From His Batman, Of Course!

First, let us celebrate the landmark I reached this past weekend by finishing volume one of three in my Proust collection. This plants me squarely, now, about 200 pages into the third novel in the series, titled The Guermantes Way which references both one of the routes through Combray the narrator used to walk with his family and some of the primary characters and locations in this particular installment in the series. So here we are, 1,300 pages or so into the project!

Those of you who are familiar with me in "real life" are likely aware that I have a few obsessions. I keep the number relatively low out of a mix of disinterest in most things and a degree of self control. My short list includes: electric guitars and amplifiers, vintage synthesizers and electric pianos, motorcycles, and fixed gear bicycles. Depending on the time of year and my mood, you can insert bourbon into the list. While I've been spinning my tires, so to speak, on the process of becoming licensed to ride a motorcycle, and, you know, buying one, my brother moved in with me from Brooklyn, NY. He's spent the bulk of the last decade (or more?) in major, urban areas. I came across a passage in Guermantes Way last evening that struck a chord with me, and perhaps would with him as well.

"Down there at least you feel you're alive; you don't have all these houses stuck up in front of you, and there's so little noise at night-time you can hear the frogs singing five miles off and more." (Proust, 19)

This passage is especially relevant for my brother, who leaving Brooklyn, has found that the Pioneer Valley is positively a different place from the big city. The sky is dark at night, punctuated by stars, and there are trees, rivers, and forests abounding. Bike rides through farm land, hikes up mountains, and the sound of wildlife can be experienced daily here. Part of the motivation for his move was taking advantage of these realities, of this difference from New York (Proust was referring to a difference between Paris and Combray) to Easthampton, for the purpose of riding a motorcycle. 

I feel that reading Proust and motorcycles go well together. Bear with me here.

Proust has been teaching me to slow down, observe my surroundings, and appreciate the subtle, beautiful details that I had been taking for granted for so many years now. Motorcycles, likewise, are not built (today) for the utmost efficiency, for the most practicality, or for serving a necessary purpose per say in modern society. They are built as a means to get from A to B, yes, but to do so in a more... Proustian way. Slow down, take the back roads, soak up the view, and appreciate those subtle, beautiful details that you simply don't give a shit about while you're driving a car. 

More and more, I'm seeing that reading Proust is a gift. Understanding him, where I can, is a greater gift, still. I have had hunches all my life that, perhaps, modernity has taken a dark turn towards machine-like efficiency and serving necessity. Motorcycles and Proust, however, are teaching me what I knew as a child but was told to forget by maturation and adulthood- it is not necessarily about the destination; it is about the journey and the view during it. And the far reach of this realization is only just coming to me. This must go for more than getting to work, or to dinner, or just going for a joy ride (metaphorically speaking, as well, in terms of "life," and not just riding a motorcycle); it is very possible that this would also apply to art. 

Once again, Proust, you have arrived in the nick of time.