"Next to this central believe, which, while I was reading, would be constantly in motion from my inner self to the outer world, towards the discovery of Truth, came the emotions aroused in me by the action in which I would be taking part, for these afternoons were crammed with more dramatic and sensational events than occur, often, in a whole lifetime. These were the events which took place in the book I was reading. It is true that the people concerned in them were not what Francoise would have called 'real people'. But none of the feelings which the joys or misfortunes of a 'real' person awaken in us can be awakened except through a mental picture of those joys or misfortunes; and the ingenuity of the first novelist lay in his understanding that, as the picture was the one essential element in the complicated structure of our emotions, so that simplification of it which consisted in the suppression, pure and simple, of 'real' people would be a decided improvement. A 'real' person, profoundly as we may sympathize with him, is in a great measure perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, he remains opaque, offers a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to lift. If some misfortune comes to him, it is only in one small section of the complete idea we have of him that we are capable of feeling any emotion; indeed it is only in one small section of the complete idea he has of himself that is is capable of feeling any emotion either. The novelist's happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque sections, impenetrable by the human spirit, their equivalent in immaterial sections, things, that is, which the spirit can assimilate to itself. After which it matters not that the actions, the feelings of this new order of creatures appear to us in the guise of truth, since we have made them our own, since it is in ourselves that they are happening, that they are holding in thrall, which we turn over, feverishly, the pages of the book, our quickened breath and staring eyes. And once the novelist has brought us to that state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every emotion is multiplied tenfold, into which his book comes to disturb us as might a dream, but a dream more lucid, and of a more lasting impression than those which come to us in sleep; why, then, for the space of an hour he sets free within us all the joys and sorrows in the world, a few of which, only, we should have to spend years of our actual life in getting to know, and the keenest, the most intense of which would never have been revealed to us because the slow course of their development stops our perception of them. It is the same in life; the heart changes, and that is our worst misfortune; but we learn of it only from reading or by imagination; for in reality its alternation, like that of certain natural phenomena, is so gradual that, even if we are able to distinguish, successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change."
Marcel Proust, Swann's Way, pp. 88-89
Wow, I think this is going to be one of those posts that keeps evolving over time, because there is so much in here that needs to be explored. Maybe the best approach is to approach this more systematically and cull out the main points and address them one by one.
"It is true that the people concerned in them were not what Francoise would have called 'real people'. But none of the feelings which the joys or misfortunes of a 'real' person awaken in us can be awakened except through a mental picture of those joys or misfortunes . . ."
And not to be too existential here, but what exactly constitutes a 'real' person? There are some literary characters who I care about far more than the vast majority of the population of the planet, not simply because I know much more about them, but also because they are more real to me. This is not simply an issue of not knowing them because I haven't met them or haven't spent enough time with the 'real' person, because often I have met them and I have spent time with them. So why are they not real, when they are flesh and blood and pay taxes, while more purely fictional characters are real?
". . . and the ingenuity of the first novelist lay in his understanding that, as the picture was the one essential element in the complicated structure of our emotions, so that simplification of it which consisted in the suppression, pure and simple, of 'real' people would be a decided improvement . . ."
"A 'real' person, profoundly as we may sympathize with him, is in a great measure perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, he remains opaque, offers a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to lift."
"The novelist's happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque sections, impenetrable by the human spirit, their equivalent in immaterial sections, things, that is, which the spirit can assimilate to itself."
"After which it matters not that the actions, the feelings of this new order of creatures appear to us in the guise of truth, since we have made them our own, since it is in ourselves that they are happening,"
Proust is, as always, correct here. It is exactly because we have brought the characters inside of us, fought their battles and suffered their heartbreaks internally, that we remember them. Reading is a very active intellectual process, whereas watching media at a theater and especially at home is such a passive process (as any brain scan will reveal). When we read we have to fashion the characters and their surroundings out of our imagination, so we own them in a way that we never do when we simply watch a film (as much as I love film); rather, they are too often merely reflected back at the screen, much like the light itself. I think we absorb literary characters. So, relating back to the initial point, is this because I have not let these 'real' people into my life - have not internalized them - like I have literary characters?
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