The Amorous Rage Of An Infuriated Animal

There have been moments during this project that made me at once feel a sense of solidarity with Proust, and then a sense of shame for myself; my character, I have found, is not what I often tell myself it is. Throughout my life, I have tried to uphold a sort of "minimum standard" that I set, which, according to some people close to me, is excessively high. This goes for how I treat others versus my expectation for how I am going to be  treated, my work ethic, and what I expect of myself artistically and intellectually.

Tonight, I found a quote that immediately jumped off the page. These novels are, partly, a treatise on the human mechanics of loving and being loved. They detail one man's experiences and insights on a topic that interconnects us all. His insights, in some cases, have struck extraordinarily close to home. This brings me back to my opening sentence, and to this quote, which was spoken by the narrator in regards to his desire of a beautiful woman, contrasted to his feelings when he suspects his lover, Albertine, desires a woman herself:

"We consider it innocent to desire, and heinous that the other person should do so." (Proust, 168)

I will admit that in the scope of offerings Proust made to me today and yesterday, this was not the pinnacle of his investigations or his findings. This was not the most profound passage I found. Far from either, it was a passing remark made about a topic that he has been addressing over the span of two separate novels. However, it was impossible to ignore, for me, the parallelism to my own life, and specifically, to the singular relationship that these books have given me so much perspective on. Equally, it has turned around that first sentence of this post in such a way that this post ties into my previous in regards to misassigned guilt. 

There is a feeling, and I will say that this is a universal one, of desire that no human can entirely dismiss on random days, for random people that we will never even know the name of passing in the street. This desire may be totally misguided; a non-existent version of a passerby seen from the corner of our eye evincing something that could never be true and would never cause us to think twice, for example. Regardless, it exists, and we know it to be entirely harmless. To have that fleeting feeling of attraction is a natural human function and, without it, we would likely miss the details of a beautiful person, which would make the world a much less colorful place. There is a difference, again, universal, between a passing, second-long attraction to a stranger we see once, and carrying out behaviors based on some longer term attraction. The latter, of course, being typically understood as immoral in our society (this is a sentiment with which I agree).

As a monogamous person, one who has spent the bulk of his young adult life in monogamous involvements, I know that I do not ascribe importance to this moments in my life. I know they are as a breeze and thus, of no real matter. I am guilty, however, as many of us likely are, of putting a weight upon this same reality when it exists in the mind and eyes of the one I love or ones I have loved. It has often been, in my mind, hard to bear when a significant other has found another person attractive, even in passing. Perhaps this speaks volumes about my character (it does) much like it does for Proust as he represents himself in his narrator. Both of us have self-doubt to conquer that makes any person a possible threat to our happiness. 

Having this spelled out for me, however, and thinking to myself how crooked it is of Proust to think such a thing only to realize that I have many times felt the same way without verbally expressing it, has turned my mind. It was at the moment I read that passage that it became apparent to me that on the sliding scale of consciousness, we are all in a very similar place. We all experience similar emotional triggers and responses, with similar sets of stimuli and in similar settings. I am not so different from the people I have struggled to understand throughout much of my life, and they are not so different from me. 

We are all equally at fault and equally innocent in matters of the heart in a grander scheme by the end of our time. To assume I have been more wronged than I have wronged others is, I see now, incredibly strange.

To bring this home, I offer a quote that may summarize my thoughts more clearly. Thank you, Jannell, for posting this tonight, at exactly the moment I was writing about this exact topic:

"‎Here’s one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of. Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it’s so socially repulsive, but it’s pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default-setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: There is no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real — you get the idea. But please don’t worry that I’m getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called “virtues.” This is not a matter of virtue — it’s a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.

People who can adjust their natural default-setting this way are often described as being “well adjusted,” which I suggest to you is not an accidental term." -David Foster Wallace

You're Not Going To Leave Me Alone With Those Freaks!

One of my favorite novels I've read in the past few years was Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. I found it relatable in many ways, dealing myself with some of the issues she discussed in the book. Thus it was a pleasure finding a quote in part five, The Captive, today that mentioned an analogy that is much like the one that binds together the theme of Plath's novel.

"Even if one lives under the equivalent of a bell jar, associations of ideas, memories, continue to act upon us." (Proust, 17)

The topic on which Proust was writing was also one near to me, making the discovery of this passage even more poignant for me. He was discussing, as he has been for sometime, his fear of Albertine's possible involvements with other lovers in her past, and possibly, her present. While it is not necessarily a fear of any other lover, but rather of a female lover, that has Proust in a state, his sentiments are universal for any of us who has had a relationship with a person who was...not the most forthcoming about their activities past or present.

To sling another quote, 

"It is better not to know, to think as little as possible, not to feed one's jealousy with the slightest concrete detail." (Proust, 17)

Here, heartbreak occurs across hours and minutes both alone and together with one's partner. Reading these novels has catapulted me through an emotional obstacle course of reminiscence and nostalgia, inevitably bringing me back to several times in my life where this sentiment was absolutely part of my mindset. The thought that not knowing is possibly better than having the full reveal is solely indicative of an unhealthy situation, which I'm sure Proust will remark upon later in his normal way of examining the past. For some reason, though, it was only through the lens of Proust's work that I realized this.

I have painted so many elements of my past in shades of rose and gold, treating them to the sweetening of memories by the passage of time. Certain realizations have become inescapable for me, and it is drastically changing how I understand my present. While I was not expecting any effect like this, I cannot begin to express how important these changes are. 

Cause and effect are very real components of life. I cannot shoulder the blame any longer for effects I did not cause. I was raised Catholic. I have enough guilt without giving myself any extra.

The Reputation Of The Local Pancakes

Hopefully, I am not the only person who has made the following mistake. An event occurs in life, scale of importance not being vital to this example, and as time passes, it begins to be difficult to remember which major players in one's life were present or a part of it. Granted, there are certain exceptions to this (significant others, family members, or "A-level players,"), but in the general, for lack of a better word, B-level players in life (below which are the other 24 levels of importance in social interaction with people, so don't fret, you B-players) there is a rather embarrassing blurring that can occur over the stretch of time, especially when regarding recurrent events, or events with very similar parallel events that occur throughout one's life.

In Proust's work, now closing in on the final pages of Cities, I have found what appear to be recurring, or at least very parallel, events occurring in the life of the narrator as to the life of M. Swann from the first book. Granted, the expanse of narration that is necessary to demonstrate these parallels is vast in comparison to that first book. These parallel events, though, were beginning to confuse me. I was attempting to reconcile them either as wholly new events without precedent in the plot, or as parallel events, but without attempting to find the initial plot thread from earlier in the series. This led to mixing up characters and, in some cases recently, interactions between epochs in the story and its various subplots.

Recently, I decided to nut up and go back and make some connections and get my shit straight, for lack of a better turn of phrase. I found a very interesting construct developing by the end of the second novel. Where M. Swann was living in a world, to me, foreign in many ways, I had begun to feel a part of Proust's world as narrator. The elements that confused me in Swann's life were commonplace by part three of the novel. I am finding, then, that the expose on Swann's life may very well have been used as a sort of large scale foreshadowing for the life of the narrator. While I cannot say this conclusively yet, as about a thousand pages remain in the entire series (yes! I am in the final leg as of tonight!), I am sensing very related threads being woven through time in this series of novels.

To anyone who has actually finished these novels, what I'm saying is rather cute and obvious. For me, though, it is a thrilling thing to realize how the lives of tangential players to our own can be so profoundly similar in character and, in some ways, taste, to our own. While I will not delve into specifics and examples until I can firmly argue my case across the entire work, I will say that there are some mighty convincing parallels that lead me to believe that, perhaps unwittingly, Proust prepared his readers for what was to come via M. Swann's life.

Of course, there is a magnifying glass held over the narrator's own experiences compared to Swann's, but the skeleton appears to be quite similar in size and build. Hopefully, though, the narrator escapes some of the heartbreaks and concessions of Swann, who to me, is an absolutely tragic character. I, thus, suspend my sorrow for the narrator currently, though I am afraid for what his future holds. He has not set himself up well at this point.

An Internal Survival Of The Primitive Marine Element

I have had a lot of whiskey tonight. I am truly "in a way" as Proust's narrator would say, though he would qualify it with a certain modifier before "way," indicating just what sort of manner he was existing and behaving in. In my case, I have had adequate whiskey to prevent me from having any interest in writing the post I had planned. I have been thoroughly fascinated by the dynamic of romance as presented in Cities Of The Plain, especially the second chapter's second part, where Proust's interactions with poor Albertine have been so serpentine, so complex that the poor girl was surely at an absolute loss.

I have at least half a dozen bracketed or underlined quotations that I was going to use to build a series of reflections on this matter. Instead, though, I will highlight a certain question I was asked about Proust this past holiday while driving from the train station. Due to whiskey and time, my memory of the exact wording is hazy, but it was akin to this:

Being that Proust was born and raised in a privileged situation, does it change how you feel about the insights you've found in his work?

And I had honestly been thinking about this. I'm finding these brilliant, glimmering bits of hope for my situation in his work. My situation, of course, involving an adult lifetime (of a whopping five years to be totally fair) of manual/skilled/"menial" work, is vastly different from Proust's. I remarked to Joe (my close friend who asked me this question and, frankly, probably my only friend "qualified" to ask me heavier questions regarding this project based on his academic credentials and, honestly, the impressiveness of his intellect) that I had likely done inadequate research prior to undertaking this about Proust's personal life and younger life in order to understand more fully what he would be discussing when I did arrive at the stage I am now at. 

I was not aware that Proust was born into a very wealthy family when I began reading his work. Thus, I spent nearly the entirety of the first two novels figuring out where he fit into society and why, exactly, it appeared that the bulk of his concerns revolved around societal issues and class-related matters. Once it was clear to me where Proust stood on the social food chain, however, the insights began to become clear to me with more regularity and with more sharpness, as they were no longer inhibited by spending part of my mind's capital on figuring out the "why" and "how" of Proust's social life and his activities that resulted in such insights. 

My final answer to Joe, and to anyone interested in reading Proust, is this: Due to his privileged upbringing and lifestyle, Proust was able to contemplate and more fully "figure out" those big questions in life that I simply do not have the psychological or emotional reserves to deal with because of my lifestyle. I spend a great portion of my mental resources worrying about bills, money, my future, and what I will do to solve the first two problems during the course of the latter one, which leaves me with little to no time to try to connect the dots across a lifetime of parallels and coincidences or serendipitous events. Proust had the time and the emotional awareness to dedicate a wonderful ~3,200 pages to the study of those very questions that wake me in the middle of the night, but still fall behind "rent is fucking due next week and I only worked 60 hours all month," or "it's Christmas time and I am fucking broke..." Thus, I say only that while our lifestyles are incongruent, our concerns are not, and I am thankful that these novels are here to help me, sort of as a study guide of a kind, to recognize and conquer the more challenging corners of the struggle and joys of life.

By answering these foundational questions, I have found new ones that are newer to me and more dimensional. I am finding new avenues in myself and my life to dive into and investigate. If for nothing else, I would not undo a single page or hour spent reading since beginning this project twenty five short days ago.

A Skeleton In An Open Dress

It's not often, in my digestion of Proust's insights and sentiments, that so clear a connection can be made between my initial recognition of a subject and its expansion and explanation via the lives and behaviors of characters over the story's development. Tonight, though, I repeatedly found outcroppings of clarity in regards to the cultural acceptance of what are typically deemed "deviant" actions and choices. Specifically, I am referring to the rampant indulgence in the buying and selling of sex and in the keeping of multiple partners, despite or in spite of committed, sometimes married, relationships.

A quote grabbed me just now, that I had studiously underlined (nerd), which I may well have forgotten. Had I not been lost in my 780 loose pages from this second volume and their dog-eared, underlined, bracketed glory, I may well have just missed this connection entirely. I think, though, that I have found a reason for statements such as these, made in regards to a favorite brothel of a friend of the narrators':

"You'll see, there are young girls there, even...Anyhow, you have only to see the child... She looks to me a marvellous [sic] proposition. The parents are always ill and can't look after her. Gad, the child must have some amusement, and I count upon you to provide it!" (Proust, 719)

Of course, the narrator is not an old man himself at this stage of the story, but he had earlier remarked upon his propensity for interest in little girls, and this quotation illustrates just what he may be referring to. He and his friends appear to have developed a certain taste for, well, children. Basically. 

And in regards to another young lady: 

"Oh, if I only had a little time in Paris, what wonderful things there are to be done! And then one goes on to the next. Because love is all rot, you know, I've finished with all that." (Proust, 721)

Ah, there. The thread begins to show in the stitches. At first, it seems that maybe these men are simply pigs, as men are and have been throughout all of time. But with that second passage, it begins to grow obvious to me that there is a sort of nihilism at work here. There's this permeating "ah, fuck it" running through people at this time in regards to moral decision making. Because, after all, it's "all rot, you know." However, on page 742, Proust tries to write this all off to the greater construct of society with his remark, made in passing in regards to (of all things, after the discussion of sexual interactions with children) a homosexual relationship taken up between two purported "sisters" in a rented home out in the country:

"...for there is no vice that does not find ready tolerance in the best society..." (Proust, 742)

I know, I know. I'm slinging quotes at you pretty rapid fire right now, but I'm going to let this be one of those delightful Young Indiana Jones: Choose Your Own Adventure novels I loved as a younger man. I'll sort of bookend here with the remark made by Proust in regards to a short declaration by the Duchesse de Guermantes that made all the math work, where she claimed that "beautiful things are such a bore," (Proust, 713) amongst other things, including "pictures" and "letters," (Proust, 713). Though it preceded the above remarks by several tens of pages, it appears to me to be a sort of thematic foreshadowing. I was detecting a sort of existential commonality between many characters, and their justifications for certain depraved choices, as well as Proust's own social commentary upon certain topics, when I saw this quote. This quote that I nearly forgot.

"Finally, it was life itself that she declared to be boring, leaving you to wonder where she took her term of comparison." (Proust, 713)

If that didn't just crack the knuckles of the nihilist baby I've been growing inside my embittered heart for the past nine months, I don't know what could. Now, choose your own adventure.

An Innocent Stroll Taken Beneath His Nose

In light of the coming holiday, I was delighted to find a rather fitting passage in my reading today. I've gotten into the thick of book four, Cities of the Plain (or Sodom and Gomorrah, depending on your translation) and am so far finding it much more enjoyable than Guermantes Way. Book three was a bit on the slow and dry side, as I may have repeated ad nauseam. It dealt almost entirely with long-past current events of Proust's day which, despite having many modern parallels and still bearing importance not only in their parallels but in their historical significance, were a rather tiring topic for some six hundred pages of reading.

Cities of the Plain, on the other hand, has been dealing with topics that I, at least, find much more interesting than the Dreyfus Affair (SIIIIIIGH) and has been imparting those bits of Proustian wisdom every few pages that I have come to adore. Note: I am not cheapening the huge insights I took from Guermantes Way, but I was forced to work for those insights in a fairly serious way. It was much more Proust-ish in its slow delivery and its spider-webbed construction through time, though I'm finding the quicker pacing of Cities more easily read and enjoyed. Anyway, the first sixty or so pages (in my edition) of Cities finally touches on the oft-hinted at topic of homosexuality in Proust's culture and, even, day to day life, though not how I expected at first, knowing his real-life orientation.

My dear buddy Marcel treats homosexuality with reverence, though the obvious confusion of a past era. Granted, he is far kinder in his confused examination than people today often are when they are confused on the topic, but his sentiments in regards to homosexuality are funny in a dated, well-meaning way. I'll not spend the rest of my evening discussing that, however, as I feel that this is yet another area where an entire book could be written in response to Proust's thoughts on a matter.

I will, however, leave you all tonight with this conveniently found quote on page 665 of my second volume, during part two of Cities:

"Wine? In moderation, it can do you no harm, it's always a tonic.. Sexual enjoyment? After all it's a natural function. But you musn't overdo it, you understand. Excess in anything is wrong." 

So tomorrow, as you sit bloated at your table and consider that second slice of pie and fourth beer, remember, "you musn't overdo it." You wouldn't want to disregard wisdom from someone so timeless as Proust, now would you? Plus, you'll thank him on Friday, when your food-coma-ridden friends can barely get out of their own way and you sprint down the street, book in hand, proclaiming the magic of the journey you have taken through Paris that fine morning.

Or maybe not that last part. That's probably just me. 

A Footman Who's In Love With A Little Tart

Shit got real today. In the span of under one hundred pages, Proust boomeranged two major sentiments from Swann's Way back into view in understated, beautiful passages. On pages 537 and 573 of Guermantes Way, respectively, we find these two phrases:

"...life is a dreadful business, we spend our whole time doing things that bore us..."

"...the stories I had heard...very different in this respect from what I had felt in the case of the hawthorns, or when I tasted a madeleine..."

As with a time machine of text, Proust has brought us back to his early days in Combray again. His knack for reminding us of subtle, yet important, facets of the story of a life lived shines in these instances. Much like the recent deep-sea plunge he sent me on with mention of Swann, he has again made me lean back in my chair, sigh deeply, and move on through the pages with a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of his, and thusly our, days. 

The first passage above is of some significance to me. While it is the most trafficked entry on this blog (seriously! ten times as many views as any other single post), it represents a moment for me that, I realize now, was vital to the process of figuring out what I want to "do with my life." The night I read that passage the first time, back in Swann's Way, I realized how much of my own life had been a "dreadful business" and how wrong that is. I finally realized that the dull ache I felt when I worked so many hours in a week that I had no time for any serious personal interests or pursuits came from a very real, shared sentiment in humanity. I am not the only one to have thought: "There's got to be more than this..." 

Like Proust's first taste of a madeleine dipped in tea, reading that first passage in its first instance awakened my senses. Never again could I trudge through my days with this gnawing, pestering, annoyance at the way of things without remembering my own first taste of a certain variety of existential madeleine dipped into an existential tea. So, tonight, as Proust remembered his first taste of a delightful baked good, I remembered my first taste of a knowledge I cannot recant. 

And as said by the Duchess on page 537, "It's lovely, isn't it?"