I've done a little remembrance of things past, savoured that period of my life.
Funny you should say that - I've just been reading: "How Proust can change your life" Alain De Botton - very interesting. Thanks to the internet the real thing is available online.
Regarding the approach - there's also surrealism - which links to the above coincidence :-)
They rejected Futurism, preferring the Metaphysical painters, especially the haunting enigmas of Giorgio de Chirico (b 1888). Andre Breton's phrase 'pure psychic automatism' was intended to apply to the process of writing and Breton even gave practical hints on how to do it. In 1930 he published his second Manifeste du surréalisme in which he defined 'surreality' as the reconciliation of the reality of dreams with the reality of everyday life into a higher synthesis. Underlying the interest in automatism and dream lay the Surrealist notion of what was called 'objective chance'. They believed that the existence of coincidences (events for which there were no rational explanations) was evidence and that true reality was not ordered or logical. Access to reality could only be gained through the unconscious mind. http://www.artchive.com/artchive/surrealism.html
Andre Breton's phrase 'pure psychic automatism' was intended to apply to the process of writing and Breton even gave practical hints on how to do it. In 1930 he published his second Manifeste du surréalisme in which he defined 'surreality' as the reconciliation of the reality of dreams with the reality of everyday life into a higher synthesis.
Underlying the interest in automatism and dream lay the Surrealist notion of what was called 'objective chance'. They believed that the existence of coincidences (events for which there were no rational explanations) was evidence and that true reality was not ordered or logical. Access to reality could only be gained through the unconscious mind.
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/surrealism.html
Though generally I'm very rationalist, but it's good to sometimes remember that much still escapes our reason and we too easily accept reasons which are later shown to be mistaken. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice. Blog - Nice Experience
Our slight difference with other organisms is language which does get in the way of perceiving exactly that which language suggests or enables us to be aware of.
I really can't perceive of "realities" beyond us or that some sort of "unconscious" mind may have "access" to "it." It's all there for the grabs. Tying it down and trying to communicate it to others is the crux of the problem. So we have the arts and the farther reaches of science to suggest- to re-mind us of- the ineffable, the stochastic, the ordinary chaos from which we distill meaning.
It comes as no surprise that Benjamin translated Proust into German.
My daughter gave me De Botton's book as a birthday gift when it came out. I enjoyed it, especially Proust's fascination with crime and trashy periodicals. Another delightful aspect of Proust's character was to write two versions of a review or a letter- one in which he confided to posterity what he really thought while publishing or sending a perfectly false version of his judgements or sentiments.
