Sunday, March 21, 2010
Proust
"Because happiness alone is good for the body; whereas sorrow develops the strength of the mind. Sorrow kills in the end. And it is in this way that are gradually formed those terrible, ravaged faces of the old Rembrandt, and the old Beethoven, whom everybody used to laugh at. Let us accept the physical damage it does to us in return for the spiritual knowledge it brings us; let us leave our body to disintegrate, since each new particle that breaks away from it comes back, now luminous and legible, to add itself to our work, to complete it at the price of sufferings of which others more gifted have no need, to increase its solidity as our emotions are eroding our life. Ideas are substitutes for sorrows; the moment they change into ideas they lose a part of their power to hurt our hearts and, for a brief moment, the transformation even releases some joy. As for happiness, almost its only useful quality is to make unhappiness possible."
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Brilliant - which book? I don't think I've reached this far yet - shamefully must confess, I'm stuck at Book 5 - which is a pity because it grows on you, the more you read, but such a long gap in reading really dispels the mood. bb
ReplyDeleteThis is an edited blurp from a few neighbourly paragraphs in the last volume. When I read the very first page of In Search of, I knew I found a friend for life, and something so extraordinary that I never imagined anything like this existing before. I've taken many gaps reading it though. Volumes 5 and 6 can be tiresome - what a pity he died before editing the last 3. I've always been able to come back to it after a break (even if things get even more confusing as I have forgotten important events) and get back into the spirit of it. In some ways, it's a book to be savoured slowly. And repeatedly of course! I hope to eventually learn French well enough to read the original.
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