Science And Structure In Proust S A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu

Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu is a hybrid, a novel-essay, a capacious work of fiction containing a commonplace-book. It might, as Roland Barthes has suggested, be thought of as the product of profound and cherished indecision, Proust's indecision between two styles of writing, themoralistic and the fictive/novelistic/romanesque. Structure and Science is an exploration of this indecision.The shorter Proust, Proust the moraliste, is a prolific writer of maxims, from the laws of the passions to the aesthetic manifesto of the Temps retrouve to the [?rapacious] teeming/fertile/spawning/exuberant/luxuriant reflection(s) on sexuality, politics, society. Yet these maxims, whose grammarlays claim to timelessness, are bound up in narrative, the story of their evolution. And disintegration. Proust's moralizing exposes our affective relationship with law statements, with authority, and it is this question that engages A la recherche in an epistemological debate which crosses theboundaries between the two cultures, art and science. What might be called the epistemological alertness of Proust's text is explored at this interface between 'modernist' science and literature.

A la recherche du temps perdu occupies an undisputed place in the unfolding intellectual history of the 'moi' in France. There is, however, a general tendency in writing on this novel to celebrate the wonders of the moi sensible uncritically. This effaces all that is morally dubious or franklyexperimental about Proust's account of selfhood. It denies the rigour with which Proust tries to understand exactly why it is so difficult to explain one's own actions to another. The great party scenes, for example, or the countless digressions, read like manuals on how acts of self-justificationtake place.Proust, however, is not merely interested in some kind of taxonomy of excuses, hypocrisy, disingenuousness, and Schadenfreude. He wants to know why self-justification tends to be interpreted as indicative of moral or psychological weakness. He asks himself whether self-justification informsisolated moments of everyday existence or whether it endures in an overall conception of self that lasts an individual's lifetime. He investigates whether it dictates the functioning of an entire social group. Can we decide, he asks, whether justifying one's self should be written off as morallyrepugnant, or taken seriously as evidence of moral probity?

"This collection of Stephane Mallarme's letters is an indispensable companion to the 'complete' correspondence published by Gallimard in eleven volumes (1959-85). The collection comprises 143 letters, dating from 1863 to 1898. Many are previously unpublished, others are published in their entirety for the first time. Not only is the life and work of the poet revealed through his letter writing, but Austin's editorial notes also include the replies of Mallarme's editors and fellow writers. A vivid dialogue emerges between the poet and his contemporaries."

"This collection of Stephane Mallarme's letters is an indispensable companion to the 'complete' correspondence published by Gallimard in eleven volumes (1959-85). The collection comprises 143 letters, dating from 1863 to 1898. Many are previously unpublished, others are published in their entirety for the first time. Not only is the life and work of the poet revealed through his letter writing, but Austin's editorial notes also include the replies of Mallarme's editors and fellow writers. A vivid dialogue emerges between the poet and his contemporaries."

"One of the many aspects that make Marcel Prousts A la recherche du temps perdu such a complex and subtle work is its engagement with metaphysical questions. The disparate nature of the narrators experiences, hypotheses, and statements has generated a number of conflicting interpretations, based on parallels with the thought of one or another philosopher from Plato to Leibniz, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson, or Deleuze. Through the analysis of the narrators two seemingly incompatible perceptions of the world, which reveal reality to be either one or infinitely multiple, Erika Fuelop proposes a reading of the novel that reconciles the opposites. Rather than being undecided or self-contradictory, the narrative thematizes the insufficiency of the dualist perspective and invites the reader to take a step beyond it. Erika Fuelop is an independent researcher, whose doctoral thesis completed at the University of Aberdeen is at the basis of this monograph."