memory and feeling
"Car aux troubles de la mémoire sont liées les intermittences du coeur.," writes Proust (II, 756).
He goes on to say that it is the existence of our bodies that give us the illusion that all our feelings are perpetually in our possession. But this is not so.
This made me think of all the incompatible feelings we have about Bloom while reading Ulysses. We know how we feel at each moment, but there is a problem when we try to sum up our overall feelings about Bloom.
There is also a larger point about reading here. We are one person when we read a novel. We're another when we sit in class to discuss it. "Literature says very little to those who understand it," writes Benjamin. The experience of reading is one thing. The chats we have about literature are another thing, perhaps not related to the first.
If this is true, the only way to share the experience of reading a novel would be to read it aloud together.
He goes on to say that it is the existence of our bodies that give us the illusion that all our feelings are perpetually in our possession. But this is not so.
This made me think of all the incompatible feelings we have about Bloom while reading Ulysses. We know how we feel at each moment, but there is a problem when we try to sum up our overall feelings about Bloom.
There is also a larger point about reading here. We are one person when we read a novel. We're another when we sit in class to discuss it. "Literature says very little to those who understand it," writes Benjamin. The experience of reading is one thing. The chats we have about literature are another thing, perhaps not related to the first.
If this is true, the only way to share the experience of reading a novel would be to read it aloud together.
posted by Robert Frumkin at 11:37 PM
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