CH1_InvMemory
The hallowed involuntary memories are perhaps the greatest crux on which any overarching interpretation of the Recherche hangs. From the madeleine in the early pages of Combray to the cobblestones partway through Time Refound, involuntary memory occupies a tantalizingly significant place. Many critics have found in it, as Marcel himself initially suggests, a guarantee that an essential–self does indeed exists.
Involuntary memory is crucial, not because it reveal an essential self, but because it shows Marcel his worldview is a projection of his past experiences onto present phenomena.
In many interpretations of Proust, involuntary memory, and in particular, the crucial first instance of the madeleine scene, is often described as the place where Marcel finds himself.
Involuntary memory is crucial, not because it reveal an essential self, but because it shows Marcel his worldview is a projection of his past experiences onto present phenomena.
Attack Landy:
If the principal proof of a coherent and stable self is nothing more than the persistence of objectively created subjective phenomena, it would seem that this points not to an essential self but to the existence of a more or less objective perceptual apparatus (the continued functioning of the faculties of perception)
to what extend should we acccept that the madeleine Marcel is eating now is substantially the same as the one he eats now.
point two: the episode of the madeine constitutes a breach in the narrative structure. We move from the present experience of Marcel to a flood of his past experience. It seems odd to claim that we have here a self that is not fracture in time when what happens Marcel eats the Madeleine is he is thrown back in time to memories of his childhoo.
point three: attack Landy’s terminology. landy admits that this doesn’t point at a whole self as much
2nd Stage: Martinville Steeples
Looking at the way in which an experience of the world can reveal one’s own perspective on the world (flowers, girls)
steeples in relation to Landy’s analysis of the Madelein: hypothetical Landian argument of the steeples based on landy’’s explication of the madelein
Deleuze: s’agit pas de retrouver mais de reccreer d’une certaine manier mais une creation qui soit pas equivalen avec la base, au fond c’est un creation de base, whereas here landy has a vision that is just of “retrouver”
It appears that we have here a self that is not fractured through time. Indeed, this is what Marcel himself exclaims. He feels as though he has finally found himsel.
Involuntary memory is the discovery of the metaphoric structure of perception. Marcel does not fully realize it, but it is the crucial first experience when Marcel consciously sees the connection between his experience of the present and his past.
What purpose do they serve?: They give access to that aspect of each person that makes them unique and has duration. Some have argued that these moments are guarantees of selfhood. Landy seems to, confusingly, take both positions. Certainly, it seems that in the Recherche this essential aspect of each person is the basis of (good) artistic expression. It is from here (the essential aspect) that each person creates a unique view of the world.
Is the essential self genuinely innate, or is it simply the product of the accretion of one’s life experieces. If the latter, we could possibly see some sort of necessity coming out of contigency. To give an example, it could be argued that Marcel, based on his past life experience, was in some sense required to see girls, flowers and art in the Martinvilles steeples, even though this requirement is based merely on the contingent facts of his previous experiences.
“An involuntary memory testifies to the presence of a past Marcel has mistakenly thought of as dead; but it does not create an unbroken continuity between the past and the present. [...] Involuntary memory can therefore provide Marcel with the guarantee that his past is not completely lost, but it cannot supply evidence of a permanent individuality, of the unbroken history of a single personality.” (Bersani: 218)
The crucial question is, do I agree with the following statement by Landy, “the epiphanies have, however, something far more crucial to teach us. 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 out 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)
• first, if the best support Landy can find for a durable self in Proust’s text is the fact that two (different) madeleines ostensibly taste the same, we are already on shaky ground. 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. This seems to have very little to do with a continuous self, that is, a stable self-identical entity with duration [to what extent should identity enter into the equation?]. Using Landy’s own schema, if we imagine that Marcelle 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 subjective self, it suggests only that there is a continuity to the functioning of his faculties of perception. Even Landy’s own description belies his point: how exactly does the appearance of a “ghostly residue” prove the continuity of self?
• In support, Landy cites Everett Knight, “the significance of Marcel’s mystical experiences is precisely that they prove the continuity of the Self”(111).” (215n20) In the same footnote Landy also cites Proust, “No doubt we ourselves may change our social habitat and our manner of life and yet our memory, clinging still to the thread of our personal identity, will continue to attach itself at successive epochs the recollection of the various societies in which...we have lived” (TR 403).” (Landy: 214-5n20)
Landy’s answer for what the steeples signifiy to us of Marcel’s inner reality is rather unsatisfactory. He argues, that steeples, like girls and flowers, excite Marcel. Granted, Landy’s language is much more complex, obfuscating the banal simplicity of his insight, “what the Martinville prose poem has to teach us, then, is that Marcel subliminally associates steeples with girls and with flowers as possessors of a feature which, within his idiosyncratic conceptual universe, comes to the fore in each, setting it apart from most of the other constituents of the visible world. And that feature, we may speculate, is its ability to call to him in a particular way, to set him dreaming, to invest him with belief, to promise him the object of his deepest desire.” (66)
• that criticism aside, Landy begins the next paragraph with a rather spot on assessment, “The grail in question is not, as the novel’s somewhat misleading title seems to suggest, “lost time.” For it is not the past that its protagonist is pursuing across three thousand pages of peregrinations, but instead and enrichment of experience, an additional dimension, something more than he can readily perceive (under a limited definition, we might call this a desire for transcendence). To be sure, memory (of the involuntary kind) will ultimately prove one means to such enrichment.
• Despite my initial reservations, I am much in agreement with Landy’s subsequent summary of his argument, “Artworks, flowers, and young women have alike the power to summon a conviction on his part that they are home to a mystery he can share, residents of unknown worlds to which he may travel.” (67) Yet, there is something fundamentally different about the three categories, and in particular something which sets art apart. My thesis should explicate what this is. I am incline to say it comes down to artworks being accessible (first) and then personally defineable, that is, we may form an understanding (apprehension) of them that is our own, and yet they may still force and expansion of our worldview. It is not clear that this is true of girls and flowers.
“involuntary memory indicates the existence of, and affords access to, a unique and diachronically stable self.” [I could pretty much cite all of page 113.] Landy nicely links Proust, Hume and Ricoeur. In Landy’s view, involuntary memory is Proust’s response to Hume’s view that the self is just a fictitious creation, that though we have “a type of effective identity, as a ‘chain of causes and effects’ (Hume 262),” (113) we possess no “inner coherence, no common element shared amongst the various impressions that make up the mind.” (113). Landy argues that “Proust would doubtless agree with Ricoeur (128) that Hume, whether wittingly or unwittingly, is in the above passage presupposing the very entity whose existence he denies. For if there is no me to be found, who is the I that is “always” looking for it? There must surely be a secret site of constancy after all in the “mind of man,” a part of ourself which can never be seen since it is always doing the seeing, something through which, and never at which, we stare. ‘Throughout the whole course of one’s life,’ Marcel confirms, ‘one’s egoism sees before it all the time the objects that are of concern to the self, but never takes in that ‘I’ itself which is perpetually observing them’ (F 628).” (Landy: 113)
• Does Landy not see the retort that he ascribes to Proust (at the begining) an argument that is entirely dependent on the structures and divisions of language? The heart of his argument, ‘a part of ourself...never at which, we stare,’ is entirely linguistic, as is the initial presupposes ‘I’ in attempting to show not ‘me’. Does the terminology “secret site of constancy” not strike him as even a little silly? See also footnote 21 on page 215
• “ ‘I remembered—with pleasure because it showed me that already in those days I have been the same and that this type of experience sprang from a fundamental trait in my character’ (TR 272-73; cf.C 513, BSB 23).” (Landy: 216n22)
[Side note: has fiction ever been characterized as the exploration of possible worlds?]
Involuntary memory is crucial, not because it reveal an essential self, but because it shows Marcel his worldview is a projection of his past experiences onto present phenomena.
In many interpretations of Proust, involuntary memory, and in particular, the crucial first instance of the madeleine scene, is often described as the place where Marcel finds himself.
Involuntary memory is crucial, not because it reveal an essential self, but because it shows Marcel his worldview is a projection of his past experiences onto present phenomena.
Attack Landy:
If the principal proof of a coherent and stable self is nothing more than the persistence of objectively created subjective phenomena, it would seem that this points not to an essential self but to the existence of a more or less objective perceptual apparatus (the continued functioning of the faculties of perception)
to what extend should we acccept that the madeleine Marcel is eating now is substantially the same as the one he eats now.
point two: the episode of the madeine constitutes a breach in the narrative structure. We move from the present experience of Marcel to a flood of his past experience. It seems odd to claim that we have here a self that is not fracture in time when what happens Marcel eats the Madeleine is he is thrown back in time to memories of his childhoo.
point three: attack Landy’s terminology. landy admits that this doesn’t point at a whole self as much
2nd Stage: Martinville Steeples
Looking at the way in which an experience of the world can reveal one’s own perspective on the world (flowers, girls)
steeples in relation to Landy’s analysis of the Madelein: hypothetical Landian argument of the steeples based on landy’’s explication of the madelein
Deleuze: s’agit pas de retrouver mais de reccreer d’une certaine manier mais une creation qui soit pas equivalen avec la base, au fond c’est un creation de base, whereas here landy has a vision that is just of “retrouver”
It appears that we have here a self that is not fractured through time. Indeed, this is what Marcel himself exclaims. He feels as though he has finally found himsel.
Involuntary memory is the discovery of the metaphoric structure of perception. Marcel does not fully realize it, but it is the crucial first experience when Marcel consciously sees the connection between his experience of the present and his past.
What purpose do they serve?: They give access to that aspect of each person that makes them unique and has duration. Some have argued that these moments are guarantees of selfhood. Landy seems to, confusingly, take both positions. Certainly, it seems that in the Recherche this essential aspect of each person is the basis of (good) artistic expression. It is from here (the essential aspect) that each person creates a unique view of the world.
Is the essential self genuinely innate, or is it simply the product of the accretion of one’s life experieces. If the latter, we could possibly see some sort of necessity coming out of contigency. To give an example, it could be argued that Marcel, based on his past life experience, was in some sense required to see girls, flowers and art in the Martinvilles steeples, even though this requirement is based merely on the contingent facts of his previous experiences.
“An involuntary memory testifies to the presence of a past Marcel has mistakenly thought of as dead; but it does not create an unbroken continuity between the past and the present. [...] Involuntary memory can therefore provide Marcel with the guarantee that his past is not completely lost, but it cannot supply evidence of a permanent individuality, of the unbroken history of a single personality.” (Bersani: 218)
The crucial question is, do I agree with the following statement by Landy, “the epiphanies have, however, something far more crucial to teach us. 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 out 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)
• first, if the best support Landy can find for a durable self in Proust’s text is the fact that two (different) madeleines ostensibly taste the same, we are already on shaky ground. 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. This seems to have very little to do with a continuous self, that is, a stable self-identical entity with duration [to what extent should identity enter into the equation?]. Using Landy’s own schema, if we imagine that Marcelle 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 subjective self, it suggests only that there is a continuity to the functioning of his faculties of perception. Even Landy’s own description belies his point: how exactly does the appearance of a “ghostly residue” prove the continuity of self?
• In support, Landy cites Everett Knight, “the significance of Marcel’s mystical experiences is precisely that they prove the continuity of the Self”(111).” (215n20) In the same footnote Landy also cites Proust, “No doubt we ourselves may change our social habitat and our manner of life and yet our memory, clinging still to the thread of our personal identity, will continue to attach itself at successive epochs the recollection of the various societies in which...we have lived” (TR 403).” (Landy: 214-5n20)
Landy’s answer for what the steeples signifiy to us of Marcel’s inner reality is rather unsatisfactory. He argues, that steeples, like girls and flowers, excite Marcel. Granted, Landy’s language is much more complex, obfuscating the banal simplicity of his insight, “what the Martinville prose poem has to teach us, then, is that Marcel subliminally associates steeples with girls and with flowers as possessors of a feature which, within his idiosyncratic conceptual universe, comes to the fore in each, setting it apart from most of the other constituents of the visible world. And that feature, we may speculate, is its ability to call to him in a particular way, to set him dreaming, to invest him with belief, to promise him the object of his deepest desire.” (66)
• that criticism aside, Landy begins the next paragraph with a rather spot on assessment, “The grail in question is not, as the novel’s somewhat misleading title seems to suggest, “lost time.” For it is not the past that its protagonist is pursuing across three thousand pages of peregrinations, but instead and enrichment of experience, an additional dimension, something more than he can readily perceive (under a limited definition, we might call this a desire for transcendence). To be sure, memory (of the involuntary kind) will ultimately prove one means to such enrichment.
• Despite my initial reservations, I am much in agreement with Landy’s subsequent summary of his argument, “Artworks, flowers, and young women have alike the power to summon a conviction on his part that they are home to a mystery he can share, residents of unknown worlds to which he may travel.” (67) Yet, there is something fundamentally different about the three categories, and in particular something which sets art apart. My thesis should explicate what this is. I am incline to say it comes down to artworks being accessible (first) and then personally defineable, that is, we may form an understanding (apprehension) of them that is our own, and yet they may still force and expansion of our worldview. It is not clear that this is true of girls and flowers.
“involuntary memory indicates the existence of, and affords access to, a unique and diachronically stable self.” [I could pretty much cite all of page 113.] Landy nicely links Proust, Hume and Ricoeur. In Landy’s view, involuntary memory is Proust’s response to Hume’s view that the self is just a fictitious creation, that though we have “a type of effective identity, as a ‘chain of causes and effects’ (Hume 262),” (113) we possess no “inner coherence, no common element shared amongst the various impressions that make up the mind.” (113). Landy argues that “Proust would doubtless agree with Ricoeur (128) that Hume, whether wittingly or unwittingly, is in the above passage presupposing the very entity whose existence he denies. For if there is no me to be found, who is the I that is “always” looking for it? There must surely be a secret site of constancy after all in the “mind of man,” a part of ourself which can never be seen since it is always doing the seeing, something through which, and never at which, we stare. ‘Throughout the whole course of one’s life,’ Marcel confirms, ‘one’s egoism sees before it all the time the objects that are of concern to the self, but never takes in that ‘I’ itself which is perpetually observing them’ (F 628).” (Landy: 113)
• Does Landy not see the retort that he ascribes to Proust (at the begining) an argument that is entirely dependent on the structures and divisions of language? The heart of his argument, ‘a part of ourself...never at which, we stare,’ is entirely linguistic, as is the initial presupposes ‘I’ in attempting to show not ‘me’. Does the terminology “secret site of constancy” not strike him as even a little silly? See also footnote 21 on page 215
• “ ‘I remembered—with pleasure because it showed me that already in those days I have been the same and that this type of experience sprang from a fundamental trait in my character’ (TR 272-73; cf.C 513, BSB 23).” (Landy: 216n22)
[Side note: has fiction ever been characterized as the exploration of possible worlds?]
posted by E at 2:22 AM
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