Proust: Tea and Muffins

Proust mentions an old saga where a spirit is imprisoned in a stone and you can free it by listening to its call. -- Similarly, he says, truth is hidden in an object or a sound and can be freed only by someone who listens.

In other words, a  sound, a smell,  a texture or even a taste would bring back memories that cannot be reached by any mental effort.

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Summarized in his own words:

“It is the same with our past. It is in vain that we try to call it up;  our mental efforts are all useless, because that past is hidden outside the domain of our intelligence and beyond its reach."

“Il en est ainsi de notre passé. C'est peine perdue que nous cherchions à
l'évoquer, tous les efforts de notre intelligence sont inutiles. Il est
caché hors de son domaine et de sa portée."

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That is the meaning of the little cup cakes called Madeleines.  Pronounce madlenn

He was feeling sad after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing future. His aunt served him some tea and muffins. As soon as he tasted the muffins, he felt such glorious joy as could not be explained by the tea, nor by some trivial memories of candle light appearing in a staircase or of the door bell tinkling  at the garden gate..

But the tinkling of the door bell (Swann's evening visit) and the light in the staircase (a desperate confrontation with his father) became the beginning of  his 2000 page novel that he says he pulled out of that glass of tea.

Proust thinks this immense joy meant that his soul had momentarily found the place where the present time and the past are simultaneous within the larger picture of eternity, so that death cannot exist.

Graham Greene called Proust the "greatest novelist of the 20th century", and W. Somerset Maugham called the novel the "greatest fiction to date".

The Proust pictures are from a large specialized collection at http://www.geoffwilkins.net/proust/gallery.htm
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Postscript 1
 

Above, there is a photo showing how Proust had "read " the proofs once they came back from the printer.  -- 

The last volumes were proof-read by Marcel's brother, because Proust could not finish them in time. This is why the last 3 or 4 volumes are not of the same quality as the first 3 or 4. 

In Spanish there is a good translation,  and even in German I once saw something, but in English?   
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Postscript 2

I see that now there is a new translation by Lydia Davis getting great reviews.  -- And now they all admit that Moncrieff's text is archaic! But that is not its real defect. It sounds false. Proust had quite a few "character defects" (compared to who ???), but false he wasn't.
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Postscript 3
added December 22, 2015

I have just found out that the Moncrieff translation is greatly admired in England.
The critics consider it a chef-d'oeuvre of Edwardian English.
Apparently, Joseph Conrad thought the English version is greater than the French original.


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