I often say that “the Search” is the story of a hold 🔗⛓️ but, above all, of a ‘letting go’…
Translated from French.
I often say that “the Search” is the story of a hold 🔗⛓️ but, above all, of a ‘letting go’ ⛓️💥. In it, the narrator recounts his long (and long-uncertain) realisation regarding the vanity of the world, the recurring patterns of love, and the dead ends of writing and art.
In “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower” 🌸, for example, he articulates this paradox: ‘(…) the news that one is to see the one one loves again would cause a rather unpleasant stir.’ The narrator feels the effects of this absence, but it is a chosen absence. A ‘detox’ 🧪🦠, if I may say so.
🖋️ “We all know that, when we no longer love, forgetting – even a vague memory – does not cause as much suffering as an unhappy love. It was the soothing gentleness of such anticipated forgetting that I preferred, without admitting it to myself.”
The narrator chooses the lesser of two evils. He is aware of the strength of his romantic attachment, and prefers a chosen separation 📬 to a forced parting. Since his jealousy makes his love impossible, and since he cannot bind 🪢 the one he loves to him, he must detach himself from her first.
🖋️ “Through the harm she has done to us, woman is closing in on us ever more, tightening our chains, but also those which, until now, we would have thought it sufficient merely to bind her with so that we might feel at ease.”
In his relationship with Gilberte, which is drawing to a close, just as in his budding relationship with Albertine, the narrator eventually realises that his desire to possess is futile, for one never possesses what one loves. What one loves possesses us. ❤️🩹
#MarcelProust #Àlombredesjeunesfillesenfleurs #RTP #Àlarecherchedutempsperdu #proustagram #Albertine #Balbec #PrixGoncourt #1919
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