia. the idea that this lost time is regained through Art, through this book, is believing the author and 'marcel' are the same person...
to judge it maybe you have to read it all: i have read that the title's 'lost time' means more what in english is called 'wasted time'. well yes, that is depending on what you want from a book, just a book, a way to waste time or pass time or lose time or maybe even enjoy time. change your expectations of the usual novel. ask for something different if not better, in some art-quality way. yes, now i have read bergson so understand better the way proust tries to follow him. if you can read his going-to-sleep meditation at the very beginning, revel in his metaphors, enjoy his long, long, very long sentences- there is no problem, only time, only patience, to read the rest...
i do not know if there is such a thing as metaphysical spoilers, but truly having read bergson is useful, though much of proust/marcel's thoughts are enveloped in sensation, nothing like dialectic, like logic, like any arguments, like actual 'philosophy', and you may find you just do not care. who are these people, do they ever do anything, does marcel have no concerns but his fluctuating emotions, can you actually take two hundred pages to describe a dinner party, is there really a great horror that almost every man turns out to be gay or bisexual, is jealousy universal proof of love, is self-deception how to maintain love, is pride and vanity the core of personality, is the dreyfus affair an actual concern or distraction or shorthand for character, what is this theory of involuntary memory and where can i get some, is lying in bed in a cork-lined room any way healthier than chasing after a dismissive, manipulative, possibly lesbian young woman, does everything truly happen at parties...
so, reasons to read. it is not architecture of non-existent plot, not obsessive wordplay, not new language, not just elaborate sentences that deliberately take as long to read as the sense or thought described, but yes it is an entirely different way of seeing, investigating, describing, that lived continuous terrain of emotions and memories. probably his grandmother loves him. probably the verdurins are horrific social climbers. probably it is more important that one central character likes to be whipped, than that an entire generation of young men are dying in a senseless war...
should i ever read it again? well, my copy is seven volumes of about 700 pages each. is it better than say fourteen individual books of 350 pages each? better is a judgement i do not make. different, yes, different than anything you will ever read...
there are two reviews of 'proust', this one i think has everything the other has on 'swann's way'Swann's Way... maybe? (41 likes here, 18 there...) same difference...c'est le meme chose...
230619: looking at books that are more ‘achievements’ than necessarily ‘great reads’, i decide to focus on this most emblematic former, this we readers can simply announce author’s name and bask in general approval/annoying dismissal (not read in french though? pity...) and feel for few minutes have accomplished something. more than reading real long classic. i am thinking about this, about academic markers in general, because my father must face now losing all those years of knowledge learned, books read, seminars attended or taught, experiments, papers, etc as his alzheimer’s takes this away... is he/was he ever more than the scientist this made him...? and how does this play out for his elder sister my aunt a who is further on the degenerative slide? is she/was she ever more than the author all her work made her? aunt a is Alice Munro so her work remains and i certainly value her... but does she recall recommending all of proust to me? let alone reading it all herself? and should i recommend this long classic to you unknown reviews readers...? for yes i do remember reading it and it has become more than just ‘achievement’ but then that is me... i read a lot...
180119: as many readers will not read the entirety of proust, i have decided to place my series review from volume 7 here at the end of the first book. which is often all most readers ever read and some may argue ever need read to get an understanding/idea of what 'proust' is...
much later later later later later addition: when i read the seven volumes of this kilmartin translation is not clear but sometime in the early 2000s. i feel sudden need to read modern classics and find this on millenium-end lists that includes joyce (who feels still rather an acrostic than novel), musil (said to be like proust?... i do not think so) beckett (whose plays but not novels i really like), james, dos passos, hemingway, faulkner, pynchon, rushdie... so i get carried away and read many of these Important Authors. i am not always pleased. in some ways i like short short novels that are no longer than needed for an idea rather than story to be recounted. Pereira Declares: A Testimony by tabucchi, Chess Story by zweig etc. vs The Man Without Qualities by musil... but after struggling again with and failing again to engage with 'ulysses', i decided to try proust. aunt a (alice munro) told me of course she had read him. then, after a pause, she said 'all of him', so this is reason enough to order him new, to read one volume/month slowly, only because my finances are limited in purchase, not because, at least in this translation, he is particularly difficult to read. i read somewhere that there is another translation with individual author's interpretations according to the voice of each volume, but i never purchase it. i am not sure i want to read him again, or if so maybe rather in french...
so i read this say 18 or so years ago. i did not study it. i only briefly talked with aunt a about it, and certainly to no one else, friends who are like normal people who are not too excited by reading long long books unless maybe they are about wizards or vampires etc. i did think about this book. in france i think the students may study some of this in secondary maybe as in english-speaking countries we read... shakespeare? maybe it has beautiful language. maybe it has culture/place/time-specific references. maybe it is even concise, though that seems against its entire nature. i contrast this with modern and contemporary authors i do really enjoy who are maybe not literary canon The Postman Always Rings Twice by cain, The Palm-Wine Drinkard by tutuola, Solaris by lem, some that maybe are Naked Lunch by burroughs, Jealousy & In the Labyrinth by robbe-grillet, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by calvino, The Prospector by le clezio... i have read far too many books. or is that possible. some of which are fourteen novels of 350 pages rather than say one novel of seven volumes of 700 pages. some which i also remember 18 years later and inflect whatever read since. none of which are this book...
so what is 'proust'? i read his work of his writing of his life by his critics but it is the book that matters in the end. the art is the art and everything else is everything else. i am glad to read him. all of him. there is maybe some proud glow of actually finishing him, but this lasts only one or two coffees then like normal people just shake their heads and talk about sports or politics, and give voice to the idea that maybe you should get a real life and not just read those old long literary books from another language... and then the glow is deservedly forgotten. for reading anything of any length is not an accomplishment, though being able to sort of sound like you 'understand' it may count. this book is probably review proof: if you read this site, read much, read many, you will hear of proust and make your own proud decision to tackle him. or not. i am glad aunt a rec's the entire book. so i do not necessarily like obsessive involved endless punctuation. or some empty politics/lack of. so i may not immediately see relevance. so interminable emotional self-absorption may be tiring/boring. so there is no great sex, great wars, great loves. and no car crashes and explosions. but i am glad i have read all seven volumes. of course, maybe i am just slow to 'get it' and maybe you do well to read one volume and maybe you have that 'real life' normal people often refer to... all i can say is my rating on completion is sincere. this rating is for me...
this is a short note (061118) if you don’t want to read this long review: so you have finished this book. congratulations. what have you learned? this is a long book. everything you had heard of it is true, but no awards for you yet. now you must read it in french...
this is another much later later later later addition: having fun right now reading a graphic adaptation of volume 1: Swann's Way- review is here: In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel, so maybe you want to read this book first or that book first...?
this is another much later later later addition: if i am recalling the very beginning of proust correctly, there is a passage connecting a 'magic lantern' and sleeping disorientation, freedom physical, from temporal, locales, and some indication this dreaming status is what he tries to investigate, offer, recreate for the reader. have been thinking that this obvious claim of fantasy of reality, this escape, is mostly why i read anything. reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and William Seward Burroughs, thinking about proust, must suggest that it is unvoiced, immaterial, territory of the mind, of moods, of all emotions, which makes me recall pleasure of this read. it has become a part of my life...
this is a much later later addition: i have just been reading works of pulp action-adventure writer er burroughs, some written at the same time, compare, contrast, the experience of reading, the nature of writing, the probable readers addressed. not much overlap. in this book, it is necessary that the reader be appreciative, enjoy, most detailed, most ironic, most endless progression of emotional experience. in Edgar Rice Burroughs, it is all action all the time, and the emotional terrain is obvious, coherent, unchanging, not ironic in the least. this has been great to sense through these authors exactly how diverse are the world, the cultures, the readers of that era...
this is a later addition: and now now, four years past this review (now six more years...), i am reading a lot, a lot of philosophy, mostly continental, mostly far too 'dry' for most readers and as with heidegger am drawn to read more. now, having read more bergson, some postmodernism, i wonder if there is something else i am missing, there is suspicion that even without learning the language, i might read him again...
first review : i have decided to offer this anecdotal criticism, otherwise known as a review, only now, at time of review about ten years after i read it (early 2000s?), because it seems only now- after having read much other work and so better able to judge it without being simply overwhelmed by scale- that i can characterize the experience...
should readers on completion get some award? do you need to read it all to get the ideas? for it was/is an experience. whether you want to or not, it makes you think. about the long, long, very long, very detailed story, certainly there is much room for thought. but it is how the story is told is what the story is told. have mentioned before that i am not likely to read again unless i learn to read french, as yes apparently each volume has been translated by appropriate voices in another translation than the one i read, to try and capture proust's tone, so i have missed who knows how much language-specific aspects of his work...
after proust there is no such thing as a book that fails simply because it is too long. certainly there are books that are too long for what they offer. there are books that fail to justify their length. in this case, in what proust offers, it does help to be so long. on the other, most people also have a life independent of reading, therefore perhaps limited time to read, perhaps limited expectations of what any book of any length can offer, perhaps only so much thought, reading, meditating, they want to pass on a book. someone i respect greatly (alice munro)(aunt a) says she read the entire book, and i can certainly see how the ongoing topography of close delineation of social being and world, does not resolve here or here or here or even here or here or (this can be seen as a model for her work, as if the threads of stories are untangled and each formed into one of her short stories)... in anything like a climax, a revelation, any sort of conventional plot resolution. (aunt a even in her longer stories, even compiling all her collections, is able to find the right architecture, the right ending, but the 'epiphany' may be the entire story, the entire world, summed up only for that story) i find unlikely the idea proust would have resolved this book had he lived, as the unfinished work is all about the unfinished, the ungrasped, the passage of time without resolution but reverberations of nostalgia. the idea that this lost time is regained through Art, through this book, is believing the author and 'marcel' are the same person...
to judge it maybe you have to read it all: i have read that the title's 'lost time' means more what in english is called 'wasted time'. well yes, that is depending on what you want from a book, just a book, a way to waste time or pass time or lose time or maybe even enjoy time. change your expectations of the usual novel. ask for something different if not better, in some art-quality way. yes, now i have read bergson so understand better the way proust tries to follow him. if you can read his going-to-sleep meditation at the very beginning, revel in his metaphors, enjoy his long, long, very long sentences- there is no problem, only time, only patience, to read the rest...
i do not know if there is such a thing as metaphysical spoilers, but truly having read bergson is useful, though much of proust/marcel's thoughts are enveloped in sensation, nothing like dialectic, like logic, like any arguments, like actual 'philosophy', and you may find you just do not care. who are these people, do they ever do anything, does marcel have no concerns but his fluctuating emotions, can you actually take two hundred pages to describe a dinner party, is there really a great horror that almost every man turns out to be gay or bisexual, is jealousy universal proof of love, is self-deception how to maintain love, is pride and vanity the core of personality, is the dreyfus affair an actual concern or distraction or shorthand for character, what is this theory of involuntary memory and where can i get some, is lying in bed in a cork-lined room any way healthier than chasing after a dismissive, manipulative, possibly lesbian young woman, does everything truly happen at parties...
so, reasons to read. it is not architecture of non-existent plot, not obsessive wordplay, not new language, not just elaborate sentences that deliberately take as long to read as the sense or thought described, but yes it is an entirely different way of seeing, investigating, describing, that lived continuous terrain of emotions and memories. probably his grandmother loves him. probably the verdurins are horrific social climbers. probably it is more important that one central character likes to be whipped, than that an entire generation of young men are dying in a senseless war...
should i ever read it again? well, my copy is seven volumes of about 700 pages each. is it better than say fourteen individual books of 350 pages each? better is a judgement i do not make. different, yes, different than anything you will ever read...
December 19, 2020
Ξεκίνησα να διαβάζω το Αναζητώντας τον χαμένο χρόνο στα γενεθλιά μου, το Σεπτέμβρη. Ένα ταξίδι που κράτησε σχεδόν τρείς μήνες και που πάντα θα αναπολώ. ένας προορισμός που θα επισκέπτομαι σε στιγμές αυτοπροσδιορισμού.
Το Αναζητώντας τον χαμένο χρόνο δεν είναι μόνο μια εσωτερική ενδοσκόπηση-συνειδητή αυτοπαρατήρηση, μια αναζήτηση αναμνήσεων, ένας απολογισμός του αφηγητή. Ο Προύστ αποτυπώνει και περιγράφει πτυχές μιάς ολόκληρης εποχής. Με ζωντανό μυθιστορηματικό και δοκιμιακό λόγο συνθέτει ένα αμάγαλμα εξιστόρησης της πλοκής με την τοποθέτηση του σε ζητήματα που θίγει.
Η α��ήγηση ξεκινά όταν ο ήρωας μας είναι παιδί και φτάνει εώς τη μέση ηλικία του. Η ζωή του στο Παρίσι και στο Κομπραί. Ένας άνθρωπος που τον καθόρισε η ασθενική και ευαίσθητη φύση του. Ιδιαίτερα δεμένος με τη μητέρα του, κάτι που στιγματίζει την συναισθηματικό βίο του. Είναι ένας παρατηρητής της ζωής που καταγράφει όσα συμβαίνουν στο στενό και ευρύτερο περιβάλλον του.
Στο έργο δεσπόζουν περιγραφές ανθρώπων, τοπίων, αρχιτεκτονημάτων, έργων τέχνης, με εκτενείς αναφορές σε πίνακες ζωγραφικής, μουσικών συνθέσεων, λογοτεχνικών έργων, έως και ενδυματολογικών επιλογών, ορίζοντας και σχολιάζοντας το ιστορικό πλαίσιο καθε περιόδου που διανύει μέσα σε αυτούς τους επτά τόμους. Παρουσιάζει την εξέλιξη χαρακτήρων ανθρώπων που κινούνταν στα αριστοκρατικά και λογοτεχνικά σαλόνια του Παρισιού εκείνης της εποχής, τα πρωτόκολα που ίσχυαν και τις αντιλήψεις που επικρατούσαν, το ζενίθ και το ναδίρ τους.
Εμβαθύνει σε θέματα σχέσεων, τόσο φιλικών όσο και ερωτικών. Πραγματεύεται το ρόλο των ερωτικών επιλογών και των συνέπειών τους στη ζωή των ανθρώπων. Είμαστε άραγε ερωτευμένοι με το αντικείμενο του πόθου μας ή με την εικόνα του ιδανικού συντρόφου που έχουμε διαμορφώσει στο μυαλό μας και προβάλλουμε σε αυτό; Τί προκαλεί τη ζήλια και κατά πόσο δρα καταλυτικά, αναζωογονιτικά ή καταστροφικά στον έρωτα και διαμορφώνει τις επιλογές μας;
Ερευνεί και αναλύει τη λειτουργία της μνήμης. Τον απασχολεί ιδιαίτερα καθώς ως εν δυνάμει συγγραφέας θέλει να καταγράψει το παρελθόν. Η αθέλητη μνήμη που ανασύρεται απο ένα εξωτερικό ερέθισμα και μας ταξιδεύει στο χρόνο. Είναι οι μνήμες που μας τοποθετούν και ορίζουν το χωροχρονικό πλαίσιο μας.
Ποιός χρόνος θεωρείται χαμένος; Μήπως οι τωρινές μας σκέψεις και διαπιστώσεις δεν απορρέουν απο πρότερες εμπειρίες; Το παρόν μας στέκει στο οικοδόμημα του παρελθόντος μας κι όταν το συνειδητοποιήσουμε αυτό ο χαμένος χρόνος γίνεται ανακτημένος.
*το κείμενο αφορά το σύνολο του έργου
Το Αναζητώντας τον χαμένο χρόνο δεν είναι μόνο μια εσωτερική ενδοσκόπηση-συνειδητή αυτοπαρατήρηση, μια αναζήτηση αναμνήσεων, ένας απολογισμός του αφηγητή. Ο Προύστ αποτυπώνει και περιγράφει πτυχές μιάς ολόκληρης εποχής. Με ζωντανό μυθιστορηματικό και δοκιμιακό λόγο συνθέτει ένα αμάγαλμα εξιστόρησης της πλοκής με την τοποθέτηση του σε ζητήματα που θίγει.
Η α��ήγηση ξεκινά όταν ο ήρωας μας είναι παιδί και φτάνει εώς τη μέση ηλικία του. Η ζωή του στο Παρίσι και στο Κομπραί. Ένας άνθρωπος που τον καθόρισε η ασθενική και ευαίσθητη φύση του. Ιδιαίτερα δεμένος με τη μητέρα του, κάτι που στιγματίζει την συναισθηματικό βίο του. Είναι ένας παρατηρητής της ζωής που καταγράφει όσα συμβαίνουν στο στενό και ευρύτερο περιβάλλον του.
Στο έργο δεσπόζουν περιγραφές ανθρώπων, τοπίων, αρχιτεκτονημάτων, έργων τέχνης, με εκτενείς αναφορές σε πίνακες ζωγραφικής, μουσικών συνθέσεων, λογοτεχνικών έργων, έως και ενδυματολογικών επιλογών, ορίζοντας και σχολιάζοντας το ιστορικό πλαίσιο καθε περιόδου που διανύει μέσα σε αυτούς τους επτά τόμους. Παρουσιάζει την εξέλιξη χαρακτήρων ανθρώπων που κινούνταν στα αριστοκρατικά και λογοτεχνικά σαλόνια του Παρισιού εκείνης της εποχής, τα πρωτόκολα που ίσχυαν και τις αντιλήψεις που επικρατούσαν, το ζενίθ και το ναδίρ τους.
Εμβαθύνει σε θέματα σχέσεων, τόσο φιλικών όσο και ερωτικών. Πραγματεύεται το ρόλο των ερωτικών επιλογών και των συνέπειών τους στη ζωή των ανθρώπων. Είμαστε άραγε ερωτευμένοι με το αντικείμενο του πόθου μας ή με την εικόνα του ιδανικού συντρόφου που έχουμε διαμορφώσει στο μυαλό μας και προβάλλουμε σε αυτό; Τί προκαλεί τη ζήλια και κατά πόσο δρα καταλυτικά, αναζωογονιτικά ή καταστροφικά στον έρωτα και διαμορφώνει τις επιλογές μας;
Ερευνεί και αναλύει τη λειτουργία της μνήμης. Τον απασχολεί ιδιαίτερα καθώς ως εν δυνάμει συγγραφέας θέλει να καταγράψει το παρελθόν. Η αθέλητη μνήμη που ανασύρεται απο ένα εξωτερικό ερέθισμα και μας ταξιδεύει στο χρόνο. Είναι οι μνήμες που μας τοποθετούν και ορίζουν το χωροχρονικό πλαίσιο μας.
Ποιός χρόνος θεωρείται χαμένος; Μήπως οι τωρινές μας σκέψεις και διαπιστώσεις δεν απορρέουν απο πρότερες εμπειρίες; Το παρόν μας στέκει στο οικοδόμημα του παρελθόντος μας κι όταν το συνειδητοποιήσουμε αυτό ο χαμένος χρόνος γίνεται ανακτημένος.
*το κείμενο αφορά το σύνολο του έργου
October 29, 2022
Given the intense mystique that surrounds Proust, I decided I would try to approach the final volumes with an open mind. It's possible that I went a little too far and that my review of Albertine disparue was insufficiently respectful. Sorry Kalliope! But having now reached the end, I am relieved to say that my fears were unfounded. The final chapter, which I discover Proust wrote immediately after completing the first chapter, pulls everything together; nothing was wasted, nothing was gratuitous. Although it was not easy to climb this mountain (a metaphor the author uses himself), when you reach the top the view is absolutely worth it. It is of course very sad that Proust died when he did. The three posthumous books are uneven, with strange plot holes and passages that are stylistically in need of revision, but it doesn't really matter; he seems to have known this would happen, and the text contains several references to his "unfinished cathedral". In a strange way, it is almost appropriate.
Some thoughts that have been going through my head the last couple of days:
- Given the construction of the book, I was very lucky to have ended up reading Combray and Le temps retrouvé in parallel: I'm sure it heightened my appreciation of the last volume. If you're also nearing the end of the series, I strongly recommend doing the same. You won't regret the time you spend on this little detour.
- In general, the problem with reading Proust is that you want to keep the whole thing in your head at once, so that you can appreciate all the interconnections, but in practice it's hard to read it quickly enough. I was however encouraged by my recent experiment with creating a multimedia version of the first volume. I will soon get back to this idea.
- A la recherche du temps perdu is formally a novel and always described as such, but it is at least as much a work of philosophy. It is both theoretical (it says deep and provocative things about the nature of the self) and practical (it embodies a highly idiosyncratic set of precepts for how one should live one's life). I wondered what people there might be who have tried to follow this philosophy and extend it; my top suspects are Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. I must look around to see if anyone else has had the same thought, and what they have written about it.
Some thoughts that have been going through my head the last couple of days:
- Given the construction of the book, I was very lucky to have ended up reading Combray and Le temps retrouvé in parallel: I'm sure it heightened my appreciation of the last volume. If you're also nearing the end of the series, I strongly recommend doing the same. You won't regret the time you spend on this little detour.
- In general, the problem with reading Proust is that you want to keep the whole thing in your head at once, so that you can appreciate all the interconnections, but in practice it's hard to read it quickly enough. I was however encouraged by my recent experiment with creating a multimedia version of the first volume. I will soon get back to this idea.
- A la recherche du temps perdu is formally a novel and always described as such, but it is at least as much a work of philosophy. It is both theoretical (it says deep and provocative things about the nature of the self) and practical (it embodies a highly idiosyncratic set of precepts for how one should live one's life). I wondered what people there might be who have tried to follow this philosophy and extend it; my top suspects are Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. I must look around to see if anyone else has had the same thought, and what they have written about it.
September 18, 2022
YouTube kanalımda Marcel Proust'un hayatı, bütün kitapları ve kronolojik okuma sırası hakkında bilgi edinebilirsiniz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5e0i...
"Her şey yenilikten pırıl pırıldır, ve insan, dünyanın gerçekten daha mı kötüleştiğini, yoksa sadece kendisinin mi daha yaşlandığını sonunda bilemez olur. Bu noktaya varıldığında, kesinlikle yeni bir zaman gelmiş demektir." (s. 146) Niteliksiz Adam 1
Bu inceleme 20 kitap, 10 makale ve 1 tezin salt özüdür. Okunma süresi ise sadece 5 dakikadır. Senden sadece ama sadece 5 dakikanı ayırmanı istiyorum sevgili okur, eminim ki sen de Proust'un kitaplarını okuyup zamanı yakalamak için istek duyacaksın. Gün içinde sahip olduğun 1440 dakikandan sadece 5 dakikanı talep ediyorum. Evet, biliyorum bu insanlık için çok küçük bir adım ama emin ol ki hayatı hastalıklarla geçmiş olan Marcel Proust için büyük bir adım olacaktır. Gel, zamanı beraber yakalayalım senle...
Aylardır Marcel Proust okuyorum ve doğal olarak aylardır da zamanımı yakalayabilmeyi öğrenmeye çalışıyorum. Zaman, tam da şimdiki zamanken, geçmişe dönüşmemişken nasıl verimli bir şekilde farkında olunarak yaşanır hale getirilebilir? Kayıp Zamanın İzinde ne demektir? İnsan, bir insana mı aittir yoksa zamana mı? Aylardır bu sorular denizinin medcezir yapmasıyla yıkanan sonsuz cevaplar sahilimde, yine sonsuz sayıda sıradan olan kumlarıma zamanı öğretmeye çalışırmış gibi hissediyorum.
Peki, Marcel Proust bana tam olarak neyi öğretti? Onun kitaplarını bir bir aklımdaki raflara kaldırdıktan sonra yine aklımla baş başa kaldığımda, onunla birlikte bu zaman denen belirsizliği cüzi irademle çözebilecek hale geldim mi?
Yürüdüğüm sokakları artık Marcel Proust ve izlenimci cümleleriyle anlamlandırarak yürüyorum, etrafımda gördüğüm farklı yüzlerin perspektiflerini onun cümleleriyle betimliyorum. Bir ağaç görüyorum ve hemen Proust'un ağaçlar için yazdığı uzuncasına betimlemeler aklıma geliyor. Bir sevgiliye bakıyorum ve hemen Proust'un serisinde Albertine için yazdığı, farklı perspektiften görünen yüzler için yaptığı benzetme olan Doğu dinlerindeki Tanrıların farklı farklı yüzleri andırması geliyor. İnsanların uykularına ve uyanmalarına bakıyorum, belleklerini, alışkanlıklarını ve zamanı nasıl yönettiklerine bakıyorum. Zamanı yakalamanın tikel bir süreçten ibaret değil tam tersine etraftaki gereksiz insanların aptallıklarına maruz kalarak ve bundan sonra da şimdiki zamanımızda tek bir dakikayı bile verimsiz geçirmememiz gerektiğini anlayarak gerçekleştiğini çözümlüyorum.
Çözümlüyorum, çünkü Marcel Proust bir denklem gibidir. Ve Beckett'ın da dediği gibi "Proust'gil denklem hiçbir zaman basit değildir." Ben, hiçbir zaman basit olmayan bu denklem içinde başka bilinmeyenlerle birlikte yine bir bilinmeyen olarak yaşadığım birkaç ay geçirmiş gibi hissediyorum. Fakat şunu da öğreniyorum, bir denklemde ne kadar çok bilinmeyen olursa onu çözmek için de, onu bilinir hale getirmek için de o kadar çok uğraşırsın. Ve anlıyorum ki Kayıp Zamanın İzinde denklemini çözebilmek ve hayatıma hakkıyla katabilmek için epeyce uğraşmışım. Tüm bunların hepsi, yatağında sadece kitabını bitirebilmek için savaşan, yorgun düşen ve bizden sadece anlaşılmayı bekleyen Proust'un, mezarında rahat uyuyabilmesi için!
Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisindeki bütün karakterlere aslında sokağa adımımızı attığımızda biz de maruz kalıyoruz. Hayatımızın bir döneminde maruz kaldığımız bir sevgili Albertine, bir sosyete Guermanteslar, bir kibirli ve itibar düşkünü Charlus, bir sanatıyla tanınmak isteyen Vinteuil, Elstir, Berma ve Bergotte görüyoruz. Peki onları ne kadar görebiliyoruz, onların kendi şimdiki zamanlarında ulaştığını sandıkları saf sanatsal zevke, biz kendi şimdiki zamanlarımızda gerçek olarak ulaşabiliyor muyuz?
Bugüne kadar okuduğum bunca kitapta mekan ve zamanın ayrı olarak tasarlandığının farkındaydım. Fakat Proust denilen bu adam zamanı mekanlaştırmayı nasıl başarabilmişti? Zaman, kendi imparatorluğuna ve kronolojik oyunlarına nasıl bu kadar ustalıkla hakim olabilirdi? Yoksa Proust, Kant’ın, zamanın mekâna dönüştüğü ve içsel hissin dışarıya yansıtıldığı şemalara verdiği isim olan monogramları mı kullanmıştı? Dünyanın zaman skalasına değemeyecek kadar aciz ve verimsiz olarak yaşadığımız hayatlarımız bir monogramlar bütününden mi ibaretti? İçsel hislerimizi dışarı samimi olarak yansıtmayı bize kim, nasıl öğretebilirdi? Proust yaşamımızı nasıl değiştirebilirdi?
Bugüne kadar ellerimi ve ayaklarımı sürekli normal bir yaşam yaşamak için kullandım. Oysaki şu an Dostoyevski'nin Budala kitabındaki idam mahkumunun aklından 3 saniyede geçen onlarca sahneyi yazmaya çalışıyormuş gibi hissediyorum. Dostoyevski sarasıyla birlikte hazza ve varoluş acısına ulaşırdı, Proust ise hayatı boyunca bir astımlı olarak gezdi. Bunun üstüne bir de gidip kitaplarında onlarca çiçek ve bitkiyle içselleştirmeler yaşadı, yani bunun adı astım hastalığına sahip olup da etnobotanik ile uğraşmaktı. Ben de misal olarak uzun yıllardır bronşit hastalığımı geçirmek için uğraşıyorum ve 1-2 kere hapşırdığımda acizce hemen bir hapa başvuruyorum. Oysaki Marcel Proust için hapları, yazdığı kitaplardı, onlarla iyileşirdi, onlar ona bağışıklık kazandırabilirdi, sadece onlarla zamanı yakalayabilirdi. Çünkü kitapları, yazdıkları ve ardında bırakacağı izler dışındaki insanların hepsi onun için çoğu zaman bir vakit kaybıydı, onun zamanı ve hakikati arayışına panzehir olamazlardı.
Vakit kaybıydı çünkü vakit kaybı olması gerekiyordu. Proust'un zaman hiyerarşisi böyle işliyordu. Yani, zamanı yakalamak için onu kaybetmen gerekir. Dış dünyaya ne kadar maruz kalıp zamanını ne kadar boşa harcarsan, içinde onu kaybettiğinin farkına varacak bir delilin olur. Onu kaybettiğinin ne kadar farkına varırsan onu ele geçirmek için hırslanma kıvılcımın olur. Onu ele geçirmek için de ne kadar hırslanırsan onu yakalamaya o kadar yaklaşabilirsin. Çünkü Gilles Deleuze'un da dediği gibi, biz bu hayata çıraklar olarak gelmişizdir ve bizden pek çok konuda ustalık göstermemiz bekleniyordur. Ve hayat boyunca o kadar çok aşka, aptal insana ve bizi yanıltan maddi nesnelere maruz kalırız ki, esas olanın saf manevi ve sanat hazzı olduğunu unutuyoruzdur.
Ben unuttum, sen unuttun, o unuttu... Ama Proust unutmadı. Proust, sadece bir madlen ile istemsiz belleğini canlandırdı. İstemsiz belleğin verdiği o beklenmeyen haz ise istemli belleğin isteyerek hatırladığı şeylerden kat kat üstün bir hazdı. Hatta o sadece bir yazar değildi, o aynı zamanda bir sinirbilimciydi de:
"Proust, keki tattığında, kekin tadının ulaştığı nöronlar, yani Combray ve Leonie Hala'yı kodlayan nöronlar yanar. Hücreler kopmaz bir şekilde iç içe geçmiş, bir anı meydana gelmiştir."
(s. 111) Proust Bir Sinirbilimciydi, Jonah Lehrer
O sadece bir sinirbilimci değil, aynı zamanda bir sanatçıydı da:
"Berma'nın bir jesti bir heykelin duruşunu çağrıştırdığı için güzeldir. Aynı şekilde Vinteuil'ün müziği, Boulogne Ormanı'nda bir gezintiyi çağrıştırdığı için güzeldir." (s. 44) Proust ve Göstergeler, Gilles Deleuze
O sadece bir sanatçı değil, aynı zamanda bir astronottu da:
"Proustçu evren, parçalar halindeki bir evrendir, parçaları da parçalar halindeki başka evrenleri içerir." (s. 130)
Proust ve Göstergeler, Gilles Deleuze
O sadece bir astronot değil aynı zamanda filozoftu da. Çünkü yakaladığı zamanda kullandığı karakterler ve zaman kurgusu da Leibniz'in monadolojisini hatırlatıyordu. Sanki bütün karakterler bir monaddı, her biri dünyayı ifade ettikleri bakış açısına göre tanımlanırdı. Marcel, hakiki bir monaddı. Charlus farklı bir monaddı. Albertine, Guermanteslar, Vinteuil, Elstir, Bloch, Saint Loup, Verdurin, Villeparisis gibi isimlerin hepsinin üstüne çekilmiş bir monad battaniyesi vardı. Ve bu battaniyenin ısıttığı boş bir ceviz gibi yuvarlanan ve soğumuş dünyanın altında başlıbaşına bir zaman mefhumu vardı. Zaten Leibniz'in monadları da başka monadları anlamlandırırdı. Aynı, hayatta yaptığımız eylemlerin, baktığımız sevdiklerimizin, maruz kaldığımız dünyevi rutinlerin bizim farklı yönlerimize ışık tutması gibi Proust da bizim duygulanımlarımızın olabildiğince çeşitlenebilmesi ve sanata yaklaşabilmesi için uğraşırdı.
Hatta sevdiği filozoflardan biri olan Henri Bergson'ın dediği “Her zaman, bir sonraki an, önce gelen anı içerdiği gibi, bu anın kendisine bıraktığı anıyı da içerir.” gibi bir zincirleme zaman tamlamasında yaşıyorduk. Bir sonraki anımızda maruz kalacağımız anının merakında ve arkamıza attığımız zamanın içindeki anıların özleminde, tam anlamıyla bir bellek tahterevallisinin üzerinde bulunan zaman kurtlarıydık. Zaten yine Bergson'ın dediği gibi "Bizim zaman ölçümüzde geçmiş, şimdi ve gelecek sonsuz bir şekilde yanyana olabilme eğilimi taşır." Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisindeki kronolojik iç içe geçmeler gibi bizler de bu üç zamanı aslında fark etmeden aynı anda yaşıyorduk, fark edebilen ise zaten zamanı yakalamış oluyordu. Marcel Proust aynı zamanda bir zaman lorduydu!
O, bunların hepsinin yanında mitolojiye de derinden bağlı bir adamdı. Belki de bunun için Orpheus'un Eurydike'yi kovalamasından etkilenmiş olacak ki, Marcel'in Albertine'i ile yaşadığı çıkmaz sokak misali aşkı anlattı. Ama Orpheus arkasına bakarsa Eurydike'yi kaybederdi. Ve insan, maalesef ki arkasına bakmadan yaşayamazdı. Ben de arkama bakmadan yaşayamıyorum. Geçmiş zamanda farkına varmadan kaybettiğim şeyleri o anda kaybetmemem gerektiğini anca şimdi anlıyorum, evet acı duyuyorum. Ama Proust acıyı severdi, acının, kıskançlıkların, hayal kırıklıklarının, rahatsız oluşların bizi insan yapacağını savunurdu ve sadece kitaplarındaki seslere kulak verdi. Büyük adamdı Proust, büyük adamdı...
Her şeye rağmen Marcel Proust ve onun kurguladığı zamanı yakalayabilmek için bu inceleme özelinde Marcel Proust'çu eleştiri yöntemini kullandım. Yani, onun sadece kitaplarına bağlı kalarak bir inceleme yazmak istedim. Eğer Sainte-Beuve'cu bir eleştiri yöntemi kullanarak Kayıp Zamanın İzinde'yi anlatmak isteseydim, onun babası olan Adrien Proust'un başarılarını kıskanmasından, kardeşi olan Robert Proust'un fiziksel gücü ile Marcel'ın onunla tam olarak zıt olmasından, hastalıklarından, arkadaş çevresinden, Dreyfus taraftarlığından, Balzac, John Ruskin ve Vermeer hayranlığından, hizmetçisi olan Celeste Albaret ile yaşadığı o küçük ama dünyanın en uzun romanının çıkabildiği odanın düzeninden bahsetmem gerekirdi. Oysaki ben bunu yapmadım, kendi gözlerimle Proust'un dünyasına bakmak yerine Proust'un gözlerini kullanarak kendi dünyama baktım. O, dünyanın en uzun kitabı için bütün hayatını verdi, ben ise bu inceleme için sadece 2 saatimi verdim. Sen ise okumak için sadece 5 dakikanı... Zamanı ben ya da sen değil, sevgili okur, kesinlikle o yakaladı ve yakalamış olarak da bu dünyadan göçtü.
İlerleyen günlerde bir Marcel Proust okuma rehberi, okunması gereken farklı yazarlara ait referans kitapların Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisinden önce mi sonra mı yoksa ortasında mı okunması gerektiği, hangi makalelerin seriyi aydınlattığı konusunda bir ileti paylaşacağım. Onun hakkında 20 paragraf yazı yazmak yetmiyor, keşke saatlerce Marcel Proust hakkında konuşabilsek, keşke saatlerce onun hastalıklar içinde azimle çabaladığı, acılarıyla başa çıktığı ve yatağından ayrılmadan kahvesiyle birlikte tamamlamaya çalıştığı bu mucizevi seriyi konuşabilsek...
Ben diyorum ki, ne olursa olsun zamanını kaybetmemek için yaşa. Çünkü en sonunda ya da belki de her şeyin en başlangıcında, sadece bir akşam vakti ya da kuşluk zamanı kadar kaldığımızı sanacağımız bu yaşamda zamanı yakalayabilmekten önemli başka hiçbir şey yoktur.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5e0i...
"Her şey yenilikten pırıl pırıldır, ve insan, dünyanın gerçekten daha mı kötüleştiğini, yoksa sadece kendisinin mi daha yaşlandığını sonunda bilemez olur. Bu noktaya varıldığında, kesinlikle yeni bir zaman gelmiş demektir." (s. 146) Niteliksiz Adam 1
Bu inceleme 20 kitap, 10 makale ve 1 tezin salt özüdür. Okunma süresi ise sadece 5 dakikadır. Senden sadece ama sadece 5 dakikanı ayırmanı istiyorum sevgili okur, eminim ki sen de Proust'un kitaplarını okuyup zamanı yakalamak için istek duyacaksın. Gün içinde sahip olduğun 1440 dakikandan sadece 5 dakikanı talep ediyorum. Evet, biliyorum bu insanlık için çok küçük bir adım ama emin ol ki hayatı hastalıklarla geçmiş olan Marcel Proust için büyük bir adım olacaktır. Gel, zamanı beraber yakalayalım senle...
Aylardır Marcel Proust okuyorum ve doğal olarak aylardır da zamanımı yakalayabilmeyi öğrenmeye çalışıyorum. Zaman, tam da şimdiki zamanken, geçmişe dönüşmemişken nasıl verimli bir şekilde farkında olunarak yaşanır hale getirilebilir? Kayıp Zamanın İzinde ne demektir? İnsan, bir insana mı aittir yoksa zamana mı? Aylardır bu sorular denizinin medcezir yapmasıyla yıkanan sonsuz cevaplar sahilimde, yine sonsuz sayıda sıradan olan kumlarıma zamanı öğretmeye çalışırmış gibi hissediyorum.
Peki, Marcel Proust bana tam olarak neyi öğretti? Onun kitaplarını bir bir aklımdaki raflara kaldırdıktan sonra yine aklımla baş başa kaldığımda, onunla birlikte bu zaman denen belirsizliği cüzi irademle çözebilecek hale geldim mi?
Yürüdüğüm sokakları artık Marcel Proust ve izlenimci cümleleriyle anlamlandırarak yürüyorum, etrafımda gördüğüm farklı yüzlerin perspektiflerini onun cümleleriyle betimliyorum. Bir ağaç görüyorum ve hemen Proust'un ağaçlar için yazdığı uzuncasına betimlemeler aklıma geliyor. Bir sevgiliye bakıyorum ve hemen Proust'un serisinde Albertine için yazdığı, farklı perspektiften görünen yüzler için yaptığı benzetme olan Doğu dinlerindeki Tanrıların farklı farklı yüzleri andırması geliyor. İnsanların uykularına ve uyanmalarına bakıyorum, belleklerini, alışkanlıklarını ve zamanı nasıl yönettiklerine bakıyorum. Zamanı yakalamanın tikel bir süreçten ibaret değil tam tersine etraftaki gereksiz insanların aptallıklarına maruz kalarak ve bundan sonra da şimdiki zamanımızda tek bir dakikayı bile verimsiz geçirmememiz gerektiğini anlayarak gerçekleştiğini çözümlüyorum.
Çözümlüyorum, çünkü Marcel Proust bir denklem gibidir. Ve Beckett'ın da dediği gibi "Proust'gil denklem hiçbir zaman basit değildir." Ben, hiçbir zaman basit olmayan bu denklem içinde başka bilinmeyenlerle birlikte yine bir bilinmeyen olarak yaşadığım birkaç ay geçirmiş gibi hissediyorum. Fakat şunu da öğreniyorum, bir denklemde ne kadar çok bilinmeyen olursa onu çözmek için de, onu bilinir hale getirmek için de o kadar çok uğraşırsın. Ve anlıyorum ki Kayıp Zamanın İzinde denklemini çözebilmek ve hayatıma hakkıyla katabilmek için epeyce uğraşmışım. Tüm bunların hepsi, yatağında sadece kitabını bitirebilmek için savaşan, yorgun düşen ve bizden sadece anlaşılmayı bekleyen Proust'un, mezarında rahat uyuyabilmesi için!
Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisindeki bütün karakterlere aslında sokağa adımımızı attığımızda biz de maruz kalıyoruz. Hayatımızın bir döneminde maruz kaldığımız bir sevgili Albertine, bir sosyete Guermanteslar, bir kibirli ve itibar düşkünü Charlus, bir sanatıyla tanınmak isteyen Vinteuil, Elstir, Berma ve Bergotte görüyoruz. Peki onları ne kadar görebiliyoruz, onların kendi şimdiki zamanlarında ulaştığını sandıkları saf sanatsal zevke, biz kendi şimdiki zamanlarımızda gerçek olarak ulaşabiliyor muyuz?
Bugüne kadar okuduğum bunca kitapta mekan ve zamanın ayrı olarak tasarlandığının farkındaydım. Fakat Proust denilen bu adam zamanı mekanlaştırmayı nasıl başarabilmişti? Zaman, kendi imparatorluğuna ve kronolojik oyunlarına nasıl bu kadar ustalıkla hakim olabilirdi? Yoksa Proust, Kant’ın, zamanın mekâna dönüştüğü ve içsel hissin dışarıya yansıtıldığı şemalara verdiği isim olan monogramları mı kullanmıştı? Dünyanın zaman skalasına değemeyecek kadar aciz ve verimsiz olarak yaşadığımız hayatlarımız bir monogramlar bütününden mi ibaretti? İçsel hislerimizi dışarı samimi olarak yansıtmayı bize kim, nasıl öğretebilirdi? Proust yaşamımızı nasıl değiştirebilirdi?
Bugüne kadar ellerimi ve ayaklarımı sürekli normal bir yaşam yaşamak için kullandım. Oysaki şu an Dostoyevski'nin Budala kitabındaki idam mahkumunun aklından 3 saniyede geçen onlarca sahneyi yazmaya çalışıyormuş gibi hissediyorum. Dostoyevski sarasıyla birlikte hazza ve varoluş acısına ulaşırdı, Proust ise hayatı boyunca bir astımlı olarak gezdi. Bunun üstüne bir de gidip kitaplarında onlarca çiçek ve bitkiyle içselleştirmeler yaşadı, yani bunun adı astım hastalığına sahip olup da etnobotanik ile uğraşmaktı. Ben de misal olarak uzun yıllardır bronşit hastalığımı geçirmek için uğraşıyorum ve 1-2 kere hapşırdığımda acizce hemen bir hapa başvuruyorum. Oysaki Marcel Proust için hapları, yazdığı kitaplardı, onlarla iyileşirdi, onlar ona bağışıklık kazandırabilirdi, sadece onlarla zamanı yakalayabilirdi. Çünkü kitapları, yazdıkları ve ardında bırakacağı izler dışındaki insanların hepsi onun için çoğu zaman bir vakit kaybıydı, onun zamanı ve hakikati arayışına panzehir olamazlardı.
Vakit kaybıydı çünkü vakit kaybı olması gerekiyordu. Proust'un zaman hiyerarşisi böyle işliyordu. Yani, zamanı yakalamak için onu kaybetmen gerekir. Dış dünyaya ne kadar maruz kalıp zamanını ne kadar boşa harcarsan, içinde onu kaybettiğinin farkına varacak bir delilin olur. Onu kaybettiğinin ne kadar farkına varırsan onu ele geçirmek için hırslanma kıvılcımın olur. Onu ele geçirmek için de ne kadar hırslanırsan onu yakalamaya o kadar yaklaşabilirsin. Çünkü Gilles Deleuze'un da dediği gibi, biz bu hayata çıraklar olarak gelmişizdir ve bizden pek çok konuda ustalık göstermemiz bekleniyordur. Ve hayat boyunca o kadar çok aşka, aptal insana ve bizi yanıltan maddi nesnelere maruz kalırız ki, esas olanın saf manevi ve sanat hazzı olduğunu unutuyoruzdur.
Ben unuttum, sen unuttun, o unuttu... Ama Proust unutmadı. Proust, sadece bir madlen ile istemsiz belleğini canlandırdı. İstemsiz belleğin verdiği o beklenmeyen haz ise istemli belleğin isteyerek hatırladığı şeylerden kat kat üstün bir hazdı. Hatta o sadece bir yazar değildi, o aynı zamanda bir sinirbilimciydi de:
"Proust, keki tattığında, kekin tadının ulaştığı nöronlar, yani Combray ve Leonie Hala'yı kodlayan nöronlar yanar. Hücreler kopmaz bir şekilde iç içe geçmiş, bir anı meydana gelmiştir."
(s. 111) Proust Bir Sinirbilimciydi, Jonah Lehrer
O sadece bir sinirbilimci değil, aynı zamanda bir sanatçıydı da:
"Berma'nın bir jesti bir heykelin duruşunu çağrıştırdığı için güzeldir. Aynı şekilde Vinteuil'ün müziği, Boulogne Ormanı'nda bir gezintiyi çağrıştırdığı için güzeldir." (s. 44) Proust ve Göstergeler, Gilles Deleuze
O sadece bir sanatçı değil, aynı zamanda bir astronottu da:
"Proustçu evren, parçalar halindeki bir evrendir, parçaları da parçalar halindeki başka evrenleri içerir." (s. 130)
Proust ve Göstergeler, Gilles Deleuze
O sadece bir astronot değil aynı zamanda filozoftu da. Çünkü yakaladığı zamanda kullandığı karakterler ve zaman kurgusu da Leibniz'in monadolojisini hatırlatıyordu. Sanki bütün karakterler bir monaddı, her biri dünyayı ifade ettikleri bakış açısına göre tanımlanırdı. Marcel, hakiki bir monaddı. Charlus farklı bir monaddı. Albertine, Guermanteslar, Vinteuil, Elstir, Bloch, Saint Loup, Verdurin, Villeparisis gibi isimlerin hepsinin üstüne çekilmiş bir monad battaniyesi vardı. Ve bu battaniyenin ısıttığı boş bir ceviz gibi yuvarlanan ve soğumuş dünyanın altında başlıbaşına bir zaman mefhumu vardı. Zaten Leibniz'in monadları da başka monadları anlamlandırırdı. Aynı, hayatta yaptığımız eylemlerin, baktığımız sevdiklerimizin, maruz kaldığımız dünyevi rutinlerin bizim farklı yönlerimize ışık tutması gibi Proust da bizim duygulanımlarımızın olabildiğince çeşitlenebilmesi ve sanata yaklaşabilmesi için uğraşırdı.
Hatta sevdiği filozoflardan biri olan Henri Bergson'ın dediği “Her zaman, bir sonraki an, önce gelen anı içerdiği gibi, bu anın kendisine bıraktığı anıyı da içerir.” gibi bir zincirleme zaman tamlamasında yaşıyorduk. Bir sonraki anımızda maruz kalacağımız anının merakında ve arkamıza attığımız zamanın içindeki anıların özleminde, tam anlamıyla bir bellek tahterevallisinin üzerinde bulunan zaman kurtlarıydık. Zaten yine Bergson'ın dediği gibi "Bizim zaman ölçümüzde geçmiş, şimdi ve gelecek sonsuz bir şekilde yanyana olabilme eğilimi taşır." Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisindeki kronolojik iç içe geçmeler gibi bizler de bu üç zamanı aslında fark etmeden aynı anda yaşıyorduk, fark edebilen ise zaten zamanı yakalamış oluyordu. Marcel Proust aynı zamanda bir zaman lorduydu!
O, bunların hepsinin yanında mitolojiye de derinden bağlı bir adamdı. Belki de bunun için Orpheus'un Eurydike'yi kovalamasından etkilenmiş olacak ki, Marcel'in Albertine'i ile yaşadığı çıkmaz sokak misali aşkı anlattı. Ama Orpheus arkasına bakarsa Eurydike'yi kaybederdi. Ve insan, maalesef ki arkasına bakmadan yaşayamazdı. Ben de arkama bakmadan yaşayamıyorum. Geçmiş zamanda farkına varmadan kaybettiğim şeyleri o anda kaybetmemem gerektiğini anca şimdi anlıyorum, evet acı duyuyorum. Ama Proust acıyı severdi, acının, kıskançlıkların, hayal kırıklıklarının, rahatsız oluşların bizi insan yapacağını savunurdu ve sadece kitaplarındaki seslere kulak verdi. Büyük adamdı Proust, büyük adamdı...
Her şeye rağmen Marcel Proust ve onun kurguladığı zamanı yakalayabilmek için bu inceleme özelinde Marcel Proust'çu eleştiri yöntemini kullandım. Yani, onun sadece kitaplarına bağlı kalarak bir inceleme yazmak istedim. Eğer Sainte-Beuve'cu bir eleştiri yöntemi kullanarak Kayıp Zamanın İzinde'yi anlatmak isteseydim, onun babası olan Adrien Proust'un başarılarını kıskanmasından, kardeşi olan Robert Proust'un fiziksel gücü ile Marcel'ın onunla tam olarak zıt olmasından, hastalıklarından, arkadaş çevresinden, Dreyfus taraftarlığından, Balzac, John Ruskin ve Vermeer hayranlığından, hizmetçisi olan Celeste Albaret ile yaşadığı o küçük ama dünyanın en uzun romanının çıkabildiği odanın düzeninden bahsetmem gerekirdi. Oysaki ben bunu yapmadım, kendi gözlerimle Proust'un dünyasına bakmak yerine Proust'un gözlerini kullanarak kendi dünyama baktım. O, dünyanın en uzun kitabı için bütün hayatını verdi, ben ise bu inceleme için sadece 2 saatimi verdim. Sen ise okumak için sadece 5 dakikanı... Zamanı ben ya da sen değil, sevgili okur, kesinlikle o yakaladı ve yakalamış olarak da bu dünyadan göçtü.
İlerleyen günlerde bir Marcel Proust okuma rehberi, okunması gereken farklı yazarlara ait referans kitapların Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisinden önce mi sonra mı yoksa ortasında mı okunması gerektiği, hangi makalelerin seriyi aydınlattığı konusunda bir ileti paylaşacağım. Onun hakkında 20 paragraf yazı yazmak yetmiyor, keşke saatlerce Marcel Proust hakkında konuşabilsek, keşke saatlerce onun hastalıklar içinde azimle çabaladığı, acılarıyla başa çıktığı ve yatağından ayrılmadan kahvesiyle birlikte tamamlamaya çalıştığı bu mucizevi seriyi konuşabilsek...
Ben diyorum ki, ne olursa olsun zamanını kaybetmemek için yaşa. Çünkü en sonunda ya da belki de her şeyin en başlangıcında, sadece bir akşam vakti ya da kuşluk zamanı kadar kaldığımızı sanacağımız bu yaşamda zamanı yakalayabilmekten önemli başka hiçbir şey yoktur.
November 18, 2013
Wow, Proust kills it with this last book in his masterpiece In Search of Lost Time. He pulls it all together. I loved Proust's reflections on literary and artistic creation, reality, memory, pain, death and time -- and how in 'Time Regained' he draws all his themes together.
I'm almost sad my stroll with Proust is over. There are few books I've ever wanted to start reading again immediately after finishing. Today as I was setting down 'Time Regained', I almost reached for 'Swann's Way'. I feel like there was so much I missed, whole parts and pages I just didn't get in the beginning; gems that dropped between the pages of my cognition. At the same time, I think THAT VERY loss/regret is the essence and core of Proust: the recognition that in the end, his novel is just us writing ourselves. My same need or desire to go back and read 'In Search of Lost Time' again is similar to my desire to go back into my own past and re-experience my youth with the knowledge I have now. It is a futile, but a very human desire. It is an impulse created by recognizing the expanse and limitations of time and memory. The genius of Proust is his ability to transport the reader to that point where we recognize the art within our own lives at the intersection of our memory and immediate experiences.
I'm almost sad my stroll with Proust is over. There are few books I've ever wanted to start reading again immediately after finishing. Today as I was setting down 'Time Regained', I almost reached for 'Swann's Way'. I feel like there was so much I missed, whole parts and pages I just didn't get in the beginning; gems that dropped between the pages of my cognition. At the same time, I think THAT VERY loss/regret is the essence and core of Proust: the recognition that in the end, his novel is just us writing ourselves. My same need or desire to go back and read 'In Search of Lost Time' again is similar to my desire to go back into my own past and re-experience my youth with the knowledge I have now. It is a futile, but a very human desire. It is an impulse created by recognizing the expanse and limitations of time and memory. The genius of Proust is his ability to transport the reader to that point where we recognize the art within our own lives at the intersection of our memory and immediate experiences.
October 1, 2017
I did it.
May 2014 – October 2017
May 2014 – October 2017
Read
December 31, 2025 I did write this on Christmas Day. But then I went away and editing it on the phone is difficult, so apologies just in case. Happy Holidays and all the best in New Year!
It is a bright morning on a Christmas day. And when many people running around their kitchens and trying to get children out of the way with their numerous presents, I have a luxury of a quiet time looking at the garden through my window and writing about the time lost and found by Marcel Proust.
I used to write a diary. Quite often when i would settle down with my notebook, I would stare at a blank page thinking: should i write about ‘now’ - the moment i was in, what i experienced in the present whether it would be an exotic location under palm trees, an outside table of a cafe in some old city or just my bedroom after late work; or should I write about some memory, something that happened to me in the past something i’ve minutely remembered when i was riding a bus a few days ago and then thought i needed to think about it, i needed to make a memory more warped. In that new ‘now’ in front of that blank page, that memory would seem not that precious. But sometimes I would still make an effort. Initially, my mind would get me back on that bus and eventually I would totally escape into that moment i’ve meant to remember. Although in other times I would see only fog surrounding that particular flush in the past. And I would just circle around like that proverbial man who was looking for the lost keys at specific place only because it was under a street lamp. So in would just close the notebook.
Or, i would have a dream: a person long gone from my life would feature in it. I would wake up with that fleeting image still lingering. And suddenly something long forgotten would resurface about an episode of my life not even always related to this person. It would fill me with longing or very rarely - with dread. I might write down the actual dream as well as the actual memory it triggered. But even if i would not write it down, this would be a new memory formed and kept somewhere in my mind. And it would come back to it from time to time until it would stop being even a memory and will become more like a story. The one I would learn how to tell myself and sometimes even to the others. Most likely I would fill in the gaps of memory with imagination. At the end, I might not know any longer what was real and what was imagined…Strangely, i do not like that much to come back and re-read my diaries.
It seems an hour passed since i’ve started to write this. Where did it go?
An hour ago this thought came to me that it seems Proust has had a similar dilemma to my diary one: whether to write about things remembered or about things present at the moment. His solution was the most elegant one. A certain sensation in the present would involuntary trigger a memory from the past and sets his imagination into a free flight. So his written world would consists of things remembered but re-lived again: a fragile, unreliable stitch between the reality and the memory. His own metaphor would be as if he was developing an image from a photo-negative stored in his mind.
I did not sit down this morning with an idea to start this piece writing about my diaries. But here it was, that “stitch” appearing from nowhere, involuntary as Proust would say.
Have I just spontaneously discovered something common between Proust and me? Only in a narrow way. Proust might be even pleased with my comparison. He seemingly loved to generalise: “what gave me a specific pleasure, was the point that was common to one being and another.’ In his essay, Walter Benjamin has also noticed how Proust frenetically studying resemblances, his impassioned cult of similarity.. Proust might appreciate the question: ‘Don’t we all face this choice between living life ‘forward’ always thirsty to experience something new and spending time enjoying remembering the past?’ As it is often the case, the answer might be individual, situated somewhere on the continuum between these two extremes.
The time is unstoppable, winter day is so short and presently it is getting dark behind my window. So it seems a suitable moment to come back to an image from the novel that initially was about to be my starting point.
It is winter in Paris. During the war, Marcel comes back to his boulevard Haussmann, but sees this familiar place in a totally strange, slightly eerie way:
Now I’ve typed this passage and read it again. I am looking through the darkness behind my window and see Proust’s Paris.
It has not started so smoothly like this with Proust and me reading him though. Henry James called reading Proust as inconceivable boredom associated with the most extreme ecstasy which it is possible to imagine. I could see where he was coming from. Although when Henry James saying this it wasn’t without its own irony.
The first third of this book was testing my stamina. It has started with numerous ‘invert’ misadventures of M. de Charlus, gossipy tone and poor long-dead Albertine subjected to multiple resurrections through being retrieved from Marcel’s memory just for him to repeat that he didn’t have any more feelings for her.
I genially want to believe there are some universal values uniting all the humanity that are more sophisticated than the basic propensity to suffering and joy. Alas I find it increasingly difficult to do so. So “we” in this sense does not ring true to my ear. As a result, I am not over-kin lately of the authors’ using universal pronoun ‘we’ for pontificating on human nature. Proust does all the time. I suspect that his ‘we’ implies ‘everyone’ through space and time (including me presently still sitting in my chair and thinking about this). Initially, I’ve struggled with this while reading.
Also it didn’t help I had to read Proust in translation. I’ve read the version by Ian Patterson. It was really good. He’s rendered the syntax and the tonality of the text brilliantly. However in his own words:
So i was painfully aware I’ve missed the language dimension. All of this has initially lead to an experience that I would not call ‘inconceivable boredom’; however, it wasn’t without frustration.
And it might have stayed that way if not for ‘the outlines of the trees ...sharp and pure against the golden-blue snow’ changing everything. I never could imagine ‘dark-wine’ sea as Homer described it, but i could easily see ‘golden-blue snow’. The sharpness of trees’ shadows cutting through this fragile golden blueness almost made me hurt with its cold grace. It was yet another new ’stitch’, this time between Proust’s text and me. And even if later in the book he was still not over-generous in describing his old friends, I’ve found his sardonic rants witty, occasionally bitter-humorous, but not that thorny and sneaky anymore.
The middle part of the book was an elegant transgressive essay about everything prompted by Marcel stepping on two stones and hearing the sound of a fork. Murnane has got the image of the unlimited blue-green space in his mind when he writes, he travels from one image in this space to another yet to be discovered trying to reach it through the fog of ever expanding borders. For me Proust’s essay was an equivalent of that open space but in Proust’s mind: I was travelling from one image or idea to another new one that would be impossible to predict from the place I currently was.
In this part, Proust described his way of writing as a work of interpreting ‘the sensations as the signs of so many laws and ideas,’ ‘that composed a complicated and elaborate book of spells, their primary character was that I was not free to choose them’. So effectively his writing was ‘translating’ these signs into something that can be written about, examined or understood:
So then for Proust, writing is an equivalent of understanding yourself. And real life of a person is just “uncovering of a book”. Real life is literature.
Moreover, according to Proust, we look at a same object but each of us see it differently. This is due to our individual ‘style’ that we cannot choose or control. Therefore ‘the qualitative difference in the ways we perceive the world, a difference which, if there were no art, would remain the eternal secret of each individual.’
So because the artists “develop” his ‘negatives’, and the rest of people leave them unprocessed It is only through art that we can escape from ourselves and learn how another sees ‘a universe which is not the same as our own’. In this way, infinitely amplifies the ability of a person to perceive the world, or rather it enables this person to see multiple Worlds instead of a single one. What a consistent and elegant vision is that! It has reminded me of Wittgenstein’s idea of private language. Only Wittgenstein is a more pessimistic about the ability to share it. It makes reality stranger, but familiar at the same time, more ‘knowable’. And it warps the time by changing its cruel directional linearity.
If the state of health, of the world, or sudden realisation of middle age stopped him from joy, he would find an escape route through his writing. He might lack in health but he’s had in abundance this dreamy and very contagious will to happiness. As Benjamin wrote:
Is another Christmas Day over?
______________________________________________
Ps
Note to myself: 1) maybe to expand by writing about Proust and Strawson’s theory of episodic self vs narrative self. 2) Proust joy while remembering about his jealousy: maybe to write about remembering negative feelings positively?
It is a bright morning on a Christmas day. And when many people running around their kitchens and trying to get children out of the way with their numerous presents, I have a luxury of a quiet time looking at the garden through my window and writing about the time lost and found by Marcel Proust.
I used to write a diary. Quite often when i would settle down with my notebook, I would stare at a blank page thinking: should i write about ‘now’ - the moment i was in, what i experienced in the present whether it would be an exotic location under palm trees, an outside table of a cafe in some old city or just my bedroom after late work; or should I write about some memory, something that happened to me in the past something i’ve minutely remembered when i was riding a bus a few days ago and then thought i needed to think about it, i needed to make a memory more warped. In that new ‘now’ in front of that blank page, that memory would seem not that precious. But sometimes I would still make an effort. Initially, my mind would get me back on that bus and eventually I would totally escape into that moment i’ve meant to remember. Although in other times I would see only fog surrounding that particular flush in the past. And I would just circle around like that proverbial man who was looking for the lost keys at specific place only because it was under a street lamp. So in would just close the notebook.
Or, i would have a dream: a person long gone from my life would feature in it. I would wake up with that fleeting image still lingering. And suddenly something long forgotten would resurface about an episode of my life not even always related to this person. It would fill me with longing or very rarely - with dread. I might write down the actual dream as well as the actual memory it triggered. But even if i would not write it down, this would be a new memory formed and kept somewhere in my mind. And it would come back to it from time to time until it would stop being even a memory and will become more like a story. The one I would learn how to tell myself and sometimes even to the others. Most likely I would fill in the gaps of memory with imagination. At the end, I might not know any longer what was real and what was imagined…Strangely, i do not like that much to come back and re-read my diaries.
It seems an hour passed since i’ve started to write this. Where did it go?
An hour ago this thought came to me that it seems Proust has had a similar dilemma to my diary one: whether to write about things remembered or about things present at the moment. His solution was the most elegant one. A certain sensation in the present would involuntary trigger a memory from the past and sets his imagination into a free flight. So his written world would consists of things remembered but re-lived again: a fragile, unreliable stitch between the reality and the memory. His own metaphor would be as if he was developing an image from a photo-negative stored in his mind.
I did not sit down this morning with an idea to start this piece writing about my diaries. But here it was, that “stitch” appearing from nowhere, involuntary as Proust would say.
Have I just spontaneously discovered something common between Proust and me? Only in a narrow way. Proust might be even pleased with my comparison. He seemingly loved to generalise: “what gave me a specific pleasure, was the point that was common to one being and another.’ In his essay, Walter Benjamin has also noticed how Proust frenetically studying resemblances, his impassioned cult of similarity.. Proust might appreciate the question: ‘Don’t we all face this choice between living life ‘forward’ always thirsty to experience something new and spending time enjoying remembering the past?’ As it is often the case, the answer might be individual, situated somewhere on the continuum between these two extremes.
The time is unstoppable, winter day is so short and presently it is getting dark behind my window. So it seems a suitable moment to come back to an image from the novel that initially was about to be my starting point.
It is winter in Paris. During the war, Marcel comes back to his boulevard Haussmann, but sees this familiar place in a totally strange, slightly eerie way:
The moonlight created effects that are normally unknown in the city, even in the middle of winter; its beams spreading across the snow on the boulevard Haussmann that there was nobody now to shovel away, just as they might have done on a glacier in the Alps. The outlines of the trees were revealed, sharp and pure against the golden-blue snow, with all the delicacy of a Japanese painting or a Raphael background; as shadows, they stretched out over the ground from the very foot of each tree, as one often sees them in the country when the rays of the setting sun flood the meadows, creating reflections of their evenly spaced trees. But by a wonderfully delicate subtlety, the meadow over which these tree shadows, weightless as souls, extended was a paradisal meadow, not green but of a white so dazzling, by virtue of the moonlight which shone on to the jade snow, that it might have been woven entirely from the petals of flowering pear trees. And in the squares, the divinities of the public fountains holding jets of ice in their hands looked like statues made of some twofold material, for whose creation the artist had set out to make a pure marriage of bronze and crystal.
Now I’ve typed this passage and read it again. I am looking through the darkness behind my window and see Proust’s Paris.
It has not started so smoothly like this with Proust and me reading him though. Henry James called reading Proust as inconceivable boredom associated with the most extreme ecstasy which it is possible to imagine. I could see where he was coming from. Although when Henry James saying this it wasn’t without its own irony.
The first third of this book was testing my stamina. It has started with numerous ‘invert’ misadventures of M. de Charlus, gossipy tone and poor long-dead Albertine subjected to multiple resurrections through being retrieved from Marcel’s memory just for him to repeat that he didn’t have any more feelings for her.
I genially want to believe there are some universal values uniting all the humanity that are more sophisticated than the basic propensity to suffering and joy. Alas I find it increasingly difficult to do so. So “we” in this sense does not ring true to my ear. As a result, I am not over-kin lately of the authors’ using universal pronoun ‘we’ for pontificating on human nature. Proust does all the time. I suspect that his ‘we’ implies ‘everyone’ through space and time (including me presently still sitting in my chair and thinking about this). Initially, I’ve struggled with this while reading.
Also it didn’t help I had to read Proust in translation. I’ve read the version by Ian Patterson. It was really good. He’s rendered the syntax and the tonality of the text brilliantly. However in his own words:
Questions of vocabulary are not, in the end, all that difficult to resolve. And much of Proust's curious syntax, with its sinuous sideways movements into a series of digressions, each one displaced by the next, reminiscent of his beloved Arabian Nights in miniature, can be more or less adequately imitated. What remains a constant frustration, for this translator at least, is the near-impossibility of conveying the more detailed pleasures of Proust's writing, its poetic features, alliterations, anagrams and paragrams, and everything that Malcolm Bowie has described as 'the rhythm of concentration and dispersal in which Proust's details are caught'. It would take another lifetime of translation to find a way of doing that’
So i was painfully aware I’ve missed the language dimension. All of this has initially lead to an experience that I would not call ‘inconceivable boredom’; however, it wasn’t without frustration.
And it might have stayed that way if not for ‘the outlines of the trees ...sharp and pure against the golden-blue snow’ changing everything. I never could imagine ‘dark-wine’ sea as Homer described it, but i could easily see ‘golden-blue snow’. The sharpness of trees’ shadows cutting through this fragile golden blueness almost made me hurt with its cold grace. It was yet another new ’stitch’, this time between Proust’s text and me. And even if later in the book he was still not over-generous in describing his old friends, I’ve found his sardonic rants witty, occasionally bitter-humorous, but not that thorny and sneaky anymore.
The middle part of the book was an elegant transgressive essay about everything prompted by Marcel stepping on two stones and hearing the sound of a fork. Murnane has got the image of the unlimited blue-green space in his mind when he writes, he travels from one image in this space to another yet to be discovered trying to reach it through the fog of ever expanding borders. For me Proust’s essay was an equivalent of that open space but in Proust’s mind: I was travelling from one image or idea to another new one that would be impossible to predict from the place I currently was.
In this part, Proust described his way of writing as a work of interpreting ‘the sensations as the signs of so many laws and ideas,’ ‘that composed a complicated and elaborate book of spells, their primary character was that I was not free to choose them’. So effectively his writing was ‘translating’ these signs into something that can be written about, examined or understood:
‘I slowly became aware that the essential book, the only true book, was not something the writer needs to invent, in the usual sense of the word, so much as to translate, because it already exists within each of us. The writer's task and duty are those of a translator.’
So then for Proust, writing is an equivalent of understanding yourself. And real life of a person is just “uncovering of a book”. Real life is literature.
‘Real life, life finally uncovered and clarified, the only life in consequence lived to the full, is literature. Life in this sense dwells within all ordinary people as much as in the artist. But they do not see it because they are not trying to shed light on it. And so their past is cluttered with countless photographic negatives, which continue to be useless because their intellect has never 'developed' them.’
Moreover, according to Proust, we look at a same object but each of us see it differently. This is due to our individual ‘style’ that we cannot choose or control. Therefore ‘the qualitative difference in the ways we perceive the world, a difference which, if there were no art, would remain the eternal secret of each individual.’
So because the artists “develop” his ‘negatives’, and the rest of people leave them unprocessed It is only through art that we can escape from ourselves and learn how another sees ‘a universe which is not the same as our own’. In this way, infinitely amplifies the ability of a person to perceive the world, or rather it enables this person to see multiple Worlds instead of a single one. What a consistent and elegant vision is that! It has reminded me of Wittgenstein’s idea of private language. Only Wittgenstein is a more pessimistic about the ability to share it. It makes reality stranger, but familiar at the same time, more ‘knowable’. And it warps the time by changing its cruel directional linearity.
‘One minute freed from the order of time has recreated in us,.. And because of that we can understand why he (the writer) trusts his joy, and even if the simple taste of a madeleine does not seem logically to contain reasons for this joy, we can understand how the word 'death' has no meaning for him; situated outside time, what should he fear from the future?’
If the state of health, of the world, or sudden realisation of middle age stopped him from joy, he would find an escape route through his writing. He might lack in health but he’s had in abundance this dreamy and very contagious will to happiness. As Benjamin wrote:
‘He lay on his bed racked with homesickness, homesick for the world distorted in the state of resemblance, a world in which the true surrealist face of existence breaks through. To this world belongs what happens in Proust, and the deliberate and fastidious way in which it appears. It is never isolated, rhetorical, or visionary; carefully heralded and securely supported, it bears a fragile, precious reality: the image. It detaches itself from the structure of Proust’s sentences as that summer day at Balbec – old immemorial, mummified – emerged from the lace curtains under Francoise’s hands.’
Is another Christmas Day over?
______________________________________________
Ps
Note to myself: 1) maybe to expand by writing about Proust and Strawson’s theory of episodic self vs narrative self. 2) Proust joy while remembering about his jealousy: maybe to write about remembering negative feelings positively?
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