Proust and Genesis

In the final volume of In Search of Lost Time, Proust reflects on the nature of art, in his case, fiction, and the relationship between the author and the reader.

"The only true book, though in the ordinary sense of the word it does not have
to be 'invented' by a great writer -- for it exists already in each one of us --
has to be translated by him. The function and the task of a writer are those
of a translator." (Time Regained, at 291.)

For it seemed to me that they would not be 'my' readers but the readers of their
own selves, my book being merely a sort of magnifying glass....it would be my book,
but with its help I would furnish them with the means of reading what lay within
themselves. So that I should not ask them to praise me or to censure me, but simply
to tell me whether 'it really is like that', I should ask them whether the words that
they read within themselves are the same as those which I have written.... (Id. 508)

So for Proust, the truth of any text is the degree to which the text accurately reflects the world in which the reader lives. If the book resonates with the reader, if it accurately reflects the human condition for the reader, then the reader finds it to be true. Forget Proust for a second, who is too obscure, and whose subject matter (French society) is too esoteric, for most readers to judge whether true or not. Consider Shakespeare, whose plays are true because they best represent what it means to be human.

What do Proust's reflections say about Genesis, portions of which have been explored here at some length? For many, Genesis is true, because it is the literal word of God. But what if Genesis is only a book? Is it still true? Is it just as true for a non-believing reader? What is it about Genesis that has allowed it to be read meaningfully for three millennia, and not to have been relegated to the category of ancient myth, about battling gods and monsters?

Joel Rosenberg has written about the Eden story as an example of biblical allegory. If you disregard the whole original sin concept, and reread the Eden story, it becomes a explanation of much of the human condition. Men and women; people and nature; life as a struggle to survive, ending with a return to the earth; the origin of human consciousness. So then if Proust is right, Genesis has been been read for so long, and so often, and so closely, because it's true. It resonates within each of us, because it tells us much about who we are.

I think the same is true of Abraham, and I'll explore this some more in a future post. But to combine my ongoing thesis with this concept of Proust, Abraham is the guy who discovered these truths, that were then carried around as oral tradition for close to a thousand years, before they were recorded in the original Genesis text around the time of Solomon. And even if Abraham's insights were not conveyed literally in conversations with God, and even if the text written down a thousand years later was not the literal word of God, the text remains true, as true today as three thousand years ago, which helps explain why everyone still reads the same book.