I've been reading Swann's Way in the sauna for quite some time now, and this is the first passage that has truly knocked me back with its power. The flowery prose finally made sense to me. This description really struck something deep inside of me.
It's a description of being in a rut. And I think it's because that's where I am in my life and fiction writing.
Anyway, without further delay. On page 125:
"This was not to say...that she did not experience some of those exceptional moments when one thirsts for something other than what is, and when those who, through lack of energy or imagination, are unable to generate any motive power in themselves, cry out, as the clock strikes or the postman knocks, for something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow..."
It goes on, but let's reflect on this part first.
The definition of a rut is a furrow or track in the ground, especially made by the passage of a vehicle. It comes from the word "route."
In psychology, this word has aptly come to describe when a person feels stuck by a dull or unpromising course of their life, usually made by doing the same things over and over.
It's such a good metaphor. We wear into our lives by routine. The passage of the day gets tracks on it from our repeated passage in the same way, and then, when we try to escape, it turns out these tracks are too deep.
The boring repetitiveness saps us of energy and imagination. We lose motivation and just pass along the route like zombies. Nothing new happens. Nothing new can happen, because how does one escape these tracks?
We cry out for newness, even if it is worse! We just want something emotional to happen, even if it's sadness!
This is what Proust nails so perfectly about human nature. I think when we're in the rut, it's very hard to see this fact about ourselves. We might subconsciously act out just to create conflict or drama for no reason other than getting something new.
This is how powerful this drive can get after months or years or even decades of the sameness that can be a life defined by routine.
I've been really drawn to more and more abstract forms of writing because of this. Fiction feels dull and lifeless when it's just the same old story told over and over.
I've been writing poetry for more than 10 years, but it's only now that I'm really diving into very complex and abstract ways of writing it. It's for the newness, but it also reveals deeper emotional truths to the reader that takes the time to experience it.
I've been dipping my toe back into the novel I'm writing after this experimentation, and I'm finding more interesting approaches to fiction, though many will probably find it awful and unreadable.
But remember Proust: "even if it is worse."
It's okay if my new approach is worse at first, because I can always go back and edit, smooth it out, incorporate these new abstract segments into the fiction to make the story understandable and compelling again.
I think this is also why I'm so drawn to Proust at this moment. His way of writing fiction is so unique. It completely upends everything we've been taught about good fiction writing, and it works!
I can't leave you without some more of this passage, which goes on for a very long time:
"...when the heartstrings, which contentment has silenced, like a harp laid by, yearn to be plucked and sounded again by some hand, however rough, even if it should break them..."
Our hearts yearn to be plucked by a hand, even if it's so rough that it will break. Wow. That gets at what I've been feeling so deeply. It's worth a broken heart just to feel something, anything.
If ever there was a good advertisement to read Proust, it's passages like these that make the journey worth it.