![]() So, yes, I mean, I think he can be very adequately traced back to the sort of big questions of philosophy, chiefly the question how should we live, and how can we be happy? In this sense, he was a philosopher of happiness, and I think that's what makes his very long novel interesting and more than simply a story, more than simply entertainment. de BOTTON: Well, Proust was very philosophically aware. WERTHEIMER: Do you think that Proust is in the classical, philosophical tradition, beginning with the Greeks, moving through Montaigne? Is that where you see him? This most famous cookie in Western literature, which got dunked in some tea and suddenly the narrator's early childhood comes back to life, although unreliably for him it's not really a cookie so much as one of these strange French cakes that get called a madeleine. And these little stray moments can suddenly bring back to us a period of our lives that we thought was lost forever. And one of the things that Proust brilliantly brings out is the way that suddenly a bit of our past, a bit of memory, can surge in front of us when, for example, we smell a certain kind of smell that might have been around in our childhood, or we taste a long-unfamiliar food that we once had known. So our minds store information in very bizarre ways. And if someone says, `Hey, what have you been up to?' we can't even remember anything. So it's very possible to remember with incredible clarity a moment that occurred to us, you know, in early childhood, while the whole of last week seems lost in a kind of murkiness. de BOTTON: I think the odd thing about memory is that not all memories are as clear as one another, just as not all moments of the present are that clear. I mean, what do you think is the value of memory? WERTHEIMER: Now in today's world, we're urged to live in the moment, which of course, is not new advice, to borrow from the Greek philosopher Seneca's idea, `If we do not live now, then when?' But we are drawn to the past. In other words, we're constantly wasting our time. ![]() de BOTTON: I think in-the title "In Search of Lost Time" gets to the heart of what the book's about, because this very long novel by this very strange Frenchman is mostly a consideration of how time, as it were, slips through our fingers, how we are alive but most of the time not properly attuned to the world around us. WERTHEIMER: Now Marcel Proust's great work, "Remembrance of Things Past," is also known in English and in French as "In Search of Lost Time." Are there two different meanings to be taken from the two titles of the same work? ![]() ALAIN de BOTTON (Philosopher, Author): Thank you. Thanks very much for speaking with us today. de Botton finds advice about all sorts of challenges and questions in the life and legacy of Marcel Proust, the author of "Remembrance of Things Past." Alain de Botton joins us from London. ![]() Alain de Botton is a philosopher and author of many books of fiction and non-fiction, including "The Consolations of Philosophy" and also "How Proust Can Change Your Life." In that literary guide, Mr. Another year is passing, but do 12 chimes of the clock on the wall signify time lost or memories gained? New Year's inevitably inspires us to look backward and forward, to reflect on the passage of time, to anticipate how best to make use of it in the future and to lament the hours wasted. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |