Thesis Proposal (submitted)

In À La recherche du temps perdu, Proust establishes a world where things rarely exist separately. Instead, people and objects are created by their placement, both in time and in space. In a different time, or a different place, both person and object are different. There seems to be no underlying exteriority—no outside reality—to the world envisioned by Proust. Perception is usually figured through metonymic associations, both in the world described and in the text on the page, and it is always the product of the subjectivity of the perceiver. The experiences of each character become the reality they each inhabit. Thus, the characters in the Recerche exist in different spheres. These spheres are dynamic, changing with both time and place. The only means of connection between spheres that is offered is art, “par l'art seulement nous pouvons sortir de nous, savoir ce que voit un autre de cet univers qui n'est pas le même que le nôtre et dont les paysages nous seraient restés aussi inconnus que ceux qu'il peut y avoir dans la lune.” Somehow, art allows us to see through the contraints of our own subjectivity. The essential quality of art is the particular faculty of vision it bestows. To experience art is to acquire vision and to be able to both see the world as it is, and also to recognize the plurality of worlds that are seen by others.
The central question of my thesis is this: How does art manage to escape the metonymic contingencies of time and space and instead exist as a metaphoric unity? The idea of a “metaphoric unity” requires further explanation. In À L’ombre des jeune filles en fleurs, the charm of the marine paintings in Mme de Guermantes’ atelier are due to “a sort of metamorphosis of the things represented, analogous to what in poetry is called metaphor”. In particular, the marine painting by Elstir has a “multiform and powerful unity”, despite being built on a metonymic connection between the land and the sea (though Marcel refers to this as a metaphor). The paintings of Elstir give access to a certain quality of vision through which one sees “nature such as it is, poetically”.
In answering this question I also want to explore the place of vision in the Recherche and its relation to subjectivity. From the beginning of the Recherce, vision occupies a perculiar and important spot. In the first scenes of Du côté de chez Swann, Marcel undergoes a progressive awakening that begins with sight. At first, he has not yet developed a sense of self as subject, and though he can now see—having seperated himself from the subjects of his books—the objects of his perception are incomprehensible to him, they appear to his esprit as “a thing without cause”. The sound of the whistling trains, “like the song of a bird in the forest”, signals the return of his ability to hear. Though there now seems to be a distinction between inside and outside, it is not yet definite. The sounds of the trains are “more or less far away”, and do not establish definite points of reference. Instead, they elicit dream like images of a voyager, and the relationship between the unfamiliar experiences of the voyager’s explorations and the indelible imprints they will leave on his memory. The bounds of Marcel’s physical sense of self are more firmly established as he regains the faculty of touch with the feeling of “his cheeks against the beautiful cheeks of the pillow that, full and fresh, are like the cheeks of our childhood”. Already, this signals the beginning of Marcel’s processes of metonymic (and metaphoric) description as a method of bringing the world into being. In looking at vision’s place in the Recherche, I would also like to answer the following question: How do we square the metaphoric sense of vision leading to unity with the fact that upon waking, and having only the faculty of sight, Marcel has no sense of self?
What Marcel undergoes as he wakes up is a process of expansion and differentiation. Description is constitutive of subjectivity in the Recherche. It is the process by which subjects become aware of their surroundings and of their relationship to them. The ambiguity of “their” and “them” in the last sentence is indicative of this process. There is a reciprocal determination of both subject (person) and object; both change with each other, and neither one can be seen as outside of the relationship, acting as the cause of the changes undergone by the other.
It is through description that the different spheres of the Recherche come into being. In Proust and Signs, Deleuze views the Recherche as the exploration of different worlds (spheres) of signs. Though the Recherche is certainly “the exploration of different worlds of signs”, it is more accurately the exploration of the way those different worlds are created by the relationships between the signs of which they are constituted. It is not simply about a voyage through worlds of signs, but about the exploration of how worlds come into being, and in the Recherche, worlds come into being through the association of signs (both syntagmatically and paradigmatically.)

As the analysis of description will be central to my thesis, I am concluding my proposal with some thoughts on description: To describe is to attribute qualities to something, it is to make it (that something) an object of thought and a subject of discourse, and in doing so, to diffenrentiate it from other things—to make it no longer some thing, but a particular thing, distinguished as an individual entity, or, as part of a larger group that is different from other groups . Above all, description is expansive in nature. It enlarges the footprint that a particular entity occupies in our imagination. However, at its basis description is the creation of difference, without which a particular thing could not be perceived to exist. We have then the two fundamental qualities of description, expansion and differentiation .

Thesis Proposal 2

In À La recherche du temps perdu, Proust establishes a world where things rarely exist separately. Instead, people and objects are created by their placement, both in time and in space. In a different time, or a different place, both person and object are different. There seems to be no underlying exteriority—no outside reality—to the world envisioned by Proust. Perception is almost always figured through metonymic associations, both in the world described and in the text on the page, and it is always the product of the subjectivity of the perceiver. The experiences of each character become the reality they each inhabit. Thus, the characters in the Recerche exist in different spheres. These spheres are dynamic, changing with both time and place. The only means of connection or of escape that is offered is art, “par l'art seulement nous pouvons sortir de nous, savoir ce que voit un autre de cet univers qui n'est pas le même que le nôtre et dont les paysages nous seraient restés aussi inconnus que ceux qu'il peut y avoir dans la lune.” Somehow, art allows us to see through the contraints of our own subjectivity. The essential quality of art is the particular faculty of vision it bestows. To experience art is to acquire vision and to be able to both see the world as it is, and also to recognize the plurality of worlds that are seen by others.
The central question of my thesis is this: How does art manage to escape the metonymic contingencies of time and space and instead exist as a metaphoric unity? The idea of a “metaphoric unity” requires further explanation. In À L’ombre des jeune filles en fleurs, the charm of the marine paintings in Mme de Guermantes’ atelier are due to “a sort of metamorphosis of the things represented, analogous to what in poetry is called metaphor”. In particular, the marine painting by Elstir has a “multiform and powerful unity”, despite being built on a metonymic connection between the land and the sea. The paintings of Elstir give access to a certain quality of vision through which one sees “nature such as it is, poetically”.
In answering this question I also want to explore the place of vision in the Recherche and its relation to subjectivity. To do so will necessarily involve an analysis of the distinguishing characteristics of vision as apart from the other senses. From the beginning of the Recherce, vision occupies a perculiar and important spot. In the first scenes of Du côté de chez Swann, Marcel undergoes a progressive awakening that begins with sight. At first, he has not yet developed a sense of self as subject, and though he can now see—having seperated himself from the subjects of his books—the objects of his perception are incomprehensible to him, they appear to his esprit as “a thing without cause”. The sound of the whistling trains, “like the song of a bird in the forest”, signals the return of his ability to hear. Though there now seems to be a distinction between inside and outside, it is not yet definite. The sounds of the trains are “more or less far away”, and do not establish definite points of reference. Instead, they elicit dream like images of a voyager, and the relationship between the unfamiliar experiences of the voyager’s explorations and the indelible imprints they will leave on his memory. The bounds of Marcel’s physical sense of self are more firmly established as he (re)gains the faculty of touch with the feeling of “his cheeks against the beautiful cheeks of the pillow that, full and fresh, are like the cheeks of our childhood”. And yet, this already signals the beginning of Marcel’s processes of metonymic (and metaphoric) description as his method of bringing the world into being. The pillow has beautiful cheeks because of its contigent, metonymic connection with Marcel’s own cheeks, which are then in turn understood metaphorically in relation to the pillow’s cheeks. Marcel does not (re)gain taste and smell for some time, but already the processes of metonymy and metaphor, by which the worlds of the Recherche come into being, have been unleashed. These processes are often realized as experiences of synesthesia that blur the boundaries between metonymy and metaphor (Ullmann). Metaphoric connections often culminate a process of metonymic connection, and yet they usually refer back, establishing a circularity that appears to coincide with the bounds of particular worlds, which we might also characterize as perpsectives of experience.

My research will necessarily involve the analysis of description. In the interest of arriving at a theoretical sense of what it means to describe, or to render something in description, I will conclude my proposal with some thoughts on description: To describe is to attribute qualities to something, it is to make it (that something) an object of thought and a subject of discourse, and in doing so, to diffenrentiate it from other things—to make it no longer some thing, but a particular thing, distinguished as an individual entity, or, as part of a larger group that is different from other groups . Above all, description is expansive in nature. It enlarges the footprint that a particular entity occupies in our imagination. At its basis, description is the creation of difference, without which a particular thing could not be perceived to exist. We have then the two fundamental qualities of description, expansion and differentiation. Again, it is important to understand differentiation in a broad sense. We might say of object y that it is like object x, and though we are certainly establishing a similarity between the two, what we are essentially doing is conferring upon object y the properties of object x, thereby making object y distinct from other non-x objects.

What Marcel undergoes as he wakes up is a process of expansion and differentiation. Description is in some sense constitutive of subjectivity in the Recherche. It is the process by which subjects become aware of their surroundings and of their relationship to them. The ambiguity of “their” and “them” in the last sentence is indicative of this process. Both subject and object change with each other, neither one can be seen as outside the system, as the cause of the changes undergone by the other.

Thesis Proposal: A first attempt

In some sense, eveything in Proust seems to work in similar ways. From the simple metonymies of words to the complex allegories of time, memory, place and identity. In Proust’s world, things rarely, if ever, exist separately. Things and people are not simply understood, but are in fact created by their placement—both in time and space. In a different time, or a different place, both person and thing are different. There seems to be no underlying exteriority—no outside reality—to the world envisioned by Proust. Perception is figured linguistically and everything is understood in figures—metonymy and metaphor.
My first question then is: are there any subjects (people, places, things) that exist outside of these relationships, or in other words, do any of the elements of the Recherche exist in their realized forms prior to its undertaking. If such things do exist, it must mean (to some extent) that they are not subject to the contigencies of time and space. This would certainly bestow upon them a special significance, but it is also possible that the conclusion be negative, and this is what is suggested by the first scenes of Du côté de chez Swann. Against this idea, Deleuze, in Proust et les signes argues that “the material sens is nothing without an ideal sense that it incarnates. Using Deleuze’s terminology, my question could be reformulated as, “do any such ideal senses exist actually exist?”
In the first scenes of Du côté de chez Swann, Marcel undergoes a progressive awakening that begins with sight. At first, he has not yet developed a sense of self as subject, and though he can now see—having seperated himself from the subjects of his books—the objects of his perception are incomprehensible to him, they appear to his esprit as “a thing without cause”. The sound of the whistling trains, “like the song of a bird in the forest”, signals the return of his ability to hear. Though there now seems to be a distinction between inside and outside, it is not yet definite. The sounds of the trains are “more or less far away”, and do not establish definite points of reference. Instead, they elicit dream like images of a voyager, and the relationship between the unfamiliar experiences of the voyager’s explorations and the indelible imprints they will leave on his memory. The bounds of Marcel’s physical sense of self are more firmly established as he (re)gains the faculty of touch with the feeling of “his cheeks against the beautiful cheeks of the pillow that, full and fresh, are like the cheeks of our childhood”. And yet, this already signals the beginning of Marcel’s processes of metonymic (and metaphoric) description as his method of bringing the world into being. The pillow has beautiful cheeks because of its contigent, metonymic connection with Marcel’s own cheeks, which are then in turn understood metaphorically in relation to the pillow’s cheeks. Marcel does not (re)gain taste and smell for some time, but already the processes of metonymy and metaphor, by which the worlds of the Recherche come into being, have been unleashed. These processes are often realized as experiences of synesthesia that blur the boundaries between metonymy and metaphor (Ullmann). Metaphoric connections often culminate a process of metonymic connection, and yet they usually refer back, establishing a circularity that appears to coincide with the bounds of particular worlds, which we might also characterize as perpsectives of experience.
In this way, the different worlds into which Deleuze divides the Recherche make sense. However Deleuze uses signs as the basic unit, saying that “the Recherche presents itself as the exploration of different worlds of signs…the signs are specific et constitute the material of this or that world.” Though the Recherche is certainly “the exploration of the different worlds of signs”, it is perhaps more accurately the exploration of the way those different worlds are created by the relationships between the signs of which they are constituted. It is not simply about the exploration of different worlds of signs, but about the exploration of how worlds come into being, and in the Recherche, worlds come into being through the association of signs. “Association” is perhaps a bad word, as it recalls Saussure’s term for the paradigmatic axis (associative). By the “association” of signs in Proust, I mean both syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships, metonymic and metaphoric (Jakobson), and perhaps more importantly, the intertwinning of the two. There is no world in the Recherche without these relationships, and thus to call signs the material of the worlds in Proust places the focus in the wrong place. Though it certainly takes at least two signs to make a metaphoric or metonymic connection, and thus signs are certainly the buidling blocks of the worlds in Proust, it is not the signs which make the worlds different. In fact, I don’t think one could even say that the worlds in Proust share the same underlying signs. Though they certainly share signifiers, their signs are not the same because referents do not exist separately in the Recherche. They are always only understood in linguistic (metonymic and metaphoric) connection to each other. In doing away with the notion of an underlying, pre-existing reality, Proust has also jettisoned the independence of signs.

Conclusion, “L’image de la pensée”

Conclusion, “L’image de la pensée”

Deleuze cites Proust on page 118. I think I could write an explication of this passage that supports my reading of Proust, though I also mostly agree with what Deleuze writes next:

“Ce qui force à penser, c’est le signe. Le signe est l’objet d’une rencontre ; mais c’est précisément la contingence de la recontre qui garantit la nécéssité de ce qu’elle donne à penser. L’acte de penser ne découle pas d’une simple possibilité naturelle. Il est, au contraire, la seule création véritable. La création, c’est la genèse de l’acte de penser dans la pensée elle-même.” (p.118-9)

Chapter 2 “Signe et vérité”

Chapter 2 “Signe et vérité”

(p.23 ) “La Recherche du temps perdu, en fait, est une recherche de la vérité. Si elle s’appelle recherche du temps perdu, c’est seulement dans la mesure où la vérité a un rapport essentiel avec le temps.”

Truth, in the Recherche, certainly has an essential relationship with time, but also is centrally linked to space, and the way in which space comes into being. If we were to look for a unity in time and space within the Recherche, it would be in the similar processes of expansion (and perhaps also of loss).

[skipping ahead, but returning later]

Deleuze, Chapter 1 cont.

Deleuze cont.

(p.11) “L’unité de tous les mondes est qu’ils forment des systèmes de signes émis par des personnes, des objets, des matières ; on ne découvre aucune vérité, on n’apprend rien, sinon par déchiffrage et interprétation.”

Again, I agree with this in part. Certainly, the worlds in the Recherche form systems of signs, though we might also say they are formed by systems of signs. This may be an important distinction: does each world form a system of signs, or is it formed by a system of signs. On the first view, we may infer that there is a pre-existing world, but such a level of reality is not be found in Proust, whereas the second formulation makes clear that it is only through the system of signs that the world(s) come(s) into being. To quibble a bit more with Deleuze: The people, objects and materials that inhabit the worlds of the Recherche do not emit signs until they have been formed by the interrelationships between signs, relationships which are formed discursively in the text, in the temporally and spatially expansive process of remembering through description. To say that people emit signs is to imply that they exist apart from these signs, that they are not simply a referent discursively bound to the signs of the worlds they inhabit, but are instead the producers of these worlds.

(p.11) “Mais la pluralité des mondes est que ces signes ne sont pas du même genre, n’ont pas la même manière d’apparaître, n’ont pas avec leur sens un rapport indentique.”

Again, I have similar criticisms, though I think Deleuze may be headed in a direction with which I agree.

(p.20) “Nous sentons bien que ce Balbec, cette Venise… ne surgissent pas comme le produit d’une association d’idées, mais en personne et dans leur essence.”

On, “in person and in their essence”: On the one hand, I’m not sure I could disagree more, but on the other hand, I agree in part (I think).

(p.21) “…le sens matériel n’est rien sans une essence idéale qu’il incarne. L’erreur est de croire que les hiéroglyphes représentent “seulement des objets matériels”.

Though I certainly think that Deleuze is correct in saying that it is a mistake to believe that the hieroglyphes only represent material objects, I think he’s taken the answer in the wrong direction. His terminology, “ideal essence” seems to (again) make the proustian world into a platonic one, where things are given meaning only because of their relationship to a platonic form (ideal essence). However, I think I need to read Le temps retrouvé before I can be sure of my criticism.

Gilles Deleuze: Proust et les signes

Chapter 1: “Les types de signes”

(p.9) “recherche doit être pris au sens fort, comme dans l’expression “recherche de la vérité.”

“…le temps perdu n’est pas simplement le temps passé; c’est aussi bien le temps qu’on perd, comme dans l’expression “perdre son temps. Il va de soi que la mémoire intervient comme un moyen de recherche, mais ce n’est pas le moyen le plus profond; et le temps passé intervient comme une structure du temps, mais ce n’est pas la structure la plus profonde.”

Though I agree with Deleuze that “memory intervenes as a method [means] of research [or recovery],” I don’t think that that statement follows from what he’s said.

I’m not sure that I agree with Deleuze of the platonism of Proust (p.10). To view the rediscovery that occurs as simply learning (apprendre, apprentissage) seems too limiting, I don’t think it fully accounts for what is at stake, though I’ve yet to figure out precisely what is at stake myself.

“Le Recherche est tournée vers le futur, non vers le passé.” (p.5)
I’m inclined to agree, but I’m not entirely sure why.

“Apprendre concerne essentiellement les signes. Les signes sont l’objet d’un apprentissage temporel, non pas d’un savoir abstrait.”

Again, I’m not sure I agree. Certainly, the rediscovery—or perhaps more accurately the recreation—(in Deleuze’s term “apprentissage”) that takes place is in part temporel, but it is also uniquely spatial, and further, I’m not sure what Deleuze means by “un savoir abstrait”. If he means, “an abstact knowledge”, does he mean it in a projected sense, as the product of the Recherche, or does he mean it in a more personal (anthropomorphic) sense, as in the savoir of a particular person. Either way, Proust’s world seems thoroughly abstract to me, and I mean this at two levels. First, it is the product of both simple (short) and complex (protracted) metaphors and metonymies, and thus is necessarily abstract (the products of metaphor and metonymy being abstract—though interestingly, a “good” metaphor often speaks to us in a very non-abstract way, it is somehow felt through experience more than it is thought, and it is in fact precisely the difficulty in thinking it that can make such “good” metaphors so arresting, that despite not being easily parsed in a conceptual sense, they are still somehow true to the nature of our experience). Second, I think a good argument can be made (and perhaps I should make one) that all language involves a process of abstaction. My first approach to this argument would be to argue that all signs are abstractions, or, to put it more simply, they are abstract concepts, though that terminology is perhaps a little redundant.

(p.11) “La Recherche se présente comme l’exploration des différents mondes de signes, qui s’organisent en cercles et se recoupent en certains points. Car les signes sont spécifiques et constituent la matière de tel ou tel monde.”

I agree with the first of these two sentences. The Recherche is certainly “the exploration of the different worlds of signs”, but it is perhaps more accurately the exploration of the way those different worlds are created by the relationships between the signs of which they are constituted. (or) The Recherche is not simply about the exploration of different worlds of signs, it is the exploration of how worlds come into being, and in the Recherche, worlds come into being through the association of signs. “Association” is perhaps a bad word, as it recalls Saussure’s term for the paradigmatic axis (associative). By the “association” of signs in Proust, I mean both syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships, metonymic and metaphoric (Jakobson), and perhaps more importantly, the intertwinning of the two. There is no world in the Recherche without these relationships, and thus to call signs the material of the worlds in Proust seems to me to place the focus in the wrong place. I’m not even sure that Deleuze and I fundamentally disagree. It certainly takes at least two signs to make a metaphoric or metonymic connection, and thus signs are certainly the buidling blocks of the worlds in Proust. But it is not the signs which make the worlds different. In fact, I don’t think one could even say that the worlds in Proust share the same underlying signs. Though they certainly share signifiers, their signs are not the same because referents do not exist separately in the Recherche. They are always only understood in discursive (metonymic and metaphoric) connection to each other. In doing away with the notion of an underlying, pre-existing reality, Proust has also jettisoned the independence of signs (there’s certainly a good citation from Barthes here, I think from Mythologies, though it might be in “The Structural Analysis of Narrrative (récit)).

Genette Figures III

“Métonymie chez Proust”

(p.46)”Aucun autre texte, sans doute, n’illustre mieux ce fétichisme du lieu que le narrateur dénoncera plus tard comme une erreur de jeunesse et une “illusion à perdre”, mais qui n’en est pas moins, sans doute, une donnée première de la sensibilité proustienne, s’édifie sa pensée dernière.”

(p.46) “…poussant jusqu’au vertige le plaisir ambigu de la confusion.”

(p.46-7) “On dirait volontiers que l’art de la description consiste pour lui à découvrir, entre les objets du monde, de telles ressemblances par filliation authentique; voyex quelle complaisance il met à apparier le portrait et le modèle, marines d’Elstir face au paysage de Balbec our sculptures rustiques de Saint-André à l ressemblance “certifiée” par la juxtaposition de quelque jeune paysanne de Méséglise…”

this view of the “art of description for Proust” does not seem to do justice to his work. Proust is doing more than simply discovering ressemblances, he is making … [but what is he doing?]

(p.48—footnote1) L’emploi de ce terme [diégétique] ne doit pas cependant dissimuler, tout d’abord, que le fait même de la métaphore, ou de la comparaison, comme toute figure, constitue en soi, une intervention extradiégétique de “l’auteur”;

[An aside: In some sense, eveything in Proust seems to work in similar ways. From the simple metonymies of words to the complex allegories of time, memory, place and identity. In Proust’s world, things rarely [if ever?] exist separately. Things and people are not simply understood, but are in fact created by their placement—both in time and space. In a different time, or a different place, both person and thing are different. There seems to be no underlying exteriority—no outside reality—to the world envisioned by Proust. Perception is figured discursively and everything is understood in figures—metonymy and metaphor.

(see p. 55-6 for discussion of madeliene and no initial cause)
[Things generally don’t have a cause or specific free-standing point of reference in Proust. Instead, if any such cause or point of reference comes at all, it comes at the end; but at this point it can no longer be the beginning, or the point of reference. It is the discovery…???]

(p.60) “le rapport métaphorique s’établit entre deux termes déjà liés par un relation de contiguité spatio-temporelle.

On Description (by me and Hamon)

On Description

First, my own thoughts (as they ramble, babbling through my head);

To describe is to attribute qualities to something, it is to make it (that something) an object of thought and a subject of discourse, and in doing so, to diffenrentiate it from other things—to make it no longer some thing, but a particular thing, distinguished as an individual entity, or, as part of a larger group that is different from other groups . Above all, description is expansive in nature. It enlarges the footprint that a particular entity occupies in our imagination. To a character in a novel, it may bestow certain qualities whilst depriving others, and similarly, when describing a friend, we are attempting to create a picture of that person and communicate it to someone else. The colloquial phrase, “can you give me a picture of it” (referring either to an event, a friend, or an idea) hints at part of what is at stake: we are not simply supplying a list of attributes and expecting that to suffice, but instead, we also supply or assume a coherency as all of the attributes are bound by the context of being applied to a particular person or thing (or idea). A good description should bring its object to life, therein making it a subject. To describe then is often already to assume existence, either as an existing object with duration and extension, or as an imagined possibility, that nonetheless has some sort of coherence. We should be careful to not always assume this to be the case. Indeed, many modern novelists have employed descriptions in ways that directly challenge our attemps at coherency [this thought in particular needs work]

As a particular category in literature, description has traditionally [cite] been opposed to narrative advances in the story. In this view, description is that which does not advance the plot, and was thus sometimes seen as superfluous. Characters’ actions comprised the story, and depictions of their demeanor or physique, or of the place they inhabited, were taken to be exterior to the story. If we limit a story and its importance to what might be conveyed by the simplest of point form fabulas, this could seem almost correct. However, even in the choice of verbs with which the action is represented, there is a process of differentiation. At its basis, description is the creation of difference, without which a particular thing could not be perceived to exist. We have then the two fundamental qualities of description, expansion and differentiation. Again, it is important to understand differentiation in a broad sense. We might say of object y that it is like object x, and though we are certainly establishing a similarity between the two, what we are essentially doing is conferring upon object y the properties of object x, thereby making object y distinct from other non-x objects.


Now on to Hamon’s introduction (“Du Descriptif”, 1993):

“The essence of description (“du descriptif”), if there must (“devait”) be one, its effect, would be in one effort: an effort to resist the constraigning linearity of the text,…” p.5

[This is surely one of the effects, and perhaps principal uses, of description, and it suggests the traditional notion of the descriptive as separate from the plot driven (actions and events), but it ignores the many ways in which description can appear within a linear progression. For example, take the sentence, “Natas overheard Chris talking on the phone”. Depending on the reader’s familiarity with “Natas”, it may carry very little or a great deal of meaning as the subject of the sentence. If we are partway through the story, then all our acquaintance with Natas thus far has the potential to effect our understanding of this sentence. The reader may also recognize “Natas” as being “Satan” spelled backwards, and then wonder if the author meant to ascribe to Natas some sort of satanic sense of being. Next, we might imagine that the author had simply written “heard” instead of “overheard”, or perhaps “listened to” or “eavesdropped on”. Each of these verbs carries different connotations, and thus differs in the way it describes the action undertaken by Natas. Again, the proper name “Chris” may invoke particular associations, which is just to say that even the choice of a proper name can be an aspect of description. To take an example from literature, the character “Bottom” from Réjean Ducharme’s Dévadé has a name that umistakably conveys two aspects of the character’s life, which are also themes of the novel (Bottom’s name is important both for its being in English in an otherwise mostly French novel written by a francophone Canadian, and for the actual meaning of the English word). We might also substitute different verbs for “talking”—yelling, screaming, whispering, chatting—many come to mind, but the point is that in choosing a word we make a choice amongst many other possibilities, and if we accepts Saussure’s idea of diffentially established meaning [cite, syntagmatic v. paradygmatic axis, or Jakobson’s metonymy v. metaphor], which I do, then we will agree that even word choice involves a process of differentiation, which is then mirrored (though not precisely, more to say on this, though it may not be relevant) by the reader while deciphering the text. ]

“Le descriptif, ou: le lieu d’une conscience paradigmatique dans l’énoncé.” P.5

[

Opening Awakening & At Combray

p.1 –
• begins with consciousness of being conscious, but of not being anything whatsoever
• famous opening word, “Longtemps” that gives a sense of habbit and history, of the established patterns of an individual, as elaborated through the course of time, without delineating either a beginning or an end.
• the metonymic connection between “à peine ma bougie éteinte” and “mes yeux se fermaient si vite que je n’avais pas le temps de me dire: “Je m’endors.”” suggests the first image as a metaphor for the second. “he” goes to sleep so quickly that he is not event (entirely) conscious of the event (at least verbally)
• overall, in these first few lines, it is the illumination of the (exterior) world that matters: the candle is blown out and he cannot see, his eyes close and he becomes unconscious

• paradox: already asleep, he is awoken by the thought that it is time to go to sleep. This irony loosens the distinction between his world of dreams and his consciousness of reality [some of these terms may become problematic]
• this softening increases two sentences later, “il me semblait que j’étais moi même ce don’t parlait l’ouvrage”.
o The book is clearly given powers of creation, it speaks [look up the nuances of the verb “parler”; what does it mean to speak, both generally, and also specifically in French when referred to by the verb “parler”]
o The softening of the distinction between Marcel’s dreams and his reality is now extended: the fictif world of his reading is added to the mix; this has the important effect of being transferred to the reader, as any reader, present with the phrase, “it seemed to me that I was (myself) that about which the book was talking
o Importantly, the impression that “he” is what he was reading about (before sleeping) continues on, albiet briefly, after he awakens. At this point, the three worlds are very clearly intertwines. He believes himself to be that about which he was previously reading, a belief that began while he was dreaming. (or) While dreaming, the imaginary world of his book, became of the real world of his life, an experience that continues even after he has awoken.
• Why “écailles” (shell or tortoise shell)
• After he feels that “the subject of the book” has detached itself from him (again, a reflexive, “se détachait”, giving some sense of life and perhaps agency to the book and its subject. How else are these bestowed?
• His surrounding remain obscure, he has no clear reference point, and the world seems—like a dream (my addition)—to be without cause and incomprehensible

• next he wonders what time it could be— why “could” instead of “is”—“could” reinforces the sense of incomprehensibility

• next he hears something; the whitsling of trains far away—but still, it’s not clear, the trains are “plus ou moins éloigné”
• again, he chooses a metaphor that reinforeces the lack of reference point (spatially). He hears the trains as he would a birdsong in a forest.
• What does “relevant les distances mean”

• Then there’s the whole scene tha begins “me décrivait l’étendue de la compagne…” and ends “…à la douceur prochaine du retour.”
o Who is the “voyageur” Is he a figure? For what?
o Sense of journey and of saying goodbye
o Perhaps significantly, the image of night is brought back, “la lampe étrangère qui le suivent encore dans le silence de la nuit”
• A similarity to the earlier scene with the candle, the night is hear partially illuminated by a lamp, as I imagine it a street-light, and again, the experience preceding the fall of night follows him into it, and continues through the night, affecting his perception, or at least as he says, his memory of his journey.
o Is the voyageur possibly a figure with which the reader is supposed to identify, if only partially?

• Next we get touch, in the image of the tender touch of his cheeks against the pillow. Now there is both a physical sense of extension of (physical) self, and a spatial sense of location within a physical space

• Time enters again, as he lights a match to look at a clock. It is almost midnight. Again, we are on the threshold. Day will soon begin (in the sense of AM), though night has not quite ended.

• The voyageur comes back (though it is not necessarily the same), this time he is identified as “the malade”
• “L’espérance d’être soulagé lui donne du courage pour souffrir.” Another sort of paradox. How the simple hope of an end, or at the very least of abatement, of his suffering, can give him the courage to better endure his present suffering. But this hope quickly becomes a fleeting chimera, as he realises that it is but midnight, and the ray of light, which he had thought to be the sun, was in fact the glow of a lamp

“le tout don’t je n’étais qu’une petite partie et à l’insensibilité duquel je retournais vite m’unir”
o “le tout” ? l’insensibilité du tout?, l’unité avec le tout?
• “mais par mesure de précaution j’entourais complètement ma tête de mon oreiller avant de retourner dans le monde des rêves.” (p.47)
o again, there is a loosened sense of the distinction between the real world and the dream world,

And again, a loosend distinction between the two worlds. This time, his cheek is still hot from the kiss of a woman in his dream, who he believes to be Eve, and more
o again, the image of a voyajeur and journey comes back
• this time it is of the mistaken travelers who, “partent en voyage pour voir d leurs yeux une cité désirée et s’imaginent qu’on peut goûter dans une réalité le charme du songe

• L’homme qui dort and his extension into time, history and space
• Again, a sense or reference points, and lack of them, in the image of the man sleeping in the chair. The crucial verb, “désorbité” continues the image from the beginning of the paragraph, of the man holding the string of hours,
o There is some sense that spatial location is defined only relatively, with no absolute ground of reference to guarantee place and time
o There is also the recurrring theme of journey/voyage

• “comme j’ignorais où je me trouvais, je ne savais même pas au premier instant qui j’étais; j’avais seulement dans sa simplicité première, le sentiment de l’existence comme il peut frémir au fond d’un animal” (p.48)
o “…pour me tirer du néant d’où je n’aurais pu sortir tout seul”
• he can escape the void of nothingness, of not existing as self, without the aid of memories, of points of reference from his past. Quite clearly (in Proust’s description of it), we are to understand memories as the points of reference that give extension and duration to our sense of self.
• “les traits originaux de mon moi” - is there a particular significance to th adjective “original”. Are we to understand these traits as pre-existing, as innate, or are they original simply because they are past.

“Peut-être l’immobilité des choses autour de nous leur est-elle imposée par notre certitude que ce sont elles et non pas d’autres, par l’immobilité de notre pensée en face d’elles.”
o This seems a question of conceptuality. Marcel’s question, in other words: is the fixed nature of the outer world simply a product of the fixed nature of our concept of it

“…cherchait, d’après la forme de sa fatigue, à repérer…” what does, “from the (after) the form of its fatigue” mean?
• Reality, as experience by Marcel, changes with his memories of the rooms in which he has slept, the walls of his bedroom shifting as he moves from room to room, in a journey back through time, as he searches for himself
• There is a physical sense, which precedes even mental consciousness: “Et avant même que ma pensée, qui hésitait au seuil des temps et des formes…” (p.48)

“traversée par les feux de la lampe, seul phare dans la nuit.” (p.49)
• again, un image of a solitary light illuminating the night.
o Is this the light of consciousness?
o “que nous isolons” to isolate, therefore de demarcate and to make separate, to establish points of reference
o “qu’on finit par cimenter ensemble…” to cement, to make concrete and certain, to establish as real and existing

l’odeur du vétiver (p.50)
• projection of emotions onto surrounding (inanimate) objects

• “le bon ange de la certitude…” (p.51)
o reality is arranged and guaranteed by a divine force (or not at all, depending on perspective)
o

The beginning

This blog will contain thesis notes and musings. I don't really recommend as frequent readin, unless you've a lot of idle time. Should I think some of it particularly interesting and readable, I'll post links on Va'yikrah.