ESP.LITERATURE

We know what we know when we believe what we know.

PROLEGOMENON

The following essay is experimental in that I have begun with a translation of a section of the novel, In Search Of Lost Time (À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu) which I then paraphrased, concluding with not Proust’s assessment of the artist’s mind, but with my own.  The novel’s title was originally translated as Remembrance Of Things Past, and the copy I read was the translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, published by Random House, 1934, and the passage I refer to is on pages 404-5 of volume one. Some may suggest (kindly I would hope) that the essay is merely a plagiarized summation. I prefer to think of it as a translation (of a translation) with my own take of the business at hand. Other possibilities exist, of course, and the reader ultimately (but perhaps not finally) must decide which way the cat must jump.

As one faces each day, hour by hour, moment by moment, the complexity of the perceptions received by one’s senses would be overwhelming in their infinite multitude if it were not for the neurological filters which the brain applies to these sensory inputs, filters which organize, identify, and subsequently interpret and winnow the staggering input to create concepts. The preponderance of sensory phenomena that sweeps through us is lost; or, if one wishes to think so, becomes the sediment of our unconscious mind, and the residue of suspended bits and bobs of the wash of remembrance. Concepts, the detritus of perception, are but the wrack washed ashore by the tides of our thoughts: abandoned mollusk shells, crab molts, the egg cases of skates, feathers, and small pieces of driftwood.

Nothing of more import? Think what you can. No matter.

What is lacking, on first reading a work of literature, is rarely comprehension so much as deficiencies of memory. What is remembered, those ideas, feelings, and fancies that have become conceptual, is infinitesimal compared to what is perceived. By most accounts memory is more akin to a sieve than a data bank: recall, remembering, is always a shot in the dark. Despite the deficiencies of one’s memory, incomprehension is rarely total; the reader is usually able to piece together some idea of theme, of plot, some characterization and begin to comprehend the work at hand. Often it is necessary to reread all or part of the work; and the more one reads, the greater the understanding, with the simpler parts becoming clear first, a picture of the entirety gradually emerging from the depths of the unfathomable.

Inevitably, there will be words or phrases usually at odds with their surrounding, verbiage which captures one’s imagination, causes a pause, an immediate reconsideration, perhaps a laugh, a frown, or shake of head, which words preserve the whole for us, and by some force majeure, is remembered and will continue to provoke the laughter or tears despite the mist that might remain concealing the gist of the work entire. Proust would have it the other way around, that the new, the remarkable comes to us last of all, that it takes a great deal of time for one’s mind to conceptualize this strange bit of phrasing and he adds:

The time, moreover, that a person requires … to penetrate a work of any depth is merely an epitome, a symbol one might say, of the years, the centuries even that must elapse before the public can begin to cherish a masterpiece that is really new.

He concludes the section by suggesting that artists inevitably have their thoughts on the future of their work, its fate, as it were, and that the artist is aware that understanding and approval of his ‘masterpiece’ may need  years, centuries perhaps, before the public has been educated enough to understand the beauty and deftness of his work.

Perhaps the artist, in reflection, considers the future of his work; but it is likely that at the time of creation the artist is absorbed by the present; or, more likely, during the formative weeks of the process, time becomes irrelevant, only the task at hand has importance. A work of art will outlive the artist barring something catastrophic and unforeseen. The work may be remembered well after the artist has been forgotten. If the work has become ‘classic,’ labeled a ‘masterpiece’ then the name of the artist is liable to be remembered while the work is forgotten. More people know the name Shakespeare than the name of his plays. Da Vinci is known; his work is not.

An argument might be made that the fate of both artist and his work are irrelevant. One need but consider the number of writers that have put pen to paper, the immense number of words their work must contain and weigh that against those who are remembered. The numbers suggest that all Homo sapiens, artist or otherwise, despite the negative impact they seem to have on the biosphere, are of little importance in the cosmic scheme of things.