Deliberate humanist translation of Proust...
It's been a while since I wrote anything here, and that concerns me. The idea for a writing website is postponed. I have earmarked almost half the pages of The Sweet Cheat Gone, which is the first part of the last volume of In Search of Lost Time. The text is an incandescent illumination on life, morality and how to understand others; it is mesmerising.
Take this quote, which goes a step further than the famous David Hume in dealing with habit:
"... I had supposed that I knew the state of my own heart. But our intelligence, however great it may be, cannot perceive the elements that compose it and remain unsuspected so long as, from the volatile state in which they generally exist, a phenomenon capable of isolating them has not subjected them to the first stages of solidification. I had been mistaken in thinking that I could see clearly into my own heart. But this knowledge which had not been given me by the finest mental perceptions had now been brought to me, hard, glittering, strange, like a crystallised salt, by the abrupt reaction of grief. I was so much in the habit of seeing Albertine in the room, and saw, all of a sudden, a fresh aspect of Habit. Hitherto I had regarded it chiefly as an annhiliating force which suppresses the originality and even our consciousness of the perceptions; now I beheld it as a dread deity, so riveted to ourself, its meaningless aspect so incrusted in our heart, that if it detaches itself, if it turns away from us, this deity whichh we can barely distinguish inflicts upon us sufferings more terrible than any other and it is as cruel as death itself."
- Marcel Proust, "In Search of Lost Time: The Sweet Cheat Gone" (Chatto and Windus, 1944) p2-3
This is profound, and enormous is in its potential to create equilibrium in the humanities or, at the very least, make it something we strive for. Philosophical, psychological, cerebral and neurological, historical and poetic, Proust's final volume titled Time Regained is a triumph in a plethora of differents respects. I haven't quite finished it, and am decidedly taking a rest for a short while after, but it has inspired me to read into several subjects, namely sociology, psychology and a brief return to abstract philosophy (namely, the philosophy of truth and time). Yes, it is possible that this could drive me into madness and confusion, but I suspect that I had acquired a new discipline for educating myself, one which I can balance with taking occasional walks outside to look at the season of Spring as it unfolds.
My intention, as I have mentioned in earlier online entries, is to translate the humanity inherent and prevalent in Proust's wonderful novel. Painfully opting for the active approach, and sometimes excruciatingly paying attention to detail, I have immersed myself in a new world-view; that time may just be an extension of space which humanity comprehends in a more abstract fashion to deal with painful memories and events. Time is the space traversed for enough emotional discharge to be replaced with new, unrelated memories. The energy expires as the person travels far enough away from the space in which it happened. Consciousness is translated by Proust as the experience and cultivation of memories. He reaches brilliant conclusions and expresses wonderful sentiments as regard to the shared experience of certain spaces, sensations and emotions, shared via certain objects or moments in time. Shared consciousness is possible, but obliterated by social constraints and limitations on the individual's desire to be alert and face the world in a state of high perception and involvement.
Proust unwittingly fashions an extraordinary social framework based upon philosophical, cerebral, and natural matters held in common. He refers to his individual experiences but- in doing so- the shared consciousness evoked by a general readership creates an understanding in common. The reader is not always entirely following Proust's story; the reader is, by means of the author's cerebral style and his use of potent literary images, inclined to recall his or her own life. As Proust recalls his own memories through imagery of solidifcation and natural literary progression he invokes the memory of the reader himself. It is an alertness that Proust evokes, a level of risen consciousness which makes life seem vastly interconnected and interdependent. Unfortunately for the author himself, he was bedridden during this period of his life when he was finally coming to these bewildering conclusions, and thus could not perceive for himself the positive possibilities that could be developed from his profound ideas.
I will take myself as an example; after reading the chapter Grief and Oblivion which takes place at the beginning of The Sweet Cheat Gone, I went for a prolonged walk in the rain. It was a light rain, but as rain is usually a renewal of sorts, physically in nature at least, the cerebral connotations were senescent; the ideas and memories cast sparks in my mind which enabled me to relive my past in quick, involuntary succession. Language and expression; two prompts to physical memory and renewal of identity. Nature and language used together evoke the most human and compassionate qualities if perceived with gentleness and understanding. It's all about paying attention to each other, communicating ideas which make life more meaningful and imbue it more or less with universal compassion. An understanding and patience for nature, religion and philosophy is important because these things deal with the visceral human experience. As Conor Oberst once titled an album "The Story Is in the Soil; Keep Your Ears to the Ground", just for once I would like for us to slow ourselves down and reform the education and spirtual developmeLent of our society. It is singularly important not for ourselves alone, but to re-establish declining equilibrium with nature.
I often wondered why spring time is such a wonderful time for renewal; it is because of the familiarity we have with nature, and the reassurance that no matter how much rain might fall during those early days in April, we shall be healed my the scent of nature, the cross pollinations of those vibrant bees which fill the air with music and electricty. April is the cruellest month, says T.S. Eliot, so it must also be the most wonderful month for introspection and renewal in humanity. Allow for your idleness and inhumanity to crystallise in one cruel, seemingly irredeemable form, and look at it with all that compassion that you might lack but you can gather from the living around you. Renewal is possible in any case. And I intend to make sure that people don't get lost. I have nowhere else to go, and I love humanity and nature equally, as we are a sometimes conflicted whole. Oh, what it is to dream and then dream some for about the possibilites of a renewed and compassionate humanity. It is almost as reassuring as that first warm ray of sunlight at the end of winter; only the reality of it could allow me to rest on it as reassurance.
Take this quote, which goes a step further than the famous David Hume in dealing with habit:
"... I had supposed that I knew the state of my own heart. But our intelligence, however great it may be, cannot perceive the elements that compose it and remain unsuspected so long as, from the volatile state in which they generally exist, a phenomenon capable of isolating them has not subjected them to the first stages of solidification. I had been mistaken in thinking that I could see clearly into my own heart. But this knowledge which had not been given me by the finest mental perceptions had now been brought to me, hard, glittering, strange, like a crystallised salt, by the abrupt reaction of grief. I was so much in the habit of seeing Albertine in the room, and saw, all of a sudden, a fresh aspect of Habit. Hitherto I had regarded it chiefly as an annhiliating force which suppresses the originality and even our consciousness of the perceptions; now I beheld it as a dread deity, so riveted to ourself, its meaningless aspect so incrusted in our heart, that if it detaches itself, if it turns away from us, this deity whichh we can barely distinguish inflicts upon us sufferings more terrible than any other and it is as cruel as death itself."
- Marcel Proust, "In Search of Lost Time: The Sweet Cheat Gone" (Chatto and Windus, 1944) p2-3
This is profound, and enormous is in its potential to create equilibrium in the humanities or, at the very least, make it something we strive for. Philosophical, psychological, cerebral and neurological, historical and poetic, Proust's final volume titled Time Regained is a triumph in a plethora of differents respects. I haven't quite finished it, and am decidedly taking a rest for a short while after, but it has inspired me to read into several subjects, namely sociology, psychology and a brief return to abstract philosophy (namely, the philosophy of truth and time). Yes, it is possible that this could drive me into madness and confusion, but I suspect that I had acquired a new discipline for educating myself, one which I can balance with taking occasional walks outside to look at the season of Spring as it unfolds.
My intention, as I have mentioned in earlier online entries, is to translate the humanity inherent and prevalent in Proust's wonderful novel. Painfully opting for the active approach, and sometimes excruciatingly paying attention to detail, I have immersed myself in a new world-view; that time may just be an extension of space which humanity comprehends in a more abstract fashion to deal with painful memories and events. Time is the space traversed for enough emotional discharge to be replaced with new, unrelated memories. The energy expires as the person travels far enough away from the space in which it happened. Consciousness is translated by Proust as the experience and cultivation of memories. He reaches brilliant conclusions and expresses wonderful sentiments as regard to the shared experience of certain spaces, sensations and emotions, shared via certain objects or moments in time. Shared consciousness is possible, but obliterated by social constraints and limitations on the individual's desire to be alert and face the world in a state of high perception and involvement.
Proust unwittingly fashions an extraordinary social framework based upon philosophical, cerebral, and natural matters held in common. He refers to his individual experiences but- in doing so- the shared consciousness evoked by a general readership creates an understanding in common. The reader is not always entirely following Proust's story; the reader is, by means of the author's cerebral style and his use of potent literary images, inclined to recall his or her own life. As Proust recalls his own memories through imagery of solidifcation and natural literary progression he invokes the memory of the reader himself. It is an alertness that Proust evokes, a level of risen consciousness which makes life seem vastly interconnected and interdependent. Unfortunately for the author himself, he was bedridden during this period of his life when he was finally coming to these bewildering conclusions, and thus could not perceive for himself the positive possibilities that could be developed from his profound ideas.
I will take myself as an example; after reading the chapter Grief and Oblivion which takes place at the beginning of The Sweet Cheat Gone, I went for a prolonged walk in the rain. It was a light rain, but as rain is usually a renewal of sorts, physically in nature at least, the cerebral connotations were senescent; the ideas and memories cast sparks in my mind which enabled me to relive my past in quick, involuntary succession. Language and expression; two prompts to physical memory and renewal of identity. Nature and language used together evoke the most human and compassionate qualities if perceived with gentleness and understanding. It's all about paying attention to each other, communicating ideas which make life more meaningful and imbue it more or less with universal compassion. An understanding and patience for nature, religion and philosophy is important because these things deal with the visceral human experience. As Conor Oberst once titled an album "The Story Is in the Soil; Keep Your Ears to the Ground", just for once I would like for us to slow ourselves down and reform the education and spirtual developmeLent of our society. It is singularly important not for ourselves alone, but to re-establish declining equilibrium with nature.
I often wondered why spring time is such a wonderful time for renewal; it is because of the familiarity we have with nature, and the reassurance that no matter how much rain might fall during those early days in April, we shall be healed my the scent of nature, the cross pollinations of those vibrant bees which fill the air with music and electricty. April is the cruellest month, says T.S. Eliot, so it must also be the most wonderful month for introspection and renewal in humanity. Allow for your idleness and inhumanity to crystallise in one cruel, seemingly irredeemable form, and look at it with all that compassion that you might lack but you can gather from the living around you. Renewal is possible in any case. And I intend to make sure that people don't get lost. I have nowhere else to go, and I love humanity and nature equally, as we are a sometimes conflicted whole. Oh, what it is to dream and then dream some for about the possibilites of a renewed and compassionate humanity. It is almost as reassuring as that first warm ray of sunlight at the end of winter; only the reality of it could allow me to rest on it as reassurance.
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