ROGER SHATTUCK
75
me questions as if this were an interview or an examination. After receiving
your letters, Ms. Szonic, I tried
to ...
Callie:
Please forgive me, Professor Fitzhugh. We've been impolite.
What are your ideas for the program?
Prof
F:
No need to apologize. A discussion like this accomplishes more
than a monologue. Ned just said the word I have on my mind. Reading. Are
you aware how many scholars and critics have published about reading in
Proust? At least two full-length books and scores of articles in French, En–
glish, German, Japanese, and other languages. It's true that one of the
essential subjects of the
Search
is reading and writing. But most of the criti–
cism I've read leaves me deeply dissatisfied. One of the most carefully writ–
ten scenes in the novel concerns Marcel reading in the garden in Combray. It
comes near the opening; any reader of Proust should know it. Marcel is
persuaded by his grandmother to leave his bedroom where darkness, stray
rays of light, street sounds, and other distractions prevent him fi'om reading.
With an unidentified book he takes shelter in the depths of a canopied cane–
and-canvas chair under a chestnut tree in the garden. Here Marcel is solitary
and hidden enough to read. The narrator devotes five pages
to
describing
and narrating the act of reading a novel. I see you have the English transla–
tion of the
Search
there. Pass me the opening volume, would you.
The nan-atOl' moves in (our carefully distinguished steps from the in–
nermost recesses of Marcel's consciousness to the real world outside that
surrounds him. Remember? First comes the striking metaphor of an incan–
descent object. It evaporates anything in its path and therefore can never
touch a substance it approaches. The scene starts with a version of our last
fundamental law: the incapacity of the consciousness
to
make contact with
any other consciousness. "A narrow spiritual border" always separates us
from the real world of other beings and other things. But: one precious
mental activity can transcend this limit, this law. Reading. Proust explains this
everyday miracle by examining the next level of Marcel's mind. While he
reads, Marcel's consciousness is released by his
croyance,
his "belief in the
philosophical richness and the beauty of the book." And the book offers a
very special kind of material for his emotions
to
deal with. The novelist sets
before us not the material opaqueness of real beings but transparent images
evoked by words, images "which our soul can assimilate," which our con–
sciousness can make contact with. These immaterial images have the further
advantage of not being subject to contingent human time. They can move at
an accelerated speed that reveals changes we fail
to
notice at the pace of
ordinary living. The novelist's images have the privileged status of a pro–
longed, clarified dream.
The third level of phenomena described by the narrator in Marcel's
