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PARTISAN REVIEW
alive is the analysis of his feelings, the transposition from the particu–
lar into the universal, the people he meets and the society they belong
to, which is an extension of them without their being aware of it and
which with even less awareness they typify. It is Marcel, the narrator,
who, living and creating, is present. He is partly the deputy, partly
the associate of the author.
But Marcel, the hero, is absent; just as Marcel Proust was
absent from reality. But here the difference is striking. Marcel Proust
was absent by default, for lack of living a life worthy of interest,
until the day when Proust experienced a "revelation," when, in other
words, he discovered simultaneously his genius, his means of expres–
sion, and his goal, when the awarencss of his vocation gave meaning
to
his
life, while at the same time, it imbued him with a feeling for
life and with the notion of the eternal (that is, of a survival brought
about by the suppression of time) . On that day, Marcel Proust sank
into an absence which was now deliberate and irretrievable. Since
his life no longer has immediate meaning, the living man in charge
of daily business and outward relationships finds himself condemned
from now on, by a sovereign decree of the creator, to mediocrity
and "niceness" for the rest of
his
life. He is reduced to standing on
a platform, to beguiling people and making them forget that "Mon–
sieur Proust is not at home," a role which he had acted perfectly
even when "Monsieur Proust" had not yet arrived.
As
for Marcel, the hero, he is absent because his absence needs
to be felt. His contrived absence is one of the essential conditions of
this work of art. Marcel must be insignificant, because it is his pecu–
liar role. He is no longer innocently or naturally insignificant as
Marcel Proust was before the "revelation": his insignificance has
been forced upon him. For the narrator experienced the "revelation"
before he started to portray the hero. He knows. A biography (we
are still in the domain of fiction) is not life, it is an account; it has
a definite pattern, an aim, and a method; it is the opposite of life,
or, if you will, life seen upside down in a reversed perspective. Marcel,
the hero, is supposed to depict the emptiness of a life which has not
assumed its meaning and the straying of a man who, while anxious
to find the reason for his sojourn on earth, constantly mistakes one
object for another and finds slipping through his fingers
all
the things
that he has been attracted to - love, society, and time- because they
