Of Proust, Literary Fascism, and the Veritable God of Puberty

(also with footnotes)




I realize that this has nothing to do with this post, but still:
book art. I want to attempt it, though obviously
not at this level of mastery. It's going to involve an
exacto knife, patience, and a lot of glue.

Last week, I took a short break from reading À la recherche du temps perdu, a break that involved reading, among other things*, Middlesex, Asterios Polyp (officially one of the best, if not the very best, graphic novel I've read) and, of course, Lolita. The first book was interesting, the second enlightening, the third exceedingly well-written, despite of, though mostly because of, its subject matter (though this goes without saying). It was so well-written, in fact, that it inspired me to start reading À la recherche again, immediately, despite the fact that I hadn't slept in over 24 hours. Here's what happened:



Again with the book art. At first the whole idea--
cutting up an art form I prize above all else--
appalled me, but now I find myself sort of intrigued.
I think it poses an eloquent response to those who would
suppose that paper books are becoming obsolete.

I was sitting in study hall, reading Lolita and watching a guy next to me fall asleep at his desk-- a parody of sleep, played out in slow motion: eyes closing once, again, head lowering downward** in measured increments, as if by some mechanical rather than biological process. Possibly, he was under the influence of some chemical substance, though I didn't think it wise to ask him at the time. I was contemplating this, and skimming a particularly alarming passage, when a certain line caught my eye-- I don't remember what it was, but I remember thinking: Oh THAT, yes, that was really smooth. Smooth: Proust's word, meant to connote a certain evenness of cadence or tone, which for me carried a series of associations decidedly after his time; smooth: darkness and red lipstick and a saxophone, lazy cantralto voices, swinging, smoky, providing a semblance of effortlessness almost impossible for even the most masterful of writers to achieve. And, all of a sudden-- someone, by the way, recently informed me that it's properly "all of a sudden" instead of "all of the sudden," and this caused my ignorant little mind to be promptly blown-- I needed, needed, needed to read À la recherche du temps perdu.

How to describe Proust to you? I could quote Alain de Bottom: "One is never far from a phrase that feels so acute and so true that it seems to be... hewn out of primordial psychological matter." The whole purpose of writing is and always has been communication****-- that is, the act of two minds communing, through the loveliest and most fundamental medium possible-- and Proust is communication at its finest. Somehow, he manages to capture the parts of existence most frustrating to both the writer and the individual-- the indefinable moments, the small, human moments, seemingly particular to you and you alone-- with breathtaking ease, clarity and precision. Normally, I wouldn't consider applying the word "precision" per se to a work as long as this-- seven volumes in length, did I mention that?-- but it's really the only one that's appropriate, as the ideas Proust tackles are simply so massive-- think love, art, beauty, death, the nature of memory and time-- as to require some manner of circumlocution, circling around them again and again, testing them from different angles, finally forming a complete picture, and one more masterful than any that other writer, in my ever-humble opinion, has achieved.

I recently found this book on one
of said lists, and it made me so, so
angry. Usually, I'm a fairly open-minded
person when it comes to books-- hey,
I read Lolita-- but I threw the last |
Fowles book I read at the wall.
Because, reading Lolita, you know that
Nabokov wasn't a pedophile, but reading,
say, The Collector or The Aristos, you
know that Fowles was an complete and
unrepentant fascist. And I should
read this before I die?

Maybe I'm being grandiose, but this is Proust, and if you read only one book in your life, read this one. I usually hate those lists titled "The 100 Books You Should Read Before You Die," and whatnot, partially because I think that we won't realize how positively mediocre so-called modern classics are for a few more decades at least (sorry, Harper Lee), and because I think that there is an enormous difference between a book that is important and one that is well-written. And though these two critical areas occasionally overlap, they often don't.

On a side note, I also think that these lists, considering how often they mirror lists of required high school reading, shed considerable light on how educators treat literature at a high school level. In all the English courses I've taken (five and counting) I've never had a teacher acknowledge that this book, this poem, this short story, is nothing more or less than a work of art, a masterpiece in some cases, in which each word is chosen with a particular genius, inimitable and invaluable. And I think that books are also far too often taught as if their sole raison d'être is to impart some  moral lesson for the student, like a stodgy, ruler-wielding nun around lurking through the centuries, waiting to dump a load of turgid, anachronistic prose on any who dares offend her. And, although THAT  was certainly an embarrassing metaphor, it is also an apt one, I think. Maybe it would be better for society***** if students learned important lessons rather than to appreciate literature, but I'm not sure that's what English classes should aim to teach. How many times have heard someone, peering at the back of a book I'm reading, comment that they "just don't like poetry?" Well, then you must not be reading the right things, or reading them the right way. Go pick up a volume of Rimbaud. There's a reason he's been called "a veritable god of puberty," after all. Angst, angst, and more angst. Except written beeyootifully, and in French. 

And that, for the moment, is all I have to say. 

* I also read a rather excellent new translation of Rilke (because I was in a Rilke sort of mood, the sort of mood that makes me want to drop everything and learn German so I can read the originals) and Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne (because it was Valentine's Day and, although I affect a cynical attitude toward matters of the heart (and perhaps toward everything in general), it seemed necessary to read them again.)

** Or, as Nabokov would have said, deskward. 



Another picture completely irrelevant to the text:
a Prufrock scarf. I need it, immediately.

*** Given that it was Nabokov, I'm not entirely that the similarity of that passage to Proust's writing wasn't unintentional. There were so many allusions in that book that went flying over my head, though I understood some of them-- Poe, Poe, and more Poe, Baudelaire (!), Byron-- and it made me realize once again how shamefully ill-read (that is, the opposite of well-read) I am, how I could spend my entire life reading and never be finished, never be satisfied.

**** Considering how often "literary" or "serious" literature is confused with incomprehensible literature, I think people need to be reminded of this. Communication, not obfuscation. It really should be that simple.

***** Because, isn't that what schools are aiming to produce, "good citizens?" And whether a good citizen is the same as an educated citizen is really up for debate, and a particularly Orwellian one at that.