"Marcel Proust" by Edmund White Lipper/Viking: 1999
I am reading the above book about Marcel Proust that is part of the series, Penguin Lives, and enjoying it very much. Recently, while I was in Korea I lost my entire book collection that was here in my house when someone took it and gave it away without my permission. I have written about this before. I was heartbroken as this is my house and I had no way of getting the books back. The person in question was angry at me for divorcing him twenty years ago. Part of the books that was given away was some of the volumes of "Remembrance of Things Past", a monumental achievement by Marcel Proust. I have read only three of the volumes and I was astonished that the librarian at the public library did not recognize it. I always thought that Remembrance of Things Past or "In Search of Lost Time", a novel of seven volumes by Marcel Proust should be on the must read list of all readers. Our library only has one volume which means they gave away the ones in my collection. That is such a shame.
I started to read the book about Proust because I have been thinking of late of the subject of memories. Proust's novel is an exploration of the themes of times, space and of course, memory. It is also a condensation of innumerable literary, structural, stylistic and thematic possibilities. I am interested in memory here although I recommend highly that everyone should read Proust at one point in their lives.
In the book that I am reading, White states that Proust develops the idea that memory is not like a vase in which all of our memories are from the past are available to us simultaneously. According to White, Proust felt that the heart has its intermittencies and memories come flooding back to us in their full, sensuous force only when triggered involuntarily by tastes or smells or other sensations over which we have no control. This is one of the touchstones of the seven volume novel he writes.
Proust was well aware of the feelings of loss of loved ones, friendships, and so on throughout his life. He felt that everyone was capable of art to recreate that. We can take these experiences and recreate what it is we lost so we can then experience them again. In some ways, some people would want to hold onto those memories while others detach. Proust still felt jealousies and possessiveness long after affairs ended.
I have always felt that memories should comfort and provide joy and not torture. I agree that memories do come to the surface unbidden as Proust felt, but once they are in the conscious mind they should be savored and the lessons once learned should not provide points in which to again provide pain and suffering. The inner world of each of us are full of memories and they are to be explored so they can become fruitful and pleasant and not daylight nightmares.
Certainly, most of us will not be writing our own seven volume novels based on experiences and people we meet during our lifetime. We won't have the talent of a Marcel Proust but we do have the ability to take what we do experience and turn it into different forms of art as Proust did. A good way of doing that is reading what Proust did with memory in his novel. I am a big believer in adapting art to fit who the person is. I am a reader so books play a large part in my life as well as art and music. I agree that each of us are capable of doing it in our own way.
