So before I get started, I wish to tell an anecdote from ENG413 that happened today. While working on a collaborative essay, a girl in my group perked up and said, "Does someone have the gum Fruit Stripes?" And from down the table, a boy held up a freshly opened pack and said, "You have an excellent nose!" The smeller told everyone within ear shot how she would eat that gum all summer long and the Zebra tattoos that are on the wrapper always came out blurry. I perked up and said, "That gum smells like childhood and I haven't smelled that in 15 years." All agreed with me. From the wafting scent of a piece of (really crappy gum) we were suddenly pulled back into a time of pop sickles, summer nights and stirrup pants. Oh the 90s.
I think Proust accepts Cavandish's point that the brain cannot be squared, to a degree. He marvels and relishes the randomness of human existence. "...it [the memory] has stopped, has perhaps sunk back into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise again?" (2) Lerer outlines the principle of "just accept it" in Bergson's idea, "the reality of our self-consciousness- could not be reduced or experimentally dissected." (78) I find this perspective incredibly fascinating and paradoxical. On one hand, Proust and Bergson acknowledge the unexplainable of the human consciousness, but on the other hand they constantly explore their feelings, memories and writings. I would think their constant writings and in the case of Proust, exploration of a joyous feelings, represents an insatiable curiosity of the mind. I may be splitting hairs here, but perhaps they cannot admit that they are drawn to the idea of being able to explain their memories and mind despite denying their ability to do so. Why is it that Proust wrote three pages of Times New Roman font on the fleeting memory of the taste of a madeleine? Because he wanted to know what that feeling was. "...(although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy)" (2-3) This sentence implies he will further search for the source of the happiness, instead of simply basking in the happiness he had in that fleeting moment. Further, if Proust constantly edited his works as Lerer tells us, Proust didn't leave his memories alone; he constantly edited them in search for something in them or perfection.
I happen to be taking a Medieval and Renaissance lit course that uses the omniscient Norton Anthology of English Literature. The poetry of the time was not looking for accuracy of reality, but rather wanted the perfection of wordplay that creates a new world, filled with truth and magic, which holds moral truth as well. The poets alone had the power to fabricate these new worlds to inhabit (NAEL vol 1B, 504). Similarly, Proust believed that "only the artist was able to describe reality as it was actually experienced." (77) As is with most literature, I find this a fascinating point, that only those who produce art tell the truth. Or, is it create truth? If we take what the rat experiment of 2002 proved, the truth of our memory is only that which we remembered the last time. So wouldn't truth only be what we made in the moment? What is true, the buttery cookie or the memory of the buttery cookie? What is my reality, the physical world in which I live or the world created inside my mind through memory? The last world is constantly edited, combining new lessons and facts with old ones; an ever changing reality quite unique. But since I am not a poet or "gifted" writer in the traditional sense, does my writing, words and internal reality not actually represent or is reality? I would disagree with Proust in that point. Why does he and Renaissance authors have the authority to dismiss my memories that are just as strong as the tea and cookie?
I finally want to say how cool the Nader experiment is. He actually proved that we need constant repetition to remember, it's not just my French TA blabbering on and wanting to torture me with verb conjugations! I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that my memories are constantly remade. It makes sense logically, but to think that I will never remember anything exactly as it was the first time is slightly scary. Will I remember my child's first step clearly or my high school graduation? Perhaps that is what Proust is trying to do; capture himself in a moment to examine. But in that caging, he also changes his memory because he can go back and visit it. So, memory is a recursive process, just like writing or reading.
So, when I smell the Fruit Stripes gum, I will remember the summation of childhood summers AND the ENG experience, tainting the original memory, that actually does not exist anymore.
In other news, would anyone like a cookie?
No comments:
Post a Comment