A Dream Which We Cannot Always Perceive

 "In the people we love there is, immanent within them, a dream which we cannot always perceive but which haunts us."

Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (Finding Time Again)

As I mentioned the other day, I'm now well into Finding Time Again, the seventh and final volume of the latest Proust translation, In Search of Lost Time. My first four readings of Proust were of the older Remembrance of Things Past translation, so it's been a treat to be introduced to the new translation. As I was saying to a friend of mine, one of those rare Proustians (we tend to find each other magnetically), I don't speak French so I'm not qualified to say whether or not this translation is better, although it is definitely acclaimed. Some of my favorite passages "disappeared," that is, the specific translation I had memorized, was rendered in a different form. Similarly, there are now passages in the new translation, which I guess were there in spirit previously, but which now jumped out at me even more dramatically. This brings me to the passage above. If I had more time right now I'd delve back into the older translation and spirit out the other version, but I'm way too buried at the moment. It would be interesting to see if I tagged it as dramatically as I did this one. As usual, Proust is spot-on. The person that we love is never simply that person, but the dream that surrounds them, of which we, at that moment, aren't really aware. Sometimes I think the nature of reading Proust is patiently working your way through another social gathering until you reach another life-altering observation.