I noticed that, whenever Albertine looked for a moment at these girls with deep attentiveness, she at once turned round towards me. But I was not unduly troubled, either by the intensity of this contemplation, or by its brevity which was compensated by that intensity; indeed, as to the latter, it often happened that Albertine, whether from exhaustion, or because it was an attentive person's way of looking at other people, would gaze thus in a sort of brown study either either at my father or at Francoise; and as for the rapidity with which she turned to look at me, it might be due to the face that Albertine, knowing my suspicions, might wish, even if they were unjustified, to avoid laying herself open to them. This attention, moreover, which would have seemed to me criminal on Albertine's part (and quite as much so if it had been directed at young men), I myself fastened upon all the midinettes without thinking it reprehensible for a moment, almost deciding indeed that it was reprehensible of Albertine to prevent me, by her presence, from stopping the car and going to join them. We consider it innocent to desire, and heinous that the other person should do so. And this contrast between what concerns oneself on the one hand, and on the other than person one loves, is not confined only to desire, but extends also to lying. What is more usual than a lie, whether it is a question of masking the daily weaknesses of a constitution which we wish to be thought strong, of concealing a vice, or of going off, without offending other people, to the thing that we prefer? It is the most necessary means of self-preservation, and the one that is most widely used. Yet this is the thing that we actually propose to banish from the life of the person we love, we watch for it, scent it, detest it everywhere. It distresses us, it is sufficient to bring about a rupture, it seems to us to conceal the gravest misdemeanours, except when it conceals them so effectively that we do not suspect their existence. A strange state, this, in which we are so inordinately sensitive to a pathogenic agent whose universal proliferation makes it inoffensive to other people and so baneful to the wretch who finds that he is no longer immune to it!
Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 167-168
You know, it's easy to read Remembrance of Things Past, especially when you're working your way through The Captive, and begin to develop a real dislike for Marcel. You do not have to be much of a practicing feminist to grow angry, or at least exhausted, listening to the set of rules that apply to Albertine which seem to not apply to him. That said, I think he does understand the hypocrisy of so much of what he feels and say about Albertine. As he admits in this section, "We consider it innocent to desire, and heinous that the other person should do so." There's always a disconnect between what we say and what we believe, just as there's a disconnect between what we expect of others and what we accept from ourselves. As Teddy tells Leonard at the end of the brilliant Memento, "So you lie to yourself to be happy, we all do it." Either we consciously lie to ourselves to get through the day or we unconsciously lie to ourselves to get through the day. Maybe hypocrisy is the conscious lie, whereas the unconscious lie takes us into the realm of cognitive dissonance and Freudian defense mechanisms. That said, the act can still be hypocritical even if the decision is not a conscious one. Proust, who I think really would have liked Memento (since all of Remembrance of Things Past is a search for lost time), continues: "What is more usual than a lie, whether it is a question of masking the daily weaknesses of a constitution which we wish to be thought strong, of concealing a vice, or of going off, without offending other people, to the thing that we prefer?" Life may be wonderful and filled with beauty (if we'll only take the time to look up occasionally) it is also long and complicated and cruel, and so we construct fortifications, lying, at least according to Proust, is one of the most common and effective of the fortifications. "It is the most necessary means of self-preservation, and the one that is most widely used." Now, Leonard is dealing, at least theoretically, with a brain injury and is not consciously lying, although he may have been consciously lying at one time and the mental/moral strain of it led to a psychic collapse that led to the actually injury-free amnesia that limits his ability to process the world (again, there are many ways to tackle Memento). Marcel doesn't have that excuse. Does the recognition of the disparity between what he expects of Albertine (or any lover) and what he accepts from himself - and the resultant role that lying plays in making it all work out - represent some sort of redemptive first step?
No comments:
Post a Comment