long Proustian shelf, The

Hudson Review, The, Autumn 2001 by Bawer, Bruce

No, Shattuck's book isn't terrible. Neither is Bowie's. But both studies are so much less engaging than the novel itself-and, unlike Proust, are so full of prose that makes one's eyes glaze over-that one has trouble understanding their raison d'etre, given that their supposed goal is to ease the plight of readers tackling A la recherche, and given, furthermore, that most of the observations contained in either of them will be self-evident to anyone who has actually read the novel.

Want a neat little antidote to windy tomes like Shattuck's and Bowie's? Try Alain de Botton's tongue-in-cheek, whimsical-butserious, small-scale confection How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997).6 Setting on its head the established view of Proust's book as a purely aesthetic object, entirely divorced from any conceivable pragmatic end, de Botton (a writer whom one would hardly know how to describe were it not for the existence of such words as "twee" and "fey") encourages us to approach Proust's masterwork, in good old American fashion, as a teaching tool-a "guidebook" that instructs us (to quote some of de Botton's chapter titles) "How to Love Life Today," "How to Take Your Time," "How to Express Your Emotions," and "How to Open Your Eyes." (For those who might object to Proust being moved to the self-help shelves, de Botton quotes something Proust once said to his maid: "Ah, Celeste, if I could be sure of doing with my books as much as my father did for the sick.")

De Botton quotes to splendid effect a diary entry by Harold Nicolson, ignored by both Tadie and Carter, in which the British statesman describes meeting Proust at a party. When the novelist asked Nicolson to explain the workings of the political committees on which he was then active, Nicolson began a brisk account. Proust stopped him: "Mais non, mais non, vous allez trop vite. Recommencez . . ." Nicolson: "So I tell him everything. The sham cordiality of it all: the handshakes: the maps: the rustle of papers: the tea in the next room: the macaroons. He listens enthralled, interrupting from time to time-`Mais pr&isez, mon cher monsieur, Wallez has trop vite. "' For de Bottom the moral of this is obvious, and flagrantly Proustian: Take your time. Savor the details. That's where life is. Or, as a friend wrote me, by e-mail, after I told him I was slogging through all these books about Proust: "I've been reading Proust almost every morning before I get out of bed since last November... He's doing wonders to slow me down, help me see into gestures and memories, strip away idealization of places and people and still see beauty there."

Indeed. On every page, Proust reminds us how rich life is with things of beauty that we never recognize as such and with depths of meaning we never bother to plumb, let alone articulate fully and precisely. And why don't we? Because we don't have the time (or don't think we do); because we are constantly inviting a new sensation to rush in and take the place of the last; because-if the truth be told-we prefer an underexamined life to an underlined one. When one first plunges into A la recherche, one may find oneself protesting that Proust devotes too little attention to the political currents and international conflicts of his time; yet one may gradually find one's critical eye turning uncomfortably on oneself, and reflecting on how much time one wastes on, say, newspaper articles that will soon be forgotten even as one allows life itself-that precious thing-to slip by, perhaps not unnoticed but insufficiently probed, penetrated, fathomed. In these fastmoving times, this truth that lies at the heart of Proust speaks to readers more urgently than ever. Yet some still manage not to get it.