"When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child that we once were and the souls of the dead from whom we sprang come and shower upon us their riches and their spells, asking to be allowed to contribute to the new emotions which we feel and in which, erasing their former image, we recast them in an original creation. Thus my whole past from my earliest years, and, beyond these, the past of my parents and relations, blended with my impure love for Albertine the tender charm of an affection at once filial and maternal. We have to give hospitality at a certain stage in our lives, to all our relatives who have journeyed so far and gathered round us."
... so then it seemed appropriate to celebrate both proust and sylvia and, as it were, the crossing of their paths in the night ...
6 comments:
hi, thoughts like that remind me how close you were to your mom.
diane
It is always surprising how Proust gets so close to the finer aspects of relationships regardless of time and place.
not as close as i could and should have been ... due to a want of wit and intelligence and understanding ... all on my part
proust is pretty good, by which i mean fantastically good, although i am deeply vexed and even annoyed by the extreme lengths he goes to in describing the mentalities of self-centred men who are tediously jealous and possessive but hopelessly indecisive ... as i have often been, so help me !
Your reflections on Proust are more than a little Proustian, are they not?
perhaps, because of a lack of intellectual momentum, i've often allowed myself to be drawn in to a kind of proustian vortex where time condenses and then evaporates, rather like sticky milk, until only the sickliest parody of the milk remains ... once i would have been inclined to blame my parents for everything, after all, they refused to send me to eton or harrow, but now i'm inclined to allow proust be my guide through the dense undergrowth of human nature ... for the time being ... until some other dark star draws me into its orbit
Post a Comment