Ch1_InvMemory-B
From the madeleine in the early pages of Combray to the cobblestones of Time Refound, involuntary memory occupies a tantalizingly significant place in the Recherche. Many critics have found in it, as Marcel himself initially suggests, a guarantee that an essential–self exists, and, moreover, that access to that self is possible. As Everett Knight writes:
the significance of Marcel’s mystical experiences is precisely that they prove the continuity of the Self. [...] The ‘interior Self’, untouched by the ‘voluntary memory’, and effaced for long periods of time before the development and wasting away of more superficial selves, guarantees our integrity as persons. (111; Knight’s emphasis)
This conception of the role of involuntary memory constructs the Recherche as a search for essences and origins. By such a view, Marcel’s challenge becomes the discovery of a means of jettisoning the flotsam of daily life until he arrives at a reductive self-discovery. The textual proof for this view appears clear enough:
Et bientôt, machinalement, accablé par la morne journée et la perspective d’un triste lendemain, je portai à mes lèvres un cuilllerée du thé où j’avais laissé s’amollir un morceau de madeleine. Mais a l’instant même où la gorgée mêlée des miettes du gâteau toucha mon palais, je tressaillis, attentif à ce qui se passait d’extraordinaire en moi. Un plaisir délicieux m’avait envahi, isolé, sans la notion de sa cause. Il m’avait aussitôt rendu les vicissitudes de la vie indifférentes, ses désastres inoffensifs, sa brièveté illusoire, de la même façon qu’opère l’amour, en me remplissant d’une essence précieuse : ou plutôt cette essence n’était pas en moi, elle était moi.”
Clearly, Marcel believes he has found himself. It is however not so clear that we should believe that Marcel has got it right. The “delicious pleasure” passes quickly and Marcel takes a second sip in which he finds “nothing more than the first,” and then a third that brings him “a little less than the second.” Though he believes he has found himself, he continues to look to the objects of his experience as holding the key to his moi. Unsatisfied, he puts down the cup and begins thinking, turning himself “towards his esprit,” whose job he believes it is “to find the truth.” Initially, however, intelligence proves unsuccessful. It is not until Marcel makes “the void in front of [his esprit]” (my emphasis) that he finds any hint of “the truth.” As he says, “je ne sais ce que c’est, mais cela monte lentement ; j’éprouve la résistance et j’entends la rumeur des distances traversées.” Gradually, the feeling partially returns and he realizes that what remains inaccessible is a visual souvenir. As long as he continues to hold it present in his mind as the object of his consciousness, it remains concealed. It is only when Marcel returns to drinking his tea, and thinking of his “boredoms of today” and of his “desires of tomorrow” that the souvenir emerges. In giving up his search what he has been looking for becomes manifest. This is the essential condition of possibility for involuntary memory. The will must not be applied to the sought after object, precisely because such an application creates a synchronous split in the self, rendering that which is sought inaccessible to that which is searching. For the search to succeed, there must be no “that” doing the searching.
Involuntary memory is, at its base, a metonymy between past and present. The initial moment of association is objective, and, further, it is factual to the extent that mental inscriptions of past sensations remain objective. However, the objectivity does not extend beyond the metonymic association of two phenomenal objects. Metonymy, by nature, is reductive. (Burke 507) In the scenes of involuntary memory, the initial moment of association reduces both past and present to the contiguity between the present triggering phenomenon and its correlate in the past. The subsequent expansion beyond the association of two objectively created subjective impressions, involves first a dual synecdochical expansion—of the past moment to the whole past, and likewise of the present moment to the whole present—and then, the metaphorical association of past and present. At this point, the observer experiences both past and present in terms of each other. What was initially a factual contiguity between two objects outside in the world (one in the present, the other in the past), becomes a literary contiguity and association, where two things occur inside the language.
The structure of involuntary memory just outlined will not however serve as a definition of involuntary memory. The reason is simple: a great many other scenes in the Recherche exemplify an identical structuring of the relationship between past and present experience. There are two distinguishing features of involuntary memory. First, as the nomenclature suggests, involuntary memory involves no agency on the part of the observer. This distinguishes involuntary memory from its voluntary counterpart, but does not yet isolate it as a phenomenon. The second, perhaps less obvious characteristic, pertains to the role of consciousness or awareness. There are many scenes in the Recherche in which a present experience emerges as a combination of past experience and present phenomena, and, further, in which present phenomena involuntarily trigger past experiences. Most of these scenes are not commonly recognized as instances of involuntary memory because it is only with rare exception that Marcel has any awareness of structure of the associations between past and present that create his present perception. There are then two types of involuntary memory is the Recherche, one unconscious and the other conscious .
The train sounds that Marcel hears while lying bed in the first scene of the novel offer the first example of unconscious involuntary memory. The difference between the madeleine scene, with its discovery of involuntary memory, and the train sounds that trigger the projection of past-experience into the present phenomena of Marcel’s experience, is one of awareness . In the bedroom scene, in the contrast with the madeleine scene, Marcel is unaware of the relationship between his past experience and present phenomena. He experiences his subjective associations with the train sounds as intrinsically present in the sounds themselves, unconsciously amalgamating past and present experience. The crucial difference in the madeleine scene is that Marcel recognizes, for the first time, that the past-experiences triggered by present phenomena are his own. That is, he sees them for what they are: memories and past experiences that are by some part, which is to say metonymically, connected to his present experience, but are not intrinsically part of present phenomena. What distinguishes the madeleine scene then, is that it represents the first time that Marcel becomes conscious of the associations triggered by his present experience as arising from his past. The essence that Marcel will eventually find is not his essential-self but an essential insight into the relationship between his past and present experiences. Critics who find in involuntary memory a proof for an underlying essential–self must contend with the paradox that it requires that the observer largely obviate his present self. There can be no active–will, and yet, there must be an awareness that the triggered past experiences are not intrinsically part of the perceived objects, but are instead emanations from forgotten past experiences. Involuntary memory is crucial because it shows Marcel that his worldview is a projection of his past experiences onto present phenomena (which might also be stated as the inscription of present phenomena into the associations of past experiences). In the madeleine scene, Marcel does not quite get it. While he recognizes that the triggered souvenirs come from his past, he mistakenly believes that they have revealed to him some part of his essential self. Though the episode does reveal an essential characteristic of whatever it is we might call his self, it does not point to any sort of coherent self with duration.
Landy approaches such a view of involuntary memory, but makes two crucial mistakes. First, he fails to recognize that involuntary memory is a consciously creative phenomenon. It creates continuity between past and present, re-membering past experience in terms of the present, and reconfiguring present perception in terms of the past, but the analogy between past and present that sparks this process is a product of the imagination (III,872). As Marcel will later realize in Time Refound, the past acts as a sort of cipher for the present, allowing him to “taste” (Ibid.) his experience, and the present gives to the dreams of his imagination “the idea of existence.” (Ibid.) Landy’s second mistake follows from the first: having failed to recognize the role played by imagination, Landy persists in viewing involuntary memory as revelatory phenomenon that points to some sort of underlying base of stable selfhood. As he writes:
The very fact that we are able to summon up the ghostly residue of a past self indicates an essential point of continuity between the latter and our present-day incarnation. If today’s madeleine tastes the same as it did thirty years ago, it is because there must be a part of us at least that has not changed in between times, a permanent aspect underlying all of the mutable selves.” (Landy: 112)
The fact that two (different) madeleines, ostensibly identical, taste the same does not provide evidence for anything that we should agree to call a self. If we assume that the madeleines do taste the same, in some sort of objective sense, then all we have is the continuity of objectively created perceptions. Though a degree of continuity in the functioning of the objective sense faculties is necessary for a coherent and stable self, the two are not the same. To take another example: if we imagine that Marcel had returned to the Martinville steeples twenty years later, and once again driven by them in a carriage, travelling at roughly the same speed, if he should see the same optical illusions, this says nothing (necessarily) about the continuity of his self, it would suggest only that there is a continuity to the functioning of his faculties of perception.
the significance of Marcel’s mystical experiences is precisely that they prove the continuity of the Self. [...] The ‘interior Self’, untouched by the ‘voluntary memory’, and effaced for long periods of time before the development and wasting away of more superficial selves, guarantees our integrity as persons. (111; Knight’s emphasis)
This conception of the role of involuntary memory constructs the Recherche as a search for essences and origins. By such a view, Marcel’s challenge becomes the discovery of a means of jettisoning the flotsam of daily life until he arrives at a reductive self-discovery. The textual proof for this view appears clear enough:
Et bientôt, machinalement, accablé par la morne journée et la perspective d’un triste lendemain, je portai à mes lèvres un cuilllerée du thé où j’avais laissé s’amollir un morceau de madeleine. Mais a l’instant même où la gorgée mêlée des miettes du gâteau toucha mon palais, je tressaillis, attentif à ce qui se passait d’extraordinaire en moi. Un plaisir délicieux m’avait envahi, isolé, sans la notion de sa cause. Il m’avait aussitôt rendu les vicissitudes de la vie indifférentes, ses désastres inoffensifs, sa brièveté illusoire, de la même façon qu’opère l’amour, en me remplissant d’une essence précieuse : ou plutôt cette essence n’était pas en moi, elle était moi.”
Clearly, Marcel believes he has found himself. It is however not so clear that we should believe that Marcel has got it right. The “delicious pleasure” passes quickly and Marcel takes a second sip in which he finds “nothing more than the first,” and then a third that brings him “a little less than the second.” Though he believes he has found himself, he continues to look to the objects of his experience as holding the key to his moi. Unsatisfied, he puts down the cup and begins thinking, turning himself “towards his esprit,” whose job he believes it is “to find the truth.” Initially, however, intelligence proves unsuccessful. It is not until Marcel makes “the void in front of [his esprit]” (my emphasis) that he finds any hint of “the truth.” As he says, “je ne sais ce que c’est, mais cela monte lentement ; j’éprouve la résistance et j’entends la rumeur des distances traversées.” Gradually, the feeling partially returns and he realizes that what remains inaccessible is a visual souvenir. As long as he continues to hold it present in his mind as the object of his consciousness, it remains concealed. It is only when Marcel returns to drinking his tea, and thinking of his “boredoms of today” and of his “desires of tomorrow” that the souvenir emerges. In giving up his search what he has been looking for becomes manifest. This is the essential condition of possibility for involuntary memory. The will must not be applied to the sought after object, precisely because such an application creates a synchronous split in the self, rendering that which is sought inaccessible to that which is searching. For the search to succeed, there must be no “that” doing the searching.
Involuntary memory is, at its base, a metonymy between past and present. The initial moment of association is objective, and, further, it is factual to the extent that mental inscriptions of past sensations remain objective. However, the objectivity does not extend beyond the metonymic association of two phenomenal objects. Metonymy, by nature, is reductive. (Burke 507) In the scenes of involuntary memory, the initial moment of association reduces both past and present to the contiguity between the present triggering phenomenon and its correlate in the past. The subsequent expansion beyond the association of two objectively created subjective impressions, involves first a dual synecdochical expansion—of the past moment to the whole past, and likewise of the present moment to the whole present—and then, the metaphorical association of past and present. At this point, the observer experiences both past and present in terms of each other. What was initially a factual contiguity between two objects outside in the world (one in the present, the other in the past), becomes a literary contiguity and association, where two things occur inside the language.
The structure of involuntary memory just outlined will not however serve as a definition of involuntary memory. The reason is simple: a great many other scenes in the Recherche exemplify an identical structuring of the relationship between past and present experience. There are two distinguishing features of involuntary memory. First, as the nomenclature suggests, involuntary memory involves no agency on the part of the observer. This distinguishes involuntary memory from its voluntary counterpart, but does not yet isolate it as a phenomenon. The second, perhaps less obvious characteristic, pertains to the role of consciousness or awareness. There are many scenes in the Recherche in which a present experience emerges as a combination of past experience and present phenomena, and, further, in which present phenomena involuntarily trigger past experiences. Most of these scenes are not commonly recognized as instances of involuntary memory because it is only with rare exception that Marcel has any awareness of structure of the associations between past and present that create his present perception. There are then two types of involuntary memory is the Recherche, one unconscious and the other conscious .
The train sounds that Marcel hears while lying bed in the first scene of the novel offer the first example of unconscious involuntary memory. The difference between the madeleine scene, with its discovery of involuntary memory, and the train sounds that trigger the projection of past-experience into the present phenomena of Marcel’s experience, is one of awareness . In the bedroom scene, in the contrast with the madeleine scene, Marcel is unaware of the relationship between his past experience and present phenomena. He experiences his subjective associations with the train sounds as intrinsically present in the sounds themselves, unconsciously amalgamating past and present experience. The crucial difference in the madeleine scene is that Marcel recognizes, for the first time, that the past-experiences triggered by present phenomena are his own. That is, he sees them for what they are: memories and past experiences that are by some part, which is to say metonymically, connected to his present experience, but are not intrinsically part of present phenomena. What distinguishes the madeleine scene then, is that it represents the first time that Marcel becomes conscious of the associations triggered by his present experience as arising from his past. The essence that Marcel will eventually find is not his essential-self but an essential insight into the relationship between his past and present experiences. Critics who find in involuntary memory a proof for an underlying essential–self must contend with the paradox that it requires that the observer largely obviate his present self. There can be no active–will, and yet, there must be an awareness that the triggered past experiences are not intrinsically part of the perceived objects, but are instead emanations from forgotten past experiences. Involuntary memory is crucial because it shows Marcel that his worldview is a projection of his past experiences onto present phenomena (which might also be stated as the inscription of present phenomena into the associations of past experiences). In the madeleine scene, Marcel does not quite get it. While he recognizes that the triggered souvenirs come from his past, he mistakenly believes that they have revealed to him some part of his essential self. Though the episode does reveal an essential characteristic of whatever it is we might call his self, it does not point to any sort of coherent self with duration.
Landy approaches such a view of involuntary memory, but makes two crucial mistakes. First, he fails to recognize that involuntary memory is a consciously creative phenomenon. It creates continuity between past and present, re-membering past experience in terms of the present, and reconfiguring present perception in terms of the past, but the analogy between past and present that sparks this process is a product of the imagination (III,872). As Marcel will later realize in Time Refound, the past acts as a sort of cipher for the present, allowing him to “taste” (Ibid.) his experience, and the present gives to the dreams of his imagination “the idea of existence.” (Ibid.) Landy’s second mistake follows from the first: having failed to recognize the role played by imagination, Landy persists in viewing involuntary memory as revelatory phenomenon that points to some sort of underlying base of stable selfhood. As he writes:
The very fact that we are able to summon up the ghostly residue of a past self indicates an essential point of continuity between the latter and our present-day incarnation. If today’s madeleine tastes the same as it did thirty years ago, it is because there must be a part of us at least that has not changed in between times, a permanent aspect underlying all of the mutable selves.” (Landy: 112)
The fact that two (different) madeleines, ostensibly identical, taste the same does not provide evidence for anything that we should agree to call a self. If we assume that the madeleines do taste the same, in some sort of objective sense, then all we have is the continuity of objectively created perceptions. Though a degree of continuity in the functioning of the objective sense faculties is necessary for a coherent and stable self, the two are not the same. To take another example: if we imagine that Marcel had returned to the Martinville steeples twenty years later, and once again driven by them in a carriage, travelling at roughly the same speed, if he should see the same optical illusions, this says nothing (necessarily) about the continuity of his self, it would suggest only that there is a continuity to the functioning of his faculties of perception.
posted by E at 12:50 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home