Remembrance Of Things Past 2008 discussion
Vol. 5
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Robin wrote: "I thought I'd throw this up here in case anyone wants to discuss. Even if it's a year or two later. :) It's my review, but I'm sure I'm not "friends" with a lot of you all, and only a few of my ...Where Proust’s prose really soars for me in his hall of mirrors is when he discusses the artist’s craft...."Wow Robin. Although I'm not reading Proust at the moment, I had heard that there were interesting rumbles coming from this group. So I thought I'd join and check out the hoopla.
I just wanted to share with you (as I did on the other Proust group) that you might get a kick out of reading Marcel Proust on Art and Literature 1896-1919 . It has a lot of his miscellaneous ideas, some of his criticism, and even some passages of prose that are early versions of themes you will recognize. In some cases you see the germ of the ideas he fleshes out and further aestheticizes in Remembrance of Things Past
Oh goodie my friends are going to play together! I joined this group originally just to hang about and talk Proust because I was missing that aspect of the work so much after our CR group had finished sometime in 2007. Robin that is MARVELOUS -- and Cherlize, I loved your response, well done.
Now where is Yoby? Are you still reading, Yoby?
Cherlize, when it comes to Proust you have to dive in with the written responses -- so glad you did! And YOU are very thoughtful and well-spoken! You're so on about Proust modeling our inner dialogue. It's like he can anticipate all of his readers' reactions. (And, like he says, if he can't, his book probably isn't for you.)And his prose being mesmerizing really rings true for me too. His use of the comma in particular is exquisite. What's dangerous about it for me is that many other writers pale in comparison with regard to their craft, and I find myself unfairly judging them by his standard. But heck -- maybe that's not unfair. Maybe it's just raising the bar higher than my heretofore already snobbish bar.
I know what you mean by your last paragraph -- I was trying to allude to that with my Buddhist reference. I think we're on the same page here -- getting beyond suffering to insight. I get it, but I too have a problem with it -- it leads one to an absence of desire, necessarily accompanied by a separation from other people. I think sometimes people can use it as an excuse to remain aloof from suffering around them, and/or as an excuse not to fight for social justice....
Thanks for the recommendation, Ed. I'll be getting to that sort of thing very soon -- I'm glad I put it off, but am looking forward to it!
My reactions to Proust are so all over the place. I find him very easy to read; it just takes me forever because every paragraph or so he is taking me off on a tangent with some personal connection he has forced me to make. And then he forces me to analyze that personal connection and evaluate whether or not I think Proust’s philosophy holds for me. And half an hour later I’m ready for the next paragraph.
But another overwhelming reaction to the guy is deep sympathy tempered by anger. Love for him is reciprocal torture? Friendship is a fallacy? The dead don’t leave even a ripple in reality? The intellect of women isn’t interesting? Poor people have less regret when parted from a loved one because they know s/he is inaccessible, as opposed to the wealthy who have more access to immediate communication, and thus suffering and desire?
And, for good measure, he’ll throw in some Buddhist philosophy, like how forgetting negates love, which leaves us with an absence of suffering, leading to happiness within the extinction of desire. I’ve always had a problem with that.
But of course he’s not going for this extinction of desire – he’s all about the remembering – you know, searching for that lost time, grain by grain savoring the past within our memory’s library of tectonic underpinnings. And pressing those sad memories “voluptuously” to our hearts. He redeems himself with hopeful phrases like, “Love is space and time made perceptible to the heart.”
And then he’ll throw in a fun plot twist, like being charged for abducting a minor, a stranger he brings back to his house to hold on his lap….
I love how Proust plays with the idea of a fictional autobiography – saying that “if” we give his narrator the same name as the writer, it would be Marcel. And that Swann achieved fame as a result of his story being a large part of Volume I. And that lying is acceptable under the guise of “narrative tidiness.” As well as lots of other fun little references to his readers. I have avoided reading criticism of Proust until after I’m all done with all six volumes (which will be this week!!!!!!!), and I’m very curious to see how this all pans out.
Where Proust’s prose really soars for me in his hall of mirrors is when he discusses the artist’s craft. I’ll quote four examples that really do it for me in the comments below this review. In summary, they are about the tension between a healthy respect for the limitations of human endeavors and the other-worldly obligation that drives the artist to produce profound works of the intellect. Works that hint at this other-worldly lost fatherland, this unknown country, like a visit to a personal, intimate star, the elements of which compose the permanent part of the soul. Works of art that exteriorize the unsayable. At times he appears to be a cynical atheist who derives an incredible amount of transcendental joy from art, and he can’t explain this joy without reference to some other reality, a reality separate from “a life hagridden by people who have no real connexion with one.” (When I read this last phrase, I had a greater appreciation for why he goes on and on about the dinner parties of the Guermantes and the Verdurins.) Of course, this is assuming Proust and his narrator are one and the same. Even though they’re not, I’m guessing that those sentiments are what he wants us to take away.
In the end, while his cynicism and depression are hard to take, what he has done is taken me on an intimate voyage to his star, and through that deeper into my own star. And for most of us, that’s probably why we read fiction.