It occurred to me, as I thought about it, that the raw material of my experience, which would also be the raw material of my book, came to me from Swann, not merely because so much of it concerned Swann himself and Gilberte, but because it was Swann who from the days of Combray had inspired in me the wish to go to Balbec, where otherwise my parents wold never have had the idea of sending me, and but for this I should never have known Albertine. Certainly, it was to her face, as I had seen it for the first time beside the sea, that I traced back certain things which I should no doubt include in my book. And in a sense I was right to trace them back to her, for if I had not walked on the front that day, if I had not got to know her, all these ideas would never have been developed (unless they had been developed by some other woman). But I was wrong too, for this pleasure which generates something within us and which, retrospectively, we seek to place in a beautiful feminine face, comes from our senses: but the pages I would write were something that Albertine, particularly the Albertine of those days, would quite certainly never have understood. It was, however, for this very reason (and this shows that we ought not to live in too intellectual an atmosphere), for the reason that she was so different from me, that she had fertilised me through unhappiness and even, at the beginning, through the simple effort which I had had to make to imagine something different from myself.
Marcel Proust, Time Regained, pp. 953-954
Proust realizes that in the end the heart of his novel will have to be his own life. In a way, of course, he was playing games with time with us, because he's over three thousand pages into that self-same novel when he reveals that to us; or maybe it's better to say that he officially revealed it to us because he's been pointing us in that direction page by page page. He writes: "It occurred to me, as I thought about it, that the raw material of my experience, which would also be the raw material of my book, came to me from Swann, not merely because so much of it concerned Swann himself and Gilberte, but because it was Swann who from the days of Combray had inspired in me the wish to go to Balbec, where otherwise my parents wold never have had the idea of sending me, and but for this I should never have known Albertine." In the end doesn't every writer eventually realize that their novel, at least their first novel, and especially their truest novel, is about their own life? Even if I were to write a science fiction story or a brutal roman noir story (both of which, by the way, would be historically and transcendentally terrible) I'd still be filtering them through my own life.
Having said all that, there was no Albertine, at least not an Albertine exactly like the Albertine that dominates (although, as I've proposed, maddeningly behind a veil) so much of Remembrance of Things Past, and not an Albertine of that particular gender. Still, if there was an actual Albertine, would she understand the Albertine that he sketched in the novel? Proust assures us, no: "But I was wrong too, for this pleasure which generates something within us and which, retrospectively, we seek to place in a beautiful feminine face, comes from our senses: but the pages I would write were something that Albertine, particularly the Albertine of those days, would quite certainly never have understood." And how could she? She could never have seen herself as Proust saw her. I've told several women over the years that I wish they could see themselves as I saw them (not in a bad way, but rather to try and convince them that they were far more intelligent and beautiful and generally amazing than they seemed to realize), but in the end they never could. I proposed recently, although it will not pop up in the blog until I'm out of the country (like Proust, or Scrooge, I'm living in the past, present and future in a confusing blur), that, quoting the great Canadian philosopher, that "we are only what we feel," and this popped into my head when I initially read this passage from Proust. He adds, "It was, however, for this very reason (and this shows that we ought not to live in too intellectual an atmosphere), for the reason that she was so different from me, that she had fertilised me through unhappiness and even, at the beginning, through the simple effort which I had had to make to imagine something different from myself." One of the reasons why Albertine - or the various and sundry women of my life - could never understand how Proust presented her in the book (or I presented them via conversation) was that he (and I) was trying to make the point intellectually, as compared to emotionally. Come to think of it, this is probably more proof of my endless failures as a husband/boyfriend/fiance: they should have known and understood their intelligence and beauty and how generally amazing they were/are with every glance from me.
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