The Beauty of Ideas

 "The beauty of images lies behind things, the beauty of ideas in front of them. So that the former cease to impress us when we reach them, whereas we have to go beyond the latter in order to understand them."

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

Proust has popped up several times recently, which makes sense since I'm just about finished with my initial reading of the In Search of Lost Time translation (as we know, I've read the older translation several times). Truthfully, I've tried to avoid bringing in much Proust this time because a few years ago I devoted over two years straight to commenting on a daily reading of the entire work. However, now that I'm drawing to a close, it's difficult to avoid it. One of the reasons why I decided to embark on a rereading right now, beyond my desire to reread it all every three years or so, is sort of like my running discussion about watching my DVD movies now as compared to streaming another film on the Criterion Channel: I only have so much space in my suitcase, and I need to be mindful of what I'm bringing early on. Essentially, I can't justify taking up half of my suitcase with all seven volumes of the most recent translation, so I decided to time my read now. I had this feeling that I'd settle in Italy and then feel an overpowering urge for a Proustian dive (although I do have the entire original translation on my Kindle, and also on Audible for that matter). 

And speaking of retirement and moves, I suppose I should say something about the passage above. As we've discussed, after a lot (literally, years) of trepidation, I think I've come to peace with the idea of retirement. In some ways, I think it relates to Proust's observation above. I'm entering into a period of learning new things, grappling with new concepts and ideas and languages, and not simply watching my physical world whither away.