Walter Benjamin, writing on Proust’s In Search of Lost Time series, mentions in passing that it is partly a work resulting from ‘the absorption of a mystic’.

Proust is not a mystic, in my view, but a realist - a realist of a certain, unusual type. For Proust understands certain arcane facts about the functioning of our universe. He believes that the universe is too complex to be fully understood or mastered, but at the same time, by concentrating on what we can know, the ways of human-kind, and the animate and inanimate kingdoms*, we can delve in some degree of detail into the idiosyncracies and half-known truths of our world. It is a path related to the ancient wisdoms that is being followed here I believe, followed implicitly in all but name.

As such, Proust contributes a certain fecundity to the undergrowth at the far limits of our understanding. In this he joins certain other authors and thinkers, amongst these ranks I include Balzac, Burns (1), Tolstoy (2), Kafka (3), Camus (4), Atget and Schwitters.

Ultimately, these (amongst others who share the same implicit understanding) have in common the view that everything is subjective, a projection by each individual of the world, which can neither be proven nor disproven by any outside, objective agency. The default position, once one understands that one cannot master the world, nor share a common platform with others to achieve such mastery, is to dig deeper into the richness, the complexity, the contradictions of the world. It is like looking at a shattered mirror, with only a few shards of reflective glass left intact, attempting to reconstruct the reflection - an ultimately futile task - but being distracted by the colours, textures and patterns which you can see in the shards, and drawing solace and a certain richness of understanding from this part-world.

The best passage to illustrate P’s view, that meaning can be attached to all things, and that this allows a rich, idiosyncratic understanding of the world around us, if we do but look, is not the famous madeleines, but a short extract on the beginning of the route when taking the Guermantes way. When taking this route the family would exit through the garden and into the Rue des Perchamps, “…narrow and bent at a sharp angle, dotted with clumps of grass among which two or three wasps would spend the day botanising, a street as quaint as its name, from which, I felt, its odd characteristics and cantankerous personality derived…” The street had long since been demolished (echoes here of Atget’s photographs of condemned Parisian buildings with the demolishers already evident working on the surrounding buildings), and Proust rebuilds the street through memory, preserving its existence, through the remembered image - “…perhaps the last surviving in the world today, and soon to follow the rest into oblivion…” This illustrates ‘lesser’ animates, wasps, equally participating in everyday existence, and the inanimate, the street itself, deriving a personality from its name and individual, slightly eccentric shape. Furthermore, the whole excerpt, an evocation of time and place, relates to a time long gone, and furthermore, of things that no longer exist in place (although they do in time, at least as long as someone is there to remember them. Although what happens to them once that person dies?)

Ultimately, this view of the world equates all 'things' as having equal importance, but infinite depth. This is what makes life worth living, an infinite web of relationships, meanings and obscure connections and reasons that cannot be explained, just understood for what they are.

Notes:
* We know that P. considered the inanimate world, from some early writings on the artist Chardin. Proust noted in this context how the artist was able to show “…the hidden life of the inanimate…”
(1) I remember the phrase used in a review of at least 20 years ago, of Burns poem ‘To a mouse’, that stated that he understood ‘the inherent dignity of all living things’. Proust goes one step further in embracing the inanimate into this hierarchy of belief.
(2) Isaiah Berlin notes that Tolstoy believed in observable facts rather than the abstract or supernatural: "History, only history, only the sum of the concrete events in time and space...this alone contained the truth...", but at the same time this meshed with the traditional peasant view that although events were too complex to predict, certain protocols and obscure methodologies needed to be heeded in order to receive good fortune.
(3) Walter Benjamin argues that Kafka followed ancient wisdoms, articulating in his writing "... the rumour about the true things (a sort of theological whispered intelligence dealing with matters discredited and obsolete)."
(4) Camus, speaking of the phenomenologists: they " reinstate the world in its diversity and deny the transcendent power of the reason. The spiritual universe becomes incalculably enriched through them. The rose petal, the milestone, or the human hand are as important as love, desire, or the laws of gravity. Thinking ceases to be unifying or making a semblance familiar in the guise of a major principle. Thinking is learning all over again to see, to be attentive, to focus consciousness; it is turning every idea and every image, in the manner of Proust, into a privileged moment." ( )

Proust's hypnotic reflection on his childhood is like drifting through a waking dream. A languid, sensual exploration of the nature of memory and the way in which it affects our perception of the present. ( )

Longtemps, je me suis demandée pourquoi je devrais lire ce supposé chef-d'œuvre. Je viens de lire un article dans L'actualité langagière qui m'a convaincu que je devrais un jour me lancer à la conquête de cet « Everest littéraire ».

Pourquoi lire Proust?

« Les phrases de Proust peuvent en effet sembler bien longues. Pourtant, elles sont toujours d'une merveilleuse limpidité. On ne se perd aucunement dans un dédale. Le fil, comme celui d'Ariane, est toujours facile à suivre. »

« [la lecture de Proust] demande une grande culture générale et un certain bagae de connaissances sur l'histoire, l'art, la musique, la littérature et la philosophie européennes. […] la lecture de Proust est tonifiante, car elle nous incite à approfondir ces matières pour en savoir plus long. »

« le roman-fleuve de Proust nous fait redécouvrir le plaisir sensoriel (j'oserais même dire sensuel) de la langue, d'une langue infiniment riche. Pour cette raison seule, l'oeuvre de Proust mérite d'être lue. »

« L'intérêt de Proust pour les langagiers : Quand nous lisons la prose magistrale de Proust, son style nous imprègne comme par osmose. La lecture de l'œuvre éveille en nous le désir imépratif d'écrire nous-mêmes dans un français impeccable, d'adopter un niveau de langue plus relevé. […] [Proust] parsème le texte d'expressions du terroir, hautes en couleur, riches d'expressivité, des expressions familières et chères aux Québécois et aux Canadiens français. En lisant Proust, nous retrouvons par moments les racines tenaces qui ont donné vie et dynamisme à notre propre parler. »

« Bref, À la recherche du temps perdu célèbre les possibilités de la langue, de notre langue. L'œuvre de Proust nous fait renouer avec un glorieux patrimoine culturel, historique, littéraire et linguistique, dont nous [langagiers] pouvons fièrement nous déclarer les héritiers, les dépositaires et les gardiens. »

Source : LEROUX, Paul. « À la recherche du français perdu : la pertinence de Proust ». L'actualité langagière vol. 6, no 2, juin 2009.

Sublime dreamlike, hypnotic writing from the waking and half waking thoughts of a young boy. The words in this novel flow like quicksilver and it is fun to read slowly and savor what this author creates ( )

The first volume of Proust's 7-volume masterpiece: In Search of Lost Time. Lydia Davis's translation is superb and gives a contemporary life to an old classic. ( )