And when we seek to extract from our grief the generality that lies within it, to write about it, we are perhaps to some extent consoled for yet another reason apart from those that I have mentioned, which is that to think in terms of general truths, to write, is for the writer a wholesome and necessary function the fulfilment of which makes him happy, it does for him what is done for men of a more physical nature by exercise, perspiration, baths. This conclusion, I must admit, I was a little reluctant to accept. I was ready to believe that the supreme truth of life resides in art, and I could see, too, that I was no more capable of an effort of memory of being still in in love with Albertine that I was of continuing to mourn my grandmother's death, and yet I asked myself whether a work of art of which they would not be conscious could really for them, for the destiny of these two poor dead creatures, be a fulfilment. My grandmother, whom with so little feeling I had seen agonise and die beside me! I longed that in expiation, when my work should be finished, I might, incurably stricken, suffer for long hours, abandoned by all, and then die!
Marcel Proust, Time Regained, p. 939
In writing this blog, both generally and also specifically as part of the exploration of
Remembrance of Things Past, I have doubtless, although never maliciously, told tales out of school. There have been characters, often thinly veiled, who have played a continuing and formative role in the narrative. Names were changed and events slightly altered as part of a general obfuscation, although I tried to be most honest and direct in detailing my own failures and crimes. Now, if this whole process helped me examine and theoretically deal with my own past, and my own demons, I have somehow benefited from the process, but what about these other characters? I'm asking the question because it relates to a point Proust makes today: "I was ready to believe that the supreme truth of life resides in art, and I could see, too, that I was no more capable of an effort of memory of being still in in love with Albertine that I was of continuing to mourn my grandmother's death, and yet I asked myself whether a work of art of which they would not be conscious could really for them, for the destiny of these two poor dead creatures, be a fulfilment." Essentially, if in writing
Remembrance of Things Past had led Proust to some measure of "fulfilment" (my spellchecker just can't get used to the British spelling of fulfillment), what about his grandmother and Albertine, two characters who played a huge role in the novel and who had both passed on by the time he was writing? What about their "fulfilment?" The situation is somewhat similar, although for very different reasons: Marcel's grandmother and Albertine were dead, whereas the people I have mentioned in this blog, like the rest of the population of the planet, don't read my blog. This brings us back to an issues we've discussed a couple times: are people, both in art but also in our own real lives, nothing more than props, plot points, in our hero's (or in my case, villain's) journey? I'm going to say no, for one big reason: they weren't props at that moment; instead, they simply seem like props or plot points years later when you're staring back at your life and trying to make sense of it, to impose a narrative on it. But of course, this is still a very different issue than whether or not they would receive some fulfillment from the process. Or, to think of it another way, does it benefit any of us to hear years later what a person thought of the role that we played in their lives? I made the point one time that we always want the women we've loved to think kindly, or at least gently, about us. Would we even want to know? If these women were nothing more than props or plot points in my life, then, by definition, I was probably nothing more than a prop or a plot point in theirs
No comments:
Post a Comment