10 Human Memory and Memories
The Days Forever LostThis is a book about functioning of memory, or human mind (or consciousness). The young gentleman, i.e. the author's alter ego, remembers his summers in a village called Combray. When the author put his memories in writing, these days were lost forever. For today's reader they are "ancient" history about the way of living in a French village during the latter half of the 1800th century. The subjects of the memories are among other things, people at the young gentleman's or boy's aunt's house, where he and his family live during the summers. Further, the village with its buildings and rich nature surrounding the village are also described in detail.
Lacking Genius!The smell of Madeleine cake brings lost memories about summers in Combray to the mind of the author. - The boy is very sensitive. We don't know exactly, how old he is, but anyway, he seems extremely dependent of his mother emotionally. It is a catastrophe, if mother doesn't have time to come upstairs for a good night kiss. The boy is very interested in reading books, and he has planned to become a novelist. However, he rejects this plan because of his lacking genius!
Mysterious Mr. SwannSome of the central characters in the book are the boy's aunt (who lives tied to bed, but carefully observes the way of living in the village), the chambermaid, and of course, mysterious Mr. Swann and his daughter with whom the boy falls in love. Further, two gentlemen Mr. Legrand and Mr. Vinteuil are in focus. The former proves to be a snob, and the latter an unhappy father, whose daughter is a sadist in relation to her poor father. There are also many other interesting characters in the boy's life.
The Swann's Way and the Guermantes WayThe two ways along which the family takes long walks - the Swann's way and the Guermantes way - get a philosophical and symbolic meaning in the boy's childhood memories. Nature alongside the both ways is a special object of the boy's observations. Hardly any author has succeeded to present such a detailed and sensitive description of natural phenomena - and also human made artefacts - as Proust.
"Perhaps the reality is only formed in memory"Most interesting feature in the novel is, in my opinion, Proust's view: "perhaps the reality is only formed in memory". This is philosophically valid view at least from the existential-phenomenological angle. Both the so-called holistic individual image*) presented by Lauri Rauhala (based on Husserl and Heidegger) and Proust consider the nature of human observation surprisingly similarly.
The Importance of the WorldviewAccording to the holistic individual image, human individual observes (i.e. experiences) objects in his or her situation (in which he or she lives) in terms of meanings, which the processes of the consciousness forms on the basis these objects. We cannot comprehend objects (things, people, ideas, etc.) as such, concretely, but with the help of subjectively formed meanings only. In the process of forming a meaning, our earlier experiences about the same or similar object than the one presently observed, have a crucial role: we understand (new) objects in relation to those earlier experiences, which are "stored", into our worldview in the form of meanings. In psychological terms, the worldview would be called memory.
Reality Created in the ConsciousnessIn a way, our world or reality is "located" in our worldview. Therefore, referring to Proust, we can argue that reality, or our situation in which we live, is created in our consciousness and "stored" into our worldview in the form of meanings. Part of the content of the worldview may become forgotten, i.e. sinking to unconscious levels. But something in our situation, e.g. the smell of Madeleine-cake, may activate these forgotten meanings ("memories") and make them conscious again, in such a way that we become aware of them.
Our Reality is SubjectiveBecause of the subjectivity and uniqueness of both our situationality and worldview, our reality is subjective, too, and therefore different from the reality of all other persons. That is why individuals see things differently, and remember different details even about the same places and occurrences.
Proust Deconstructs a Part of His SituationalityTo sum up, in my opinion, the central theme in Proust's novel is just dealing with the mental processes related to worldview and situationality of the author. With the help of his worldview, Proust deconstructs part of his real situationality that was relevant at those Combray's times, and we can read, how it was like. Of course, deconstruction is not and cannot be complete, but the author has also used his imagination in creating characters and other objects described in the novel. --------------------------------------------------------- *) The holistic individual image consists of the following three modes of existence, which are intertwined with each other (Rauhala, Lauri, Ihmiskäsitys ihmistyössä ("The Conception of Human Being in Helping People"). Gaudeamus: Helsinki, 1986): 1. Consciousness, or the individual's existence as a psychical-mental phenomenon, as experiencing (which is the domain of cognitive processes), 2. Situationality, or existence in relation to a certain part of reality referred to as the 'personal situation;' in other words, situationality is the totality of a person's relations to all possible objects and things located in his or her situation, and 3. Corporeality, or existence as a set of organic processes, "the body".
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