Proust's Novel Time
The argument
The madeleine returns Combray, and the novel keeps going. The reason is that the first recovered memory gives the narrator neither a quick nor a complete understanding of time. The chapter follows the distinct lessons that come after it. The madeleine joins past and present through sensation. The steeples make position and relation visible. The three trees briefly suggest a story whose meaning stays uncertain. The grandmother's bodily memory lets the past unfold. Vinteuil's music gives temporal form without yet teaching the narrator how to write. These episodes are not interchangeable examples of memory. Later experiences change how earlier ones can be understood, so the novel's long duration is an apprenticeship. Only near the end can the narrator see a pattern in his life and undertake to narrate it. The knowledge is temporal. Self and world become legible through experiences whose meaning could not have been grasped at once.
"Proust's Consciousness" asks how impressions connect a particular consciousness to a world beyond it. This chapter asks what it takes, over a life and a novel, to understand those impressions and recognize the temporal shape of a life. "The Shape of a Life" takes up the shared patterns of lives through Augustine's theological account and the way a community forms its members and is formed by them.
Publication details
- Author
- Katherine Elkins
- Publication
- In Sarit Kattan Gribetz and Lynn Kaye, eds., Time: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. De Gruyter, 2023, chapter 7.
- DOI
- 10.1515/9783110690774-009
Proust's Novel Time at the publisher →
Key concepts
Proust; time; temporality; madeleine; narrative; memory; steeples; three trees; grandmother; Vinteuil; apprenticeship; relational identity; integrated information theory.
Read next
Philosophy, Literature, and Information →
Katherine Elkins: author profilePublications and CVORCIDGoogle ScholarPhilPeople