♠Marcel Proust: “En Busca del Tiempo Perdido”: “Por el Camino de Swann” / “Remembrance of Things Past”: “Swann´s Way”:
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♠Reseña Sinótica: “En Busca del Tiempo Perdido”: “Por el Camino de Swann”:
“Por el camino de Swann” (“Du côté de chez Swann”) es el primer volumen, publicado en 1913, de los siete que componen “En Busca del Tiempo Perdido” (“À la recherche du temps perdu”), de Marcel Proust
El volumen está compuesto de tres partes (“Combray I” “Combray II”, “Un amour de Swann” (“Un amor de Swann”)- y “Nom de pays : le Nom” (“Nombre de País: el Nombre”), contiene ya todos los núcleos temáticos y formales esenciales de la escritura proustiana, a saber: la recuperación poética de lugares y anécdotas de la infancia y la juventud del protagonista; las reflexiones metaliterarias y la enunciación, a partir de las anécdotas particulares de los distintos personajes y del protagonista, de leyes psicológicas o verdades generales sobre la naturaleza humana.
La primera parte de este volumen contiene el célebre episodio de la magdalena (madeleine) mojada en el té caliente por el protagonista, cuyo gusto supone para éste la recuperación epifánica de un recuerdo infantil hasta entonces perdido: el recuerdo de las magdalena humedecidas en té que su tía Léonie le daba en Combray, cuando era niño. Este episodio contiene en su totalidad la teoría proustiana sobre la memoria ( influida por las ideas del filósofo Henri Bergson).
Durante los siguientes seis tomos, el protagonista proustiano se encontrará una y otra vez con esta epifanía sensorial y mnemónica que lo llevará a lugares de su memoria que estarán vedados a la simple rememoración sistemática. Esta experiencia del «tiempo puro», como la llama Blanchot, configurará la estructura de la novela hasta su tomo final (“El Tiempo Recobrado”).
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♠Marcel Proust: “En Busca del Tiempo Perdido”: “Por el Camino de Swann”:
♠Aportes desde la filosofía de Henri Bergson:
Henri Bergson (1859/1941).-
Bergson elabora la idea de duración: no solamente el hombre se percibe a sí mismo como duración (durée réelle), sino que también la realidad entera es duración y élan vital. En el yo interior, los estados de conciencia se organizan en una unidad que no es espacial, sino que posee las características de la duración
En “Materia y Memoria”, Bergson considera que la memoria recoge y conserva todos los aspectos de la existencia, y que es el cuerpo, y especialmente el cerebro, el medio que permite recobrar los datos mnémicos haciendo aflorar recuerdos de forma concomitante a percepciones. En cualquier caso, la concepción de la memoria en Bergson es radicalmente nueva: según él no vamos del presente al pasado; de la percepción al recuerdo, sino del pasado al presente, del recuerdo a la percepción. En “La Evolución creadora”, Bergson extiende la noción de duración. Entonces, la duración no constituye solamente el ser de la conciencia; la realidad exterior también es duración, siempre cambiante. El aspecto ontológico de la duración, que se manifiesta como «evolución creadora», se manifiesta especialmente en los procesos evolutivos de los seres vivos, que son expresión de un élan vital, impulso creador. Todo se debe a la acción del impulso vital, que es la actualización de lo virtual.
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♠”En Busca del Tiempo Perdido”: “Por el Camino de Swann”:
♠”Extracto de La Magdalena” (“Sobre el Tiempo Puro/ Durée Réelle, y la Memoria Involuntaria”)
“Hacía ya muchos años que no existía para mí de Combray más que el escenario y el drama del momento de acostarme, cuando un día de invierno, al volver a casa, mi madre, viendo que yo tenía frío, me propuso que tomara, en contra de mi costumbre, una taza de té. Primero dije que no, pero luego, sin saber por qué, volví de mi acuerdo. Mandó mi madre por uno de esos bollos, cortos y abultados, que llama magdalenas, que parece que tienen por molde una valva de concha de peregrino. Y muy pronto, abrumado por el triste día que había pasado y por la perspectiva de otro tan melancólico por venir, me llevé a los labios una cucharada de té en el que había echado un trozo de magdalena. Pero en el mismo instante en que aquel trago, con las migas del bollo, tocó mi paladar, me estremecí, fija mi atención en algo extraordinario que ocurría en mi interior. Un placer delicioso me invadió, me aisló, sin noción de lo que lo causaba. Y él me convirtió las vicisitudes de la vida en indiferentes, sus desastres en inofensivos y su brevedad en ilusoria, todo del mismo modo que opera el amor, llenándose de una esencia preciosa; pero, mejor dicho, esa esencia no es que estuviera en mí, es que era yo mismo. Dejé de sentirme mediocre, contingente y mortal. ¿De dónde podría venirme aquella alegría tan fuerte? Me daba cuenta de que iba unida al sabor del té y del bollo, pero le excedía en mucho, y no debía de ser de la misma naturaleza. ¿De dónde venía y qué significaba? (…)
Dejo la taza y me vuelvo hacia mi alma. Ella es la que tiene que dar con la verdad. Pero ¿cómo? Grave incertidumbre ésta, cuando el alma se siente superada por sí misma, cuando ella, la que busca, es juntamente el país oscuro por donde ha de buscar, sin que le sirva para nada su bagaje. ¿Buscar? No sólo buscar, crear. Se encuentra ante una cosa que todavía no existe y a la que ella sola puede dar realidad y entrarla en el campo de su visión.
Y, de pronto, el recuerdo surge. Ese sabor es el que tenía el pedazo de magdalena que mi tía Léonie me ofrecía, después de mojado en su infusión de té o de tila, los domingos por la mañana en Combray (porque los domingos yo no salía hasta la hora de misa) cuando iba a darle los buenos días a su cuarto.
Y como ese entretenimiento de los japoneses que meten en un cacharro de porcelana pedacitos de papel, al parecer, informes, que en cuanto se mojan empiezan a estirarse, a tomar forma, a colorearse y a distinguirse, convirtiéndose en flores, en casas, en personajes consistentes y cognoscibles, así ahora todas las flores de nuestro jardín y las del parque del señor Swann y las ninfas del Vivonne y las buenas gentes del pueblo y sus viviendas chiquitas y la iglesia y Combray entero y sus alrededores, todo eso, pueblo y jardines, que va tomando forma y consistencia, sale de mi taza de té”.
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Madeleine: “Un de ces gâteaux courts et dodus appelés Petites Madeleines qui semblaient avoir été moulées dans la valve rainurée d’une coquille de Saint-Jacques”
“Une Madeleine Proustienne ”…
Madeleine en molde clásico al estilo Combray.-
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Marcel Proust (1871-1922).-
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Lista Títulos Siete Tomos de “En Busca del Tiempo Perdido” (Francés/ Inglés).-
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♠Descargar: “En Busca del Tiempo Perdido”: “Por el Camino de Swann” de Marcel Proust”:
Hacer click sobre la imagen para leer “Por el Camino De Swann”, de Marcel Proust”.-
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♠ENGLISH SECTION:
♠”Remembrance of Things Past”: “Swann´s Way”: “Synopsis”:
“Swann´s Way” (“Du côté de chez Swann”) is divided into four parts: “Combray I ” (or “Overture”), “Combray II,” “Un Amour de Swann,” and “Noms de pays: Le Nom.” (“Names of places: the Name”).
A third-person novella within “Du côté de chez Swann”, “Un Amour de Swann” is sometimes published as a volume by itself. As it forms the self-contained story of Charles Swann’s love affair with Odette de Crécy and is relatively short, it is generally considered a good introduction to Proust´s work.
“Combray I” is also similarly excerpted; it ends with the famous madeleine cake episode, introducing the theme of involuntary memory, in which the narrator remembers having a similar snack as a child with his invalid aunt Leonie, and it leads to more memories of Combray.
Involuntary memory, also known as involuntary explicit memory, involuntary conscious memory, involuntary aware memory, and most commonly, involuntary autobiographical memory, is a subcomponent of memory that occurs when cues encountered in everyday life evoke recollections of the past without conscious effort. Voluntary memory, its binary opposite, is characterized by a deliberate effort to recall the past.
Proust viewed involuntary memory as containing the “essence of the past”, claiming that it was lacking from voluntary memory. In his novel, he describes an incident where he was eating tea soaked cake, and a childhood memory of eating tea soaked cake with his aunt was “revealed” to him. From this memory, he then proceeded to be reminded of the childhood home he was in, and even the town itself. This becomes a theme throughout In Search of Lost Time, with sensations reminding Proust of previous experiences. He dubbed these Involuntary memories.
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♠Exhibition Review: “Proust, For Those With A Memory” (Article of The New York Times)
Some of Proust’s notes for “Swann’s Way,” with doodles. Click on the image to read the article.-
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♠Quotes: “Remembrance of Things Past”: “Swann´s Way”:
“The places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which we situate them for our greater convenience. They were only a thin slice among contiguous impressions which formed our life at that time; the memory of a certain image is but regret for a certain moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fleeting, alas, as the years.”
“One cannot change, that is to say become a different person, while continuing to acquiesce to the feelings of the person one has ceased to be.”
“For what we suppose to be our love or our jealousy is never a single, continuous and indivisible passion. It is composed of an infinity of successive loves, of different jealousies, each of which is ephemeral, although by their uninterrupted multiplicity they give us the impression of continuity, the illusion of unity.”
“Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.”
“A little tap at the window, as though some missile had struck it, followed by a plentiful, falling sound, as light, though, as if a shower of sand were being sprinkled from a window overhead; then the fall spread, took on an order, a rhythm, became liquid, loud, drumming, musical, innumerable, universal. It was the rain”.
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“Swann´s Way”. More quotes. Click on the Logo to read them.-
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Marcel Proust´s Biography.-
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♠Excerpt: “Remembrance of Things Past”: “Swann´s Way”: “La Madeleine de Combray”:
“Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, on my return home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called “petites madeleines,” which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could, no, indeed, be of the same nature. Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?
I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, then a third, which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing it magic. It is plain that the truth I am seeking lies not in the cup but in myself. The drink has called it into being, but does not know it, and can only repeat indefinitely, with a progressive diminution of strength, the same message which I cannot interpret, though I hope at least to be able to call it forth again and to find it there presently, intact and at my disposal, for my final enlightenment. I put down the cup and examine my own mind. It alone can discover the truth. But how: What an abyss of uncertainty, whenever the mind feels overtaken by itself; when it, the seeker, is at the same time the dark region through which it must go seeking and where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not yet exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day.
And I begin to ask myself what it could have been, this unremembered state which brought with it no logical proof, but the indisputable evidence, of its felicity, its reality, and in whose presence other states of consciousness melted and vanished. I decide to attempt to make it reappear. I retrace my thoughts to the moment at which I drank the first spoonful of tea. I rediscover the same state, illuminated by no fresh light. I ask my mind to make one further effort, to bring back once more the fleeting sensation. And so that nothing may interrupt it in its course I shut out every obstacle, every extraneous idea, I stop my ears and inhibit all attention against the sound from the next room. And then, feeling that my mind is tiring itself without having any success to report, I compel it for a change to enjoy the distraction which I have just denied it, to think of other things, to rest refresh itself before making a final effort. And then for the second time I clear an empty space in front of it; I place in position before my mind’s eye the still recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting-place and attempts to rise, something that has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed.
Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, is trying to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too confused and chaotic; scarcely can I perceive the neutral glow into which the elusive whirling medley of stirred-up colours is fused, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter, to translate for me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste, cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, from what period in my past life.
Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has traveled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now I feel nothing; it has stopped, has perhaps sunk back into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise again? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss. And each time the cowardice that deters us from every difficult task, every important enterprise, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of the worries of to-day and my hopes for to-morrow, which can be brooded over painlessly.
And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom , my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the meantime, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks’ windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the shapes of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.
And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann’s park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea”.
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Marcel Proust (1871-1922).-
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♠Download: “Remembrance of Things Past”: “Swann´s Way”, by Marcel Proust:
Click on the cover book to read “Swann´s Way” by Marcel Proust.-
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♠Bonustrack: Recipe: “Proust´s Madeleines de Commercy”
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♠Links Post:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Por_el_camino_de_Swann
http://aquileana.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/el-tiempo-de-bergson/
http://aquileana.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/marcel-proust-madeleine-y-tiempo-recobrado
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/4830806-du-c-t-de-chez-swann
http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/proust.html
http://www.finedininglovers.com/stories/proust-madeleine/
http://hungrysofia.com/2010/08/06/julia-childs-madeleines-de-commercy/
http://www.pinterest.com/radovanje/marcel-proust/http://www.finedininglovers.com/stories/proust-madeleine/
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Filed under: Filosofía, Literatura