On Proust (essay)
By Luke Labern
"But it is sometimes just at the moment when we think that everything is lost that the intimation arrives which may save us; one has knocked at all doors which lead nowhere, and then one stumbles without knowing it on the only door through which one can enter—which one might have sought in vain for a hundred years—and it opens of its own accord."
— Marcel Proust, Time Regained, p. 898
This passage highlights much of what I love about Proust, and what I attempt in my own writing. Here, Proust gets it right. Note that immediately, I blur the line between Proust and the narrator, Marcel. The use of the narrator possessing the same name as the writer immediately raises the issue of autobiography. Proust, of course, wished only for the text (rather than biographical concerns) to matter. I sympathise with this, to an extent. Despite this wish, I see the text as the purest part of Proust; that is what I am interested in both in reading and writing. Writing, and especially novels, are the place where I come to find out what the real substance of someone's existence is—whether a great from the past, or myself. In breaking down the brilliance of this passage, I shall highlight the components in order of importance and assess their cumulative effect.
The primary component of this passage that makes Proust so unique, and the very thing I aim for in my writing, is the nature of the content. This passages is not plot: it is philosophy. The passage opens with a short slice of wisdom: “it is sometimes just at the moment when we think that everything is lost that the intimation arrives which may save us.” This is fiction, indeed; but this is the sort of sentence which is unique to the novel, yet is also largely missing from many texts. In fact, there are whole novels which avoid any use of this effect. These are the novels I criticise, for focusing on simplistic entertainment without seeking to get at deeper truths. I find modern literature in particular suffers from this lack of incision. Yet this is precisely why I write: to get at what it is to be human. It is in these brief moments of wisdom that the author behind the text speaks directly to the audience—even if they are separated by hundreds of years. The use of the first-person narrator is, of course, helpful here: it lowers any form of curtain blocking us from Proust. We know it is him telling this, though framing it via the context of the story.
My love for Proust stems not only for his inclusion of these moments, but the fact that he writes the book in order to write them: the story and characters inset in the novel are there almost solely to give Proust a framework to dole these moments of wisdom out. The address gives it away: the narrator does not even phrase the wisdom as “just at the moment when I thought…”; the address is to every reader, to "us". We find the pronoun “one” used here as the philosopher's tool of choice in addressing all of humanity at once.
The initial slice of wisdom is then expanded via the use of analogy. Here, Proust uses the familiar imagery of doors, in which the choices we make in life lead us down particular paths. He also adds an extra point here, though it is subsumed at the level of the analogy. The equivocation of the initial wisdom—the use of “sometimes” and “may” imparts this effect—is overwritten here. The reason the others paths did not work is because this was the only door open to us. This has overtones of a belief in fate, though the point works equally as well when we consider the only course rather as the best course. Life, of course, is full of these moments of serendipity—and Proust captures this magic in this passage.
The content and execution, then, is typically philosophical—Proustian, or Labernic. A fact about the way life is, embedded in a fictional text. The form of the piece is equally unique. This passage is one sentence; the standard “snaking” Proustian sentential unit. We find here one semi-colon and one pair of hyphens. The initial thought contains the little aphorism; following the semi-colon we find the analogy of the door, and within the set of hyphens we find the hyperbolic statement that one “might have sought in vain for a hundred years” in finding the door. The overall effect is beautiful. It demonstrates not only Proust’s ability to pick out something true about the world, but his mastery of the language and of thought. It is one thing to speak wisdom; another to so subtly explore it and carry such delicate wisdom across various clauses. Certainly, there are elements of Proust that are not for everyone—and no person or artist should ever attempt to replicate the work of others. Yet by understanding what it is that a genius does so well, one can seek to stimulate that quality in their own work, and add it to their own unique strengths. The world as I see it is crying out for more writing like this—though the principles seen here could be utilised in various genres, not just the novel. True originality is always in desperately short supply.
The combination of this content, this mode of thinking and writing, and the actual form Proust uses, is where his genius lies. He blends together all of the crucial elements that we so admire in fiction: having something to say, having the bravery to say it, and being original in doing so. That is what makes him stand out, and is also what makes him an inspiration to those who, though driven by grand ambitions to create masterpieces, look around them and see only a mass of mediocrity surrounding them. Proust proves that artistic integrity, along with originality, always has a chance of being recognised and appreciated—even if only by young, passionate artists born 110 years later.
Extract,
Published 20 January 2014
Published 20 January 2014