On reading "In Search of Lost Time" (series: notes to myself)

-
For a long time now, I’ve been going to sleep late, thinking about reading Proust.
 
A paraphrasis, of course. But the enterprise has begun. Thanks to a birthday, and a wonderful present from Kia.

It takes courage to read In Search of Lost Time. Not for the length of the journey. Admittedly, it is long. The edition I choose is the Italian translation by Giovanni Raboni, probably the best available, with some occasional glimpses of the original French, when I am more curious than lazy. It consists of 1174k words, but no, this is not the problem. The audiobook says that it takes 97-107 hours to read. About 5 seasons of 20 episodes each on Netflix. Totally doable. 

What is daunting is the diving into a world so distant in time and yet so intimately, so closely familiar. The relentless, merciless, tireless pursuit of the nuances of human experience, chased at ever more profound levels of scrutiny. Recollections unveiling more recollections, understanding the understanding, showing further insights to explore, bottomless lines of reflection about human natures. A brutal kindness, a gentle violence in scanning realities. This is what is overwhelming.

And so I tried many times in the past, but never succeeded. I was unseasoned by the years, unmatured by too few experiences, unprepared by insufficient memories. Too soft, too feeble, too young. The sea of words would choke me, the waves of meanings would toss me, details would crash me. And I would leave, afraid, pages unturned, the story untold.

But no longer. Now I am ready. Like that special moment at the beginning of a scuba diving immersion, when you float, ready to plunge, and look into the bluish depth of the sea, and then, with some trepidation, you let yourself descend, abandon the superficial air, stop breathing for a moment and then start again, pleasantly astonished that you can, and finally swim in a beautiful universe, effortlessly immersed, weightless, willing to be led.

19 November 2021, page 1… "Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure"  … it is finally time to read.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

(revised on Medium) On a sachet of brown sugar (series: notes to myself)

-
Image
Mid-morning, somewhere in Italy. Seating at a bar, in an elegant square, summery weather, a kind breeze, refreshing. An espresso macchiato comes with a brown sachet of sugar, to be added if you wish. I look at it. I look around. I have time to think. How do people deal with this task? Can one divide people, the sugary kind, into types according to how they open a sachet of sugar? A student, with interesting tattoos on her left shoulder, opens it by pinching the two sides and pulling them, gently ungluing the sachet. It requires her to use four fingers, each couple pinching a side of the sachet. She is attentive and careful. She better be. I know that feat is demanding. Too much force and the sachet may give in abruptly, spreading the sugar everywhere. Too little, and the little shell will hold on to its content and won’t be convinced to release its treasure. I love the cautions determination. She puts her hands together, palms touching at the bottom as if praying, to measure the effort...
Read more

Onlife: Sulla morte di Corman McCarthy e "the best writers" della letteratura americana

-
Image
Corman McCarthy è stato descritto da alcuni come il più grande scrittore americano di [aggiungere qui un numero di secoli, oppure "la nostra epoca", oppure "una generazione" o semplicemente "sempre"]. Siccome sono insipiente, e lo avevo solo sentito nominare ma mai letto (ma i mie amici come mai non me lo hanno mai consigliato? che ci stanno a fare? O almeno Amazon, visto il numero di libri che compro, un "you may also like" lo poteva sputare no?), sono andato a vedere chi fosse. Ho letto un po' di cose su di lui, tutte molto interessanti. E poi mi sono chiesto chi rientra oggi in una lista più o meno accurata degli scrittori americani più importante degli ultimi 100 anni. Insomma, se uno dice, per esempio, "è morto il più grande scrittore americano del secolo" ti viene il dubbio di ricostruire la competizione gli ultimi cento anni. Le posizioni sono ovviamente e come sempre discutibili, ma mi è stato utile ricordare a chi si sta co...
Read more
-
I just published "On asking the wrong kind of questions (series: notes to myself)", happy 2024. https://link.medium.com/thDMgqTvZFb
Read more

Breve commento su "Non è il mio lutto" e la morte di Berlusconi.

-
Image
Ho sempre criticato Berlusconi, i suoi votanti, il suo partito, il berlusconismo, gli italoforzuti, i suoi governi, la tragedia (soprattutto morale, ma anche istituzionale, politica, culturale ed economica) che tutto ciò è stato per il paese... Berlusconi è stato un disastro per l'Italia, una sorta di Trump al potere o vicino al potere per decenni. Servirà moltissimo lavoro e tanto tempo per riparare i danni fatti, ammesso che si possano riparare.  Ma Mercoledì 14 Giugno ho spostato la lezione del corso che tengo a Bologna, affinché chi volesse potesse participare ai funerali di stato e commemorare la morte di Berlusconi, e perché l'attuale governo ha proclamato il lutto nazionale per un politico che (con mio scandalo e vergogna) è stato eletto democraticamente da milioni di italiani e italiane (che gli dei dell'Olimpo li perdonino, io non ci riesco, e posso solo rispettarne le scelte), e ha ricoperto la carica di primo ministro quattro volte.  Non è stata una forma di risp...
Read more

Sulla morte come "distanza che si apre nella vita"

-
Image
“La morte è una distanza che si apre nella vita, ma non è sparizione, distruzione, putrefazione.” Ho letto questa frase (chiamiamola non-P), è parte di un articolo giornalistico (non si può imporre un rigore scientifico, non è il contesto). Ho letto il resto dell’articolo. Non migliora. Non ha importanza. Desidero soffermarmi solo su questa frase. Da tanti anni non sono più un filosofo analitico, ma mi è rimasta l’inclinazione (il vizio senza pelo del lupo?) di (cercare di) usare le parole con attenzione e cura. Cercando di ancorarle a significati che non siano “futuristici” (parole in libertà). Troppe persone confondono il fatto che una frase sia grammaticale con il fatto che abbia un reale senso. Si può anche dire: P) “La morte non è una distanza che si apre nella vita, è sparizione, distruzione, putrefazione.” P è altrettanto grammaticale e credo che abbia molto più senso di non-P, almeno biologicamente e concettualmente. I fatti puntano in questa direzione. E chi sostiene il contra...
Read more

On the importance of being pedantic (series: notes to myself)

-
Image
They say that to call someone pedantic is an insult. I'm not so sure. True, someone pedantic is obsessed with minor details, small errors, or tiny imperfections. And a pedantic is also someone who cares too much about all such things not to let you know about them, advising or correcting, disagreeing or disapproving. And yes, if you are a pedant, you are more than just occasionally pedantic. This can happen to anybody, the excessive emphasis on some narrow or boring detail being a tendency we all share when it comes to matters about which we care very much. But if you are a pedant, being pedantic is your daily stance, your intrinsic nature, your way of living. You are always, consistently, reliably, systematically pedantic, from the moment you wake up, about the exact place where the slippers should be next to your bed, all the way to the moment you go to sleep, and the exact place where the phone should be placed to recharge. If you are a true pedant, no detail is too trivial, no ...
Read more

The Loebner Prize from a judge's perspective

-
Image
This year, for the first time in its history, the Loebner Prize competition was held in England, at the University of Reading to be precise. It was organised by Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah. Independently of whether Turing might have been pleased (he was not well treated in this country, recall?), there was a satisfying sense of “coming home” of the Turing Test (henceforth TT ). Expectations were high, and they very highly advertised too. The meeting was perfectly organised. Having been invited to play the role of a judge, together with several other colleagues, including two members of the IEG , Mariarosaria Taddeo and Matteo Turilli ( here are their pictures and Rosaria's interview ) , I enjoyed the opportunity to see from close-up the machinery and the TT . It was intriguing and great fun. Because there were interviews with the BBC and other things going on, and because we were also supposed to take part in the parallel AISB Symposium on the TT , I had time to test only...
Read more

Between a rock and a hard place: Elon Musk's open letter and the Italian ban of Chat-GPT

-
Image
Interview by Adele Sarno for HuffPost, the Italian original is here The following English translation is provided by Google, apologies for any imprecision. Luciano Floridi, the digital philosopher, works between Oxford and Bologna, from next summer, he will leave Oxford to direct the Center for Digital Ethics at Yale. He has received the highest honour granted by the Italian Republic: Cavaliere di Gran Croce. According to the Elsevier Scopus database, he is the most cited living philosopher in the world. If today we talk about the "philosophy of information", it is thanks to him, who for 30 years, studied the connections between philosophy and the digital world. Professor Floridi, ChatGPT has been at the centre of the debate, especially these days. Elon Musk and a thousand other experts have written a letter asking for its development to be stopped for six months. In Italy, on the other hand, the privacy guarantor has decided to stop for 20 days until it complies with the pr...
Read more

On the art of biting one's own tongue (series: notes to myself)

-
The art of biting one's own tongue consists in the ability not to engage when someone says something unpleasant, untrue, malicious, or abusive about you. Instead of answering a biased question, arguing against a ludicrous opinion, complaining about an abusive message, correcting a meaningless error, countering a fallacy, explaining a patent mistake, objecting to a groundless criticism, rectifying a willful misrepresentation, rejecting an insinuation, responding to a provocation, retorting to a nasty remark, replying to an offensive allegation, … in short, instead of engaging with your mindless interlocutors you simply ignore them and do absolutely nothing, not even acknowledging that you might have received their communication, not even sharing a “no comment”, just silence. As far as they know, you might have never got the email, read the tweet or the Facebook comment, seen the Instagram picture. If you bite your own tongue appropriately, for them their communication might have nev...
Read more