Thanks to you, Bob! I'd just like to mention, in regard to the heroin warning of your friends, that Proust was a fan of many drugs, but not heroin. Proust reading is more culturally related to more salutary (and less destructive) drug experiences.
I have to hand it to you: your insights on the handling of
neurotics are
stunning. I read the article and howled, then handed it directly to my
office mate, who is in a long lasting (well, two years)
relationship/running battle with a guy who fits your criteria *exactly*.
It's uncanny; it's like you knew him. But this raises a question. What's
wrong with those of us who put up with and cultivate these
relationships? Does Marcel have any insights to offer? That's a
rhetorical question; of course he does. It's just a matter how many and
where they are. A follow-up article would be welcome!
Thanks again for your outstanding analysis.
Nicholas
A friend passed along to me your article, "Handling of
Neurotics", since I am currently in a relationship, of sorts, with a
neurotic. This information was particularly enlightening and as I read
it, I had this strange sense that you knew personally the man who is at
present making me crazy. Reading about subjunctive cases, compulsions,
the "avid protection of the soft inner core," I recognized my man
immediately. Perhaps some neurosis of my own keeps me in or maybe I just
like the craziness of him.
Yours in careful handling,
kimmel
Amazing, is it not, how neurosis shares behavior in so many creatures? The splendid Miss X, who provided me with wisdom on the issue, has sent the following letter remarking on her current inclination towards neurosis... And there will be more on this subject in the future.
I see my position as that of the old guard who must eventually step aside and make room for those who would try to understand/indulge in/suffer with/ and become compulsively engrossed in neurotic interaction. Proust is so relevant because the neuroses follow a pattern or formatting that is constant or universal, if you will. So it is with my views, all a synthesis of many years of nervous breakdowns- my own and those of my uncle and G.- readings by contributors such as Freud and Horney on the one hand, then the artistes on the other. We know something of the plunges into madness, but as time goes on, and the severe ones lead to suicide, etc. the romantic gives way (for me, at least) to a kind of ecology of preservation (self) and longing for simpler beings to inhabit my universe...enter flora and fauna, austere walls, museum studies such as those I have been doing: hanging out with people who have been dead for 9000 years. These new friends are quiet, don't give me complicated social interactions to manage (at least I haven't crossed over into this murky philia yet...) and I am able to see how fleeting our lives are by the presence of those who have gone before us. In their previous 'soft tissue' manifestation, they lived, breathed, had sex and suffered all parallel to ourselves. Finally, our 'soft tissue' will fall away and what will be left is a calcified souvenir that we once existed. This takes me far from the prankishness of my earlier years, which I remember fondly and still utilize those gifts of insight gained in the process. In short, I am now more identified with the naturalists. I still have no problem seeing the connection between the sojourning naturalists who traveled and collected specimens and such and the naturalists of art and literature. Though the naturalist movement in art seems to be the decadents rather than the lovingly petted 'true naturalists'. There is so much that is wretched in our world, but for the young, who are wonderful sponges and in whom we must put our faith and dreams (no matter how starved) there is only tomorrow and the wonders of life. For me one of these wonders was the proud, complex, motivated and tormented neurotic.
As an avid WELLurker of several years, my curiosity was piqued when in
the course of some WWW-surfing I saw the name cynsa, which I recognized from
weird, or books, or classical, or wherever... Cynsa led me to Proust
Said That, which I have enjoyed browsing.
I was inspired to email, however, by something quite more curious than
seeing Cynsa's name on the Web. I am a collector of fine art
photography, especially portraiture, and I like very much Dean
Gustafson's cover for the premiere issue of PST. I liked even more
the use of M. Proust's eyes as an
icon. But I liked INCREDIBLY much the design of the two madeleines,
which seem (to me) clearly to be a morphology of the eyes icon.
Merci mille fois...
jrigney
My charming friend Cynsa is a member of the WELL staff, and she and our friend Jeffrey Gray (vision ) are responsible for the presence of PST on The World Wide Web. They have also brought me onto the Web, in spite of my lack of knowledge about this remarkable phenomenon, and I have already become an email junkie. Dean Gustafson is both a serious fine artist and now a superb computer artist as well, but the gorgeous transition of his work into the WWW version has been the splendid action of Jeffrey Gray.
Just discovered you on The Web. Thrilled, delighted, wishing I were
reading him right now. Do you know if there are any Proust lists on the
Net? Would anyone be interested in joining one? Would anybody have the
technical ability to organize one? Nothing would make me happier. I've
read in search of lost time three times now, and would love to
reread/discuss it with other fanatics/fans/appreciative souls.
Thanks,
annie
Well, Miss Annie, I do not personally have the ability to organize such a computer activity, but I can assure you that other emailers are potentially inclined in this direction. If the perfect candidate sends me mail, I will introduce you! Here, in fact, is mail from a likely person...
Wow! I really love your newsletter. It's amazing. I am a grad
student in
psychology. spending my spare time working my way through RTP.
While I spend most of my spare time reading Proust, I spend some of it
on the Net, and today I was thinking what a great thing it would be if
there was some way to combine the two, and clearly, your newsletter is
exactly the thing. I will likely get no work done now, but how happy I
will be.
I haven't read much of the newsletter yet, though I used to live in
Santa Cruz, and I purchased a large quantity of that peppery Grenache
featuring the cameo of Proust on the label.
Do you know of any newsgroup or something that does discussions of
Proust?
Thanks loads,
Mark Sabbagh
I don't know of a newsgroup discussing Proust; but perhaps you and Miss Annie should become acquainted? I suspect that likely candidates for this activity will make themselves known to PST, and I will be delighted to introduce you to each other.
I've just gotten my Web connection fired up, and I've spelunked
(I'm not sure why, but this caving term is the metaphor I like to use for
browsing cyberspace) upon the Proust Said That pages. Cool. My
utmost
respect to the Remembrance of Things Past reading group; a truly
significant accomplishment. I read part of it in a class on 20th
century continental literary treatments of time (amazing the courses one
can find in liberal arts.) I clearly recall the day we tried to diagram
a Proustian sentence. We concluded that an N-dimension hypertext
blackboard would be necessary for the task...
Kevin S. Eves
Thanks for your kind words, the amusing diagrammatic suggestion, and the virtual howdy!
...The knowledge would have brought me more rapidly to the idea that we ought never to bear a grudge against people, ought never to judge them by some memory of an unkind action, for we do not know all the good that, at other moments, their hearts may have sincerely desired and realized.
The Captive
Please email P with your letters and comments.
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