Proust Again

Just to say it seems daunting, but I’m reading Proust again. I’ve been inspired by John, who wants to write software that will read Proust for him, and save him the endless hours of wading through Combray, Odette, Gilberte, Charlus, the Guermantes, Albertine et al, in order to find Proust’s epiphanies. There’s no denying Proust’s genius; after all Bloom places him in the canon of western literature. And the larger themes of Remembrance of Things Past, or In Search of Lost Time, as it’s now apparently known, are more vividly and acutely realized than in any other work of literature, perhaps any work of art. But the problem for the reader, and for John’s software, is figuring out exactly how to find these insights amid thousands of pages of trivia.

In the overture, which is after all fifty pages about Proust’s bedtime anxiety on a single night at Combray, Swann pays a visit after having sent a case of wine to Proust’s two aunts. The aunts are reluctant to thank Swann directly or openly, for some reason having to do with their idiosyncratic sensibilities. So they make oblique allusions in their self-consciously clever conversation, recognized only by themselves as expressions of thanks. Swann’s father wonders why they are so ungrateful and they protest, insisting that they have so graciously thanked Swann for the wine. Really, who could possibly give a shit about any of this? In fact, is there a person on the face of the earth who could care in the least about either of Proust’s aunts? Probably not. And in four thousand pages, I found it hard to care much at all about anyone other than Marcel, the narrator, too often not caring much about him either. Still, after a couple hundred pages of this trivia, or gossip, or whatever you wish to call it, Proust startles the reader with insights so profound that they stand out years after the memory of all the other details has faded. Much like Proust’s own involuntary memories, which seem to arise out of nowhere and which bring lost time back to life in all its vivid details.

So John’s software, if it’s going to work, must do more than figure out how long Proust’s sentences are (pretty damn long), or how many times he mentions Gilberte or Albertine (easily in the millions). Rather, it will have to cull from the thousands of pages these few transcendent moments. But then stripped of the details and circumstances in which these epiphanies originally came to life, will they have the same power to move the reader? Of will the computer transform this epic work of art into Proust’s little book of proverbs?

By the way, in case anyone is interested, I’m reading the new translation, so it’s not like I’m subjecting myself to the same four thousand pages for the second time. The new translation is nice, and perhaps a bit easier on the reader, and maybe also a truer rendition of the original French. But even with the most elegant translation I still find myself oppressed by Proust's interminably obsessive reflections on his various objects of desire, whether his mother, or Venice, or Gilberte. Enough already.