July 10th is the birthday of my favorite author, Marcel Proust, whose roman fleuve, "A la recherche du temps perdu" changed my life for the better when I first read it at the age of fifteen. Merci, M. Proust for this reflection: "But the great works of art are also less of a disappointment than life, in that their best parts do not come first. In the Vinteuil sonata, the beauties one discovers soonest are also those which pall soonest, a double effect with a single cause: they are the parts that most resemble other works, with which one is already familiar. But when those parts have receded, we can still be captivated by another phrase, which, because its shape was too novel to let our mind see anything there but confusion, had been made undetectable and kept intact; and the phrase we passed by every day unawares, the phrase which had withheld itself, which by the sheer power of its own beauty had become invisible and remained unknown to us, is the one that comes to us last of all. But it will also be the last one we leave. We shall love it longer than the others, because we took longer to love it." -- Marcel Proust, "The Search for Lost Time"
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 07:07:29 +0000
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