May 18, 2004

Time Regained

"In reality every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to enable him to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have perceived in himself."

Oh. My. Proust. It's true. It's all true. I've just finished Time Regained, which is the sixth and final volume of In Search of Lost Time. I could have never anticipated the power of the final 250 pages, which absolutely require the weight of the preceding 4000+ pages... My professor promised that Proust would change my life, and he has. I can't begin to put into words exactly how... I'm speechless. I'll let Marcel tell you, but really this will probably seem so hollow without the echo of the five volumes that came before:

"...in order to get nearer to the sound of the bell and to hear it better it was into my own depths that I had to redescend. And this could only be because its peal had always been there, inside me, and not this sound only but also, between that distant moment and the present one, unrolled in all its vast length, the whole of that past which I was not aware that I had carried within me."

Posted by cari at May 18, 2004 01:35 PM
Comments

May I recommend "How Proust can change your life" by Alain de Botton? It will not have the resonance of the series you just read, but I found it very interesting nonetheless. The publisher describes it as a self-help book based on Proust's life and writings. Many his ideas are quite counter to my own inclinations and have a lot of merit.

Posted by: alison

I just wanted to thank you for opening my eyes to Proust. I just barely started reading "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower" and will have to tackle "Time Regained" once I finish this one.

Such lovely work! Thank you for exposing me to what I may not have discovered on my own.

Posted by: Rebecca Burgess

Maybe Proust will be my summer reading...

Posted by: Iris

Someday, really, I'll read it too. Really! (OK, is that Rachael I hear, going "Kshssshkshh!"?)

Posted by: alison

To alison: kkkshhhhksshhh.
To cari: I'm so proud of you. It feels like it was five minutes ago that you said you were going to read your way through, and I love the sound in your voice now. I can tell he's affected you. I can hear it.
Yay!

Posted by: Rachael

Ooh. I got chills (they may be multiplyin'). It didn't seem hollow at all, so I can only imagine how forceful these passages are for you. Yep, I'll get back to him, too. I have to, now.

So yay! You're almost done with school! Yes--coffee and knitting and oatmeal cookies sound perfect.

Posted by: Em

Krikey, now I'm going to have to add Proust to my to-do list! ;-)

Posted by: teresa