Proust by Samuel Beckett: A 50 page essay about Proust, written when Beckett was still a young student. One of the most difficult things I've ever read, but also one of the most rewarding. Most of the sentences are tortuously academic, but the ideas are incredible. And then, every so often, Beckett will write a sentence like this: “Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit.” and I can't stop grinning.
Proust's creatures...are victims of Time... There is no escape from...tomorrow nor from yesterday. There is no escape from yesterday because yesterday has deformed us, or been deformed by us. ...Yesterday is not a milestone that has been passed, but a daystone on the beaten track of the years, and irremediably part of us, within us, heavy and dangerous. We are not merely more weary because of yesterday, we are other, no longer what we were before.
No comments:
Post a Comment