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.
(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.
posted by E at 11:18 PM
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