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The Healing Power of Proust - Page Two of Swann's Way (Patreon)

Published:
2021-06-12 14:01:02
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

The second page of 'Combray' takes us all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

We're playing the role of literary detective, art museum curator, and jealous lover, searching for the answer to some of these questions:

  • Was Eve really created from Adam's rib?
  • What is the meaning of our dreams?
  • What book is the narrator reading?

This journey takes us through Freudian dream analysis, allows us to ponder upon the nature of historical and sexual identity, and implores us to examine the healing, restorative power of Proust.

Video Timestamps:

  • 0:00 Adam and Eve, Freud, and the rivalry between Francis I and Charles V
  • 0:55 difficulties in reading Proust
  • 1:30 signs you’ve found a special book
  • 2:45 the healing power of Proust’s characterisation
  • 5:00 “the Proustian blessing of more life”
  • 5:30 how the universities teach Proust
  • 6:30 publication history and the rise of the Great War
  • 7:30 “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”
  • 8:00 Marcel’s dream, and the Creation myth of Adam and Eve
  • 11:00 Freud and Proust
  • 12:30 the meaning of dreams: wish fulfillment and repression
  • 14:00 the meaning of Eve the help meet
  • 15:13 was Eve really created from Adam’s rib?
  • 16:30 manifest content vs latent content
  • 18:00 Proust, homosexuality, and identity
  • 19:00 false and involuntary memories
  • 21:00 the rivalry of Francis I and Charles V
  • 22:40 the book the narrator has in his hand at the beginning
  • 25:00 falling from blissful Paradise
  • 25:25 what was your experience with the first few pages of Proust?

Thank you for reading along. Please share any impressions Proust has made upon you thus far.

Happy reading!

Files

Previews only

The Healing Power of Proust

0:00 Adam and Eve, Freud, and the rivalry between Francis I and Charles V 0:55 difficulties in reading Proust 1:30 signs you’ve found a special book 2:45 the healing power of Proust’s characterisation 5:00 “the Proustian blessing of more life” 5:30 how the universities teach Proust 6:30 publication history and the rise of the Great War 7:30 “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.” 8:00 Marcel’s dream, and the Creation myth of Adam and Eve 11:00 Freud and Proust 12:30 the meaning of dreams: wish fulfillment and repression 14:00 the meaning of Eve the help meet 15:13 was Eve really created from Adam’s rib? 16:30 manifest content vs latent content 18:00 Proust, homosexuality, and identity 19:00 false and involuntary memories 21:00 the rivalry of Francis I and Charles V 22:40 the book the narrator has in his hand at the beginning 25:00 falling from blissful Paradise 25:25 what was your experience with the first few pages of Proust?

Comments

Florian Pesantes

Dear Bill, thank you so much for your post above: full of information and hints and even more importantly: a free-spirited and open report of your biography where I see many similarities to my own. Born in 1964, bred in a small town in the Swiss, French, German triangle of South West Black Forest I had this similar journey, exciting at times and painful more often, to self acceptance as a gay man. (That you should struggle with the terminology as many did is interesting, the original meaning of “gay” as joyous is more of a wishful thinking than a reality, at least it used to be). Over the years of discovering myself, of getting the knowledge how and why I was diverting from my peers, I had accrued skills and accumulated guilt. The skills mainly this ability to read other people’s mind, to detect potential partners for sex in a millisecond and to know how to deceive the people that shouldn’t know successfully. These skills have been worthy for other parts of my life, namely the empathy I need for my profession as a doctor. The guilt of having wasted years of life and significant amount of my energy to hide from the real and imagined enemies, the guilt to had soothed this tension by drowning in booze instead of living my own life in full, the worst guilt to have misused an innocent, beautiful girl as a cover for my identity in the forces and in the circles of my fraternity.

Bill Freeman
>>62145741

Florian – I savored your message for a few days before responding. I envision you as Heidegger writing “Sein und Zeit” beneath the canopy of the Black Forest. We are twin sons of different mothers. I very much appreciate your sharing, identifying, of course, with the twists and turns of life. While it has been 20 years since my last drink, I most certainly remember, as the Eagles wrote, “some drink to remember, some drink to forget.” I did both, neither very successfully. With the wisdom of years, we both know the reasons for that lubrication. Yet all those experiences have brought you were to where you are now, assuredly a wonderful physician. How fortunate that time and circumstance would draw our paths to cross at this stage in life. I look forward to reading more of your reflection. Be at peace.

Florian Pesantes
>>62145741

Now I, dear Bill, needed some time to reply, because I couldn’t quite spot the relevant events past so long ago, but the scales fell off my eyes these early hours during a walk through the yet dark wood - the benefit of mindful walking I had discovered for myself even before wonderful Benjamin told us. Recently I was watching a documentary about the childhood of a boy sexually abused by his own father, called “Postcard to Daddy”. The boy, now a gay man and director of the film, three years younger my age was well known to me at the time being a class mate and friend to my younger brother. A beautiful boy, of a Mediterranean complexion, a splendid appearance , a gifted sportsman, riding and playing tennis, popular with the girls. I adored him, but couldn’t possibly reveal my feelings. Only decades later I got to know that my hidden feelings had in fact been responded, equally hidden. His real motive to call so often on my brother was to be near me, while I carefully displayed the courteous indifference a school boy three years above in school class should naturally show towards the younger. He had not only to hide the “filthy” secret of being gay but the ever worse fate of being fucked over years by his own drunk father. It brakes my heart to think how different both our lives could have been, had we found each other in time. Had we formed a bulwark against society and especially his father. In the sixties and seventies there were no concentration camps any more for our kind, even imprisonment had been abolished in the sixties, but society had not yet accepted homosexuality. These were the years of: “Don’t ask, don’t tell” . “Faggot” was the worst a young boy could be, I’d much preferred to be known as a terrorist or a frightening manly murderer than to be discovered as what I really was. I haven’t got that far in Proust’s book, but I’m very curious about his way to deal with his orientation and how much more I should learn about myself and how little, seemingly unimportant things would define my course of life thereafter. Grateful I am to have companionship like yours or Benjamin’s and that my concern no more is to conceal my true self but avoiding to bore my fellow bookish new friends.

Anonymous

I eased into this ever emerging narration like a weary traveler slides into a warm bath. Quite thrilled at how accessible it is as I was expecting a cold shower and was bracing myself for how long I'd be able to bear it. I've not developed the discipline to call myself a reader but having Benjamin as a sherpa is very exciting for me to help develop the habit. I’m striving to glean from these great works, inspiration and tools that I can apply to songwriting. Initially I'm thinking about metaphor and allegory but I'm sure there are more that I'm not even aware of yet.

Anonymous
>>89984067

Sherpa Ben...Benjamin the Sherpa...My Sherpa Benjamin...I like the sound of that...and the idea behind it...suits him...:-)