Proust and Signs: The Complete Text

by Gilles Deleuze, Richard Howard (Translator)

Proust och tecknen är ironiskt nog ett filosofiskt argument för konstens överlägsenhet. Sällan har någon argumenterat bättre och vackrare för litteraturens kraft att överskrida det rådande. Eller bättre formulerat: sällan har någon lika elegant brutit ner gränsen mellan det som är och det som kunde vara, mellan subjektet och objektet. Om detta virtuella förhållande kan erfaras av varje Proust-läsare, så blir det aktuellt och begreppsligt först hos Deleuze. (Ur Anders Johanssons förord)

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Theory, France, Criticism, French Literature

188 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Deleuze is a key figure in poststructuralist French philosophy. Considering himself an empiricist and a vitalist, his body of work, which rests upon concepts such as multiplicity, constructivism, difference and desire, stands at a substantial remove from the main traditions of 20th century Continental thought. His thought locates him as an influential figure in present-day considerations of society, creativity and subjectivity. Notably, within his metaphysics he favored a Spinozian concept of a plane of immanence with everything a mode of one substance, and thus on the same level of existence. He argued, then, that there is no good and evil, but rather only relationships which are beneficial or harmful to the particular individuals. This ethics influences his approach to society and politics, especially as he was so politically active in struggles for rights and freedoms. Later in his career he wrote some of the more infamous texts of the period, in particular, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. These texts are collaborative works with the radical psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, and they exhibit Deleuze’s social and political commitment.

Gilles Deleuze began his career with a number of idiosyncratic yet rigorous historical studies of figures outside of the Continental tradition in vogue at the time. His first book, Empirisism and Subjectivity, is a study of Hume, interpreted by Deleuze to be a radical subjectivist. Deleuze became known for writing about other philosophers with new insights and different readings, interested as he was in liberating philosophical history from the hegemony of one perspective. He wrote on Spinoza, Nietzche, Kant, Leibniz and others, including literary authors and works, cinema, and art. Deleuze claimed that he did not write “about” art, literature, or cinema, but, rather, undertook philosophical “encounters” that led him to new concepts. As a constructivist, he was adamant that philosophers are creators, and that each reading of philosophy, or each philosophical encounter, ought to inspire new concepts. Additionally, according to Deleuze and his concepts of difference, there is no identity, and in repetition, nothing is ever the same. Rather, there is only difference: copies are something new, everything is constantly changing, and reality is a becoming, not a being.

He often collaborated with philosophers and artists as Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault, Guy Hocquenghem, René Schérer, Carmelo Bene, François Châtelet, Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, Jean-François Lyotard, Georges Lapassade, Kateb Yacine and many others.

Reviews

[Leonard Gaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pour Deleuze, la Recherche n’est pas une entreprise de remémoration d’un « temps perdu », mais bien un roman d’apprentissage, un Bildungsroman, où le héros apprend progressivement à lire les signes, à déchiffrer le monde, à l’intérieur du temps. Proust et les signes est un essai écrit, lui aussi, dans le temps : on sent assez nettement que Deleuze a rédigé les deux parties de son livre à plusieurs années d’intervalle. La première est un exposé quelque peu idéaliste et, par certains côtés, assez scolaire, qui rappelle La philosophie critique de Kant, Nietzsche ou Le Bergsonisme. L’argumentation porte sur les différents régimes de signes, les modalités plurielles d’expression des signes chez Proust : matières, effets, sens, dimensions du temps, essences.

En effet, Deleuze éprouve une fascination pour les émissions de signes, tout particulièrement pour les signes mondains, signes vides, sans intérêt intrinsèque, stupides mais souvent comiques, qui sont émis à des rythmes variés tout au long des interminables chapitres qui, dans la Recherche, décrivent les soirées et les réceptions dans le petit milieu snob de la haute société. Mais le roman proustien présente aussi d’autres types de signes, que Deleuze identifie et analyse avec finesse et un certain esprit de système. Les signes de l’amour — le plus souvent mensongers ou équivoques, voir le geste de Gilberte lors de sa première rencontre avec le narrateur. Les signes des « qualités sensibles » — telle la fameuse madeleine, qui renvoie à un Combray passé ou idéal. Enfin, les signes de l’art (Vermeer, Vinteuil) qui manifestent, tels des monades leibniziennes, un point de vue singulier et sublime sur le réel. Par endroits, l’exposé de Deleuze prend des accents platoniciens, voire plotiniens. L’essence des choses « émane », se manifeste, s’incarne, s’explique dans le processus d’expression et d’interprétation des signes.

Plus fondamentalement, Proust et les signes se veut aussi une critique de la théorie cartésienne de la connaissance, à savoir : la connaissance par idées claires et distinctes, auxquelles on peut aboutir à travers une méthode. Pour Deleuze, il s’agit d’abord d’établir que c’est à travers les signes, le plus souvent obscurs et confus, opaques, fortuits, involontaires, et sur un mode presque psychanalytique, que se révèle la vérité des essences. Ce qui l’amène à conclure selon une formule proprement freudienne ou nietzschéenne : « Nous avons tort de croire aux faits, il n’y a que des signes. Nous avons tort de croire à la vérité, il n’y a que des interprétations. » (Quadrige, p. 112)

Le second moment du livre de Deleuze, cependant (chapitre Antilogos et suivants), est beaucoup plus proche du style hermétique et de l’appareil conceptuel des œuvres plus tardives de l’auteur, écrites en binôme avec Félix Guattari, notamment L’Anti-Œdipe et Mille Plateaux : objets partiels, fragments, émiettements, articulations, configurations, rapiéçages, agencements, conscience schizoïde, littérature comme machine, production et explication des signes, etc.

Deleuze y développe de manière foisonnante et jubilatoire des concepts originaux, dont on ne sait pas toujours s’ils donnent à penser au sujet du roman de Proust ou, plus franchement, sur la philosophie même de Deleuze. On a d’une part, des emboitements ou pliages/dépliages (comme des origami) de signes et de contenus — qui peuvent s’appliquer à la madeleine ou à la sexualité de certains personnages de Proust (Charlus ou Albertine, par exemple). D’autre part, les vases clos contigus non-communicants : homosexualité, transsexualisme, hermaphroditisme, combinatoires végétales... Le livre de Deleuze se clôt sur l’image de l’araignée, aveugle, sans organes, qui se tient à l’affut des vibrations, des moindres signes émis sur sa toile, son rhizome. Signes animaux, signes mondains, même différence.

[Sajid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of Deleuze's most profound works. And more accesible in its nature. Hardly anybody understood Proust as profoundly as Deleuze did. Deleuze's own work shares the exploratory nature of Proust's In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu): it has the character of a search; it is not the simple presentation of conclusions elsewhere discovered. Deleuze does not see language as a neutral medium for the presentation of thoughts formed prior to their expression in words. The expression of thought in language is not always, and need not be, a translation or copying of an idea from one medium code into another. Before their authors write them, In Search of Lost Time or of Proust and Signs have no determinate existence. They are not the unfolding of a prior, unified vision of things, of the world. Genius is not a pre-given union with the universe, not a mind that takes dictation from divine inspiration. Genius develops itself in a work by pursuing the work's sinews, by multiplying the relations between characters, within characters, by generating a world within which the author can give expression to forces internal to her, of which even she is not conscious.

To claim that Proust had the notion - even vague or confused - of the antecedent unity of the Search or that he found it subsequently, but as animating the whole from the start, is to read him badly, applying the ready-made criteria of organic totality that are precisely the ones he rejects and missing the new conception of unity he was in the process of creating (Proust and Signs 116).

The author always begins in the middle - not of the work, but of a complex situation: "We search for truth only when we are determined to do so in terms of a concrete situation, when we undergo a kind of violence that impels us to such a search" (15). In the closing pages, Deleuze compares the narrator to a spider in a web - a spider that does not see whole objects, and does not need to: "She receives only the slightest vibration at the edge of her web, which propagates itself in her body as an intensive wave and sends her leaping to the necessary place"> (180). The novelist's choices are determined by the features of the episode or problem encountered, and not by a whole vision of the aim of his work, or by a theory of the world. The philosopher too operates under the pressure of constraints, responds to the violence of the sign that surges through his body. He cultivates a sensitivity to signs and awaits an encounter. "There is no apprentice," writes Deleuze, "who is not the Egyptologist of something. One becomes a carpenter only by becoming sensitive to the signs of wood, a physician by becoming sensitive to the signs of disease. Vocation is always predestination with regard to signs"

[Aslı Can · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deleuze felsefe ve edebiyat üzerine; ikisinin dünya üzerinde geçirdiğimiz, adına 'hayat' dediğimiz günlerle ilişkisi üzerine yazmanın en doğrudan yolunu bulmuş gibi. Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisinde 'zamanın', zamanı algılayışımızın belleğimiz ve duygulanımlarımız ile ilişkisinin; ve tüm bunların sanat ile bağının dedektif gibi izini süren Deleuze, sonunda kocaman bir İnsan Atlası çıkarıyor sanki.

Deleuze edebi bir eserden 'yakaladığı' cümleler üzerinden akıl yürüterek, bu cümleleri kavramsallaştırarak yaşamın 'özü'nde yer alan, herkesin muzdarip olduğu, zorlandığı, takıldığı, ağına düştüğü şeyleri açımlıyor. Sanatı yüceltmeden sanata hakkını veren, sanatın işlevini çok güzel bir şekilde kavrayan ve kavratan bir yazar Deleuze ve bence bir filozof olduğu kadar bir edebiyatçı da. Kendimi, çevremdeki insanları, sevdiklerimi ve çaresizce debelenen ilişkileri anlamaya bir adım daha yaklaştığımı hissediyorum Proust ve Göstergeler'i okuduktan sonra.

Bence hakkıyla okunursa yaşamı çok daha kolay hale getirecek ipuçları var kitapta. Okuyup bir kenara bırakılacak bir kitap değil kesinlikle.

Deleuze peygamber olsa, düşünmeden müridi olurdum.

[Jeroen Vandenbossche · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ce texte m'a un peu déçu. La lecture que présente Deleuze de "A la Recherche du temps perdu" est trop philosophique à mon goût et n'arrive pas à élucider ce qui fait le charme du cycle proustien.

La thèse centrale selon laquelle la Recherche serait un roman d'apprentissage d'un homme de lettres qui s'initie à l'interprétation des signes est certes très intéressante. Néanmoins, dès qu'il se met à la développer, Deleuze succombe à ce que Foucault a appelé, dans La Naissance de la clinique, "la fatalité du commentaire."(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). Tout se passe, en effet, comme si l'interprète en sait plus long que le texte sur lequel il se penche; comme s'il revient à lui de révéler le sens profond de l'oeuvre et de mieux dire ce que le texte de la Recherche ne dit que de manière implicite, oblique et non-articulée.

Il est en effet frappant de constater que Deleuze ne respecte que très peu la dynamique propre au texte Proustien. Afin d'appuyer ses thèses, il saute fréquemment d'un épisode à l'autre et se permet d'amalgamer des passages disparates de l'oeuvre d'une manière qui est tout sauf évidente. Qui pis est, il va même parfois jusqu'à identifier (ou à confondre) la pensée (non-exprimée) de l'auteur avec celle (rapportée) du héros/narrateur (péché capital s'il en est de l'analyse littéraire).

D'après ce que je lis, "Proust et les signes" (publié pour la première fois en 1964) aurait beaucoup contribué à la redécouverte de l'oeuvre proustienne, tombée en oubli lors de l'âge d'or du roman engagé et ne sortant que lentement du ghetto que vers la fin des années cinquante sous l'influence de Blanchot, Sarraute et Robbe-Grillet. Si c'est vrai il faut en savoir gré à son auteur.

Cependant, j'ai trouvé dommage que le texte en dise plus long sur les orientations philosophiques de son auteur que sur l'oeuvre proustienne qu’il prend pour objet.

[N Perrin]

No single writer is more important to the rise of French postmodernity than Marcel Proust, and this is evident in how he has been the subject of philosophical analyses by Derrida, Kristeva, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze.

While I think this is an excellent and imaginative reading of the metaphysics underlying Recherche, this isn't a book that should be read for the sake of understanding Proust. This is not a work where Deleuze helps you understand Proust; it is a work where Proust helps you understand Deleuze.

As a precursor to Difference and Repetition, this analysis is surprisingly clear (at least for Deleuze), and he unpacks many of the major themes and ideas that form the core of Difference and Repetition three years later. For anyone familiar with Proust who is hoping to get into Deleuze (which is probably an extremely niche group), this is the book for you. Here you get a glimpse into Deleuze's understanding of ideal subjective essences, difference-in-itself, the immateriality of aesthetics, etc.

I'll leave you with one of the most helpful summarizing quotes found within this book, a key to Deleuzian metaphysics:

"Essence is not only particular, not only individual, but is individualizing. Essence individualizes and determines the substances in which it is incarnated, [....] This is because essence is in itself difference. But it does not have the power to diversify, and to diversify itself, without also having the power to repeat itself, identical to itself. What can one do with essence, which is ultimate difference, except to repeat it, because it is irreplaceable and because nothing can be substituted for it? This is why great music can only be played again, a poem learned by heart and recited. Difference and repetition are only apparently in opposition. There is no great artist who does not make us say: 'The same and yet different' (The Guermantes Way, 259)."

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world has become crumbs and chaos.

The philosopher says there’s no objectivity except in Art. Is the philosopher being deferential to the novelist, particularly proust? The temporal economy imprisons. So does language, it seems. Deleuze/Proust become hybrid, a liminal placeholder which interrogates our collective position while petitioning our becoming.

This proved dense along rolling corridors of reference and reverence. I liked it.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's like Proustian tarot.

[Getzemaní · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuando Deleuze se acerca a un autor (lo mismo le da Proust que Kafka, lo mismo Spinoza que Nietzsche) casi nunca habla sobre el autor, sino sobre su propio sistema de pensamiento. Lo que en otros ámbitos puede llamarse egocentrismo, en filosofía se llama "escritura de sí".
En el caso de Proust le sirve para afianzar la propuesta que más adelante se llamará Diferencia y repetición. Proust y los signos se publica en 1964 y Diferencia y repetición en 1968. Así que cuando toca temas como la memoria, el tiempo, el amor y las emociones, está pensando en el interés filosófico que pueden tener dichas emociones. Piensa en Memoria para pensar en Bergson (Bergson aparece en la Recherche como el "filósofo noruego") y si piensa en Bergson piensa en el cine (Bergson es un autor primordial para Imagen-Movimiento, Imagen-Tiempo, que son sus dos tomos donde reflexiona sobre el cine). Cuando se une la Memoria y el Tiempo tal vez podría decir Deleuze, anacrónicamente, que Proust es cine, emoción en movimiento.
Me alejé de En busca del tiempo perdido porque me sentía abrumado, tal vez tuvo que ver que leí Sodoma y Gomorra y Los hermanos Karamazov a la vez. Pero ya para despejarme estoy leyendo El Quijote. Sin embargo, no quería alejarme completamente de Combray, los espinos blancos todavía viven en mi alma. No sé por qué pensé que leer a Deleuze sería buena idea; aunque es de lectura asimilable, es de fondo casi infinito. Su escritura está llena de pequeños aforismos que podríamos enmarcar. Hay pocos estilistas en el mundo de la filosofía y Deleuze es uno de mis favoritos, sin embargo, todo lo que escribe debe pensarse dos, tres, cuatro veces (un eterno retorno en donde no haces más que leer a Deleuze.)
En conclusión, no te acerques a Deleuze para conocer a Proust ni para conocer a Kafka. Es una trampa. Todo el tiempo es filosofía deleuziana de lo que se trata, sin embargo, es algo que me fascina. Los signos del Proust (narrador) y Albertine, tal vez sólo sirven de espejo para los signos de Swan y Odette, es decir, repetición, pero cada amor se presenta como único, es decir, como diferencia. Es decir, Deleuze utiliza una y otra vez personajes para hablar sobre su sistema de pensamiento.
Una última nota, claro que el título dice signos, y habla mucho sobre los signos vacíos de la mundanidad (tal vez lo que más me aburre de la obra de Proust es la banalidad de los salones franceses) pero no hay un estudio semiótico estricto, no hay un Umberto Eco o un Yuri Lotman; lo de los signos no lo veo claro, es decir, suficientemente claro en un tipo que siempre define sus conceptos.
De todos modos, como dije, sólo voy en Sodoma y Gomorra, siento que tendré que releer el libro cuando terminé toda la serie.

[Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deep semiotic reading of Proust's In Search of Lost Time and a Deleuzian odyssey of the mind. Deleuze's profound reading of the network of signs appearing in Proust serves as merely a backdrop to work through some heavy-duty aesthetic theory, such as the concept of literary work as sign-producing machine. I'm barely scratching the surface when I say that Deleuze's exploration of signs in Proust contains some of the most incredible metaphysical ponderings I've ever read.

"To claim that Proust had the notion - even vague or confused - of the antecedent unity of the Search or that he found it subsequently, but as animating the whole from the start, is to read him badly, applying the ready-made criteria of organic totality that are precisely the ones he rejects and missing the new conception of unity he was in the process of creating."

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great book. Not too hard of a read, and his taxonomy of signs really worked itself into my head. It's quite poetic at times as well. I've only read Swann's way, but don't think it was necessary to read this (still looking forward to the rest of Proust, of course).

[Danyal · Rating 3 out of 5]

نشر علم
مارسل پروست و نشانه‌ها
اثری از ژیل دولوز
ترجمۀ الله‌شکر اسداللهی تجریق
با مقدمه و ویرایش فرزان سجودی
چاپ اول، 1389


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:از مقدمه
ژیل دولوز (یا دلوز) فیلسوف فرانسوی، آثار متعددی در زمینه فلسفه، ادبیات و هنر به رشته تحریر در آورده است. او در فلسفه خود را پیرو سپی‌نوزا، لایبنیتز، نیچه و برگسون می‌دانست و در زمینه ادبیات و نقد ادبی نیز از آثار مارسل پروست، آرتو، بلانشو و لویس کارول شدیدا متأثر بود. به دلیل همین شیفتگی، دولوز دو اثر ارزشمند خود را به تجزیه و تحلیل اثار و افکار یک فیلسوف و یک ادیب اختصاص داده است: "نیچه و فلسفه" و "پروست و نشانه‌ها". در واقع، نگارش این دو اثر، اوج وابستگی دولوز به این دو اندیشمند را نشان می‌دهد. دولوز را در زمینه فلسفه اغلب به عنوان نو نیچه‌گرا می‌شناسند و در مطالعات ادبی نیز او را نشانه‌شناس و تحلیل‌گر جهان آشفته و استاد مسلم زمان
(1925-1995)

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بحثی‌ست پیرامون کتاب پروست که می‌گویند: اثر در "گذشته" است، یا اینکه پیرامون "رویدادهای گذشته"، دولوز اما با رد این ادعا، ایدۀ خود را مطرح می‌کند» یادگیری همان یادآوری مجدد است، اما حافظه - هرچقدر هم نقش‌اش مهم می‌باشد - فقط به عنوان وسیله‌ یادگیری وارد عمل می‌شود که این یادگیری هم به واسطه اهداف و هم به سبب اصول خویش از حافظه فراتر می‌رود، "کتاب" به سوی آینده برمیگردد و نه به گذشته. ص8

البته کمی قبل‌تر قضیه حافظه غیر ارادی را هم زیر سوال می‌برد» بحث در باب یک حافظه غیر ارادی نیست بلکه در خصوص ماجرای یک یادگیری می‌باشد. اینگونه که بر می‌آید دولوز معتقد است داستان درباره یادگیری یک ادیب است، و کتاب مبتنی بر نمایش حافظه نیست بلکه بر یادگیری نشانه‌ها بنیان شده است

شخصیت داستان در آن زمان هنوز آن چیز را نمی‌دانست، بعدا آن را یاد خواهد گرفت او تحت فشار چنین خیالی واقع بود و به همین سبب در نهایت توانست خود را از آن برهاند. ص8

چیزی که مهم است، این است که قهرمان اثر پروست ابتدا چیز زیادی نمی‌داند و بعضی مسائل را به مرور یاد می‌گیرد و بالاخره به کشف نهائی دست می‌یابد. ص41

دلوز روی «یادگیری» تأکید زیاد می‌کند، بارها جسته گریخته درباره‌اش می‌گوید. و مضاف براین، یک فصل را برای همین مفهوم می‌گذارد و تأمل بیشتری پیرامونش می‌کند. پافشاری می‌کند که اثر در گذشته نیست و به آن زمان هم باز نمی‌گردد؛ نه تنها برنمی‌گردد بلکه در صدد کشف خاطرات هم نیست، اما معطوف به آینده است و رشد و یادگیری را مد نظر قرار می‌دهد. او حافظه را وقتی ارزشمند می‌یابد که قادر به تفسیر و تأویل بعضی از نشانه‌ها باشد و زمان را هم هنگامی که به عنوان ماده یا نوعی از حقیقت بوده باشد. می‌آورد» خاطرات نیز که گاهی ارادی بوده و گاهی هم غیر ارادی می‌باشند، تنها در لحظات دقیق یادگیری وارد عمل می‌شوند تا تاثیر آن را بیشتر کرده و یا راه جدیدی برای آن بگشایند. ص132

3/

بارها تجربۀ به یادآوردن خاطراتی را داشته‌ایم که بواسطۀ حافظه‌مان رخ می‌دهد (یعنی همان احیای گذشته). بوی عطر، دیدن جایی و لمس چیزی، اینها شاید از ملموس‌ترینِ‌شان باشند. اینرا حافظه غیر ارادی گویند چراکه هیچ تلاشِ از پیش تعیین شده‌ای برای به یادآوردنش نکرده‌ایم. این تشابه حس کنونی‌ با حسی‌ست که در گذشته داشته‌ایم؛ که اکنون مجدد زنده می‌شود. بنابراین به همین دلیل است که بوی عطر؛ ما را یادِ اولین تجربه‌مان از شنیدن همان عطر می‌اندازد، و تلاقی این دو حس آن را زنده می‌کند. البته دلوز می‌گوید» این حافظه فقط در ارتباط با نوعی نشانه‌های خیلی خاص فعال می‌شود: این نشانه‌ها، نشانه‌های محسوس هستند. ما یک کیفیت محسوس را به عنوان نشانه در نظر می‌آوریم و سپس الزامی را احساس می‌کنیم که ما وادار می‌کند تا معنای آن را جستجو نمائیم. پس «حافظۀ غیر ارادی ابتدا مبتنی بر تشابه بین دو احساس و دو لحظه است» و این تشابه ما را به یک حس مشترک می‌رساند، حس کنونی و حسی که گذشته است

فرض کنید «بهارنارنج» حجمی از «حافظیه» را در خود پوشانده است، تا زمانی که در یک قالب آگاهانه قرار داشته باشیم بهار نارنج و حافظیه یک ارتباط بیرونی با هم خواهند داشت. وقتیکه در سطح حافظه ارادی قرار بگیریم، حافظیه مانند یک بافتِ قابل تفکیک از احساس قدیمی در خارج از «بهار نارنج» جای خواهد گرفت. برخلاف آن، در حافظه غیر ارادی این بیرونی و بی‌ارتباطی مفهومی ندارد، یعنی» بافت مورد نظر را درونی می‌کند و قلمرو گذشته را با احساس کنونی تفکیک ناپذیر می‌سازد. باید به یاد داشت که «معنا درون نشانه‌ جای می‌گیرد. این معنا مانند چیزی‌ست که بوسیلۀ شئی دیگری پیچیده
.«شده باشد

در واقع دلوز اینچنین می‌گوید که» اصل و اساس در حافظۀ غیر ارادی، تشابه یا حتا همسانی نیست که فقط به عنوان شرط در نظر گرفته می‌شوند، بلکه .اساس همان تفاوت درونی و حال است
و خواب را هم عمیق‌تر از حافظه می‌داند، چونکه حافظه وابسته به نشانه است، این نشانه است که حافظه فرامی‌خواند و ماهیت خود را به او نمایان می‌سازد

حافظه متکی به یک «من» است که از پیش انتخاب شده است و مدام درصدد به حرکت درآوردن این من و حیات بخشیدن به آن است. در حالی که خواب، تصویر یک تأویل ناب است که در نشانه‌ها حلول می‌کند و از خلال همۀ استعدادها شکوفا می‌گردد. ص190

4/

در اثر سترگ پروست، عشقِ هم‌جنس‌بازی بیش از دگرجنس‌خواهی وجود دارد، از اودت - معشوقه سوان - گرفته، تا دوشارلوس، و آلبرتین و حتا روای. کتاب اول و تا حدودی کتاب دوم دربارۀ انحرفات و هرزگیِ اودت می‌گوید. کتاب سدوم و عموره هم - چنانکه از نامش برمی‌آید - روایت همین همجنس‌بازی‌هاست، بویژه تعریف انحرفات دوشارلوس. و «گریخته» رسوایی‌های آلبرتین. ژیل دلوز نیز همین دیدگاه را دارد» عشق‌های بین جنسی کمتر عمیق‌تر از هم جنس‌بازی هستند. این عشق‌ها حقیقت خود را در هم‌جنس بازی می‌یابند. ص17

از مباحث دیگری که - در اکثر صحبت‌هاییکه پیرامون پروست و اثرش می‌شود بعید است به میان نیاید - پیرامون اثر بوجود می‌آید این‌ست » آیا راوی همان مارسل پروستِ نویسنده است؟
این ابهام به دلایل مختلف بوجود می‌آید، چرا که در اثر و زندگی شخصی‌اش نقاط مشترک فر��وانی می‌توان یافت که نشانگر همین همسانی‌ست، مثل بوسه و شب بخیر گفتن مادرش و وابستگی افراطی‌اش، نخوت و سُستیِ آبلوموف‌گونه‌اش، حساسیتش به نور و صدا و.. . و حتا شباهت‌های حقیقی‌تر دیگری که یکی دو جا لغزش می‌کند و در اثر به آن اشاره می‌شود. دلوز پیرامون تفکیک پروست و مارسلِ راوی چنین نظری دارد» زندگی نویسنده هیچ تاثیری در شکل‌گیری اثر و یا نظریه‌های او ندارد، زیرا اثر و نظریۀ او ارتباطی کاملاً درونی و پنهانی با زندگی وی دارند و این ارتباط بسیار عمیق‌تر از یک زندگی‌نامه معمولی است. ص204

:مرحوم سحابی هم در مصاحبه‌ای پیرامون احتمال این همسانی گفته است

جستجو مطلقاً یک کتاب تخیلی یا رمان است که به هیچ‌وجه زندگینامه ندارد، و اگر شباهت‌هایی بین «راوی» و پروست دیده شود کم و بیش در همان حدی‌ست که بسیاری قهرمانانِ رمان‌ها با نویسنده‌شان شباهت دارند (...) اگر شباهتی هم بین او و راوی باشد یا اتفاقی‌ است یا از نوع شباهت‌هایی که در شرایط مشخص زمانی و مکانی (قرن 19 فرانسه) می‌تواند عمومیت داشته باشد و در خیلی کسان دیگر هم دیده شود
کیان 1378 شماره 49

همچنانکه از عنوان کتاب بر می‌آید، اثر دربارۀ پروست است و بیشتر از آن دربارۀ محتوای کتابش، و کمی بیشتر پیرامون مسائلی مثل عشق، هنر، خاطره، یادگیری و تجربۀ ما از زمان. حقیقت اینکه برخی فصل‌های کتاب برای من بیشتر جذابیت دارند چونکه درک آسوده‌تری می‌خواهند و ارتباطش با اثر پروست مشخص‌تر است. و برخی دیگر را فهم آنچنانی نداشتم که درکشان کنم، پس دشوار آمدند. اما تا این حد دانستم که این اثر ژیل دلوز مکمل خوبی‌ست برای درک و دریافت کتاب عظیم پروست، دلوز پیرامون مسائلی صحبت کرده که در آنها صاحب‌نظر است و خبره

هجدهم تیر 96

[Daniyela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of mijn promotor mij 9 dagen voor de deadline van mijn thesis nog filosofie geeft om te lezen & zegt dat ik de essentie van mijn laatste hoofdstuk moet veranderen? Misschien.
Ook de enige reden waarom dit op 1 dag uitgelezen is; je suis a la recherche du temps perdu ;)

Also; waarom heb ik 5 jaar filosofie gestudeerd & nooit Deleuze gelezen, echt gelezen? Enorm geestig. Enorm bevrijdend. Wtf. ✨✨✨✨🍀🍀🍀🍀

[diario_de_um_leitor_pjv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comentário aqui:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CwufMS0sm...

[Jacob Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most books about Proust tend to collapse back onto the problem that the Recherche already interprets itself, producing many commentaries that primarily dispense excited plot summaries, like a teenager explaining Evangelion. Rather than performing the standard literary analysis (at which Proust was much better than academic critics), Deleuze tries to characterize Proust as a philosopher. This book was early, some eight years before the Anti Oedipus, and here Deleuze is much more explicit about his major philosophic counterparts -- Proust is contrasted with Heidegger, whose philosophy is too germanic in character and falsely orients thought around abstract germanic will; in reality, whatever profundity there is in philosophy lays in its perpetual going-down into the world, as Nietzsche almost knew (although the madman of Turin is absent from this book), and whatever it can directly interpret must reside within those intensities around us, principally, that of love, as Plato very well knew.

Indeed, it is the complex analogies between Proust and Plato that Deleuze exposes here. It's surprising how viscerally (and not immediately incompetently) Deleuze, who rarely mentions Plato elsewhere, is able to offer elenchus with the Platonic gyre of concepts, not least those hidden in the Parmenides and Sophist ... his analysis here is somewhat burdened by excessive reliance on the (excessively low-fidelity) neoplatonists, but the broad strokes seem correct -- Proust, like Plato's Socrates, becomes thoroughly aware of the eidetic instantiation from the world of Forms into the world around him, of which the normies (the Guermanteses, Villeparisises, Verdurines with whom we must all entangle) are not only equally victims, but also inescapably unhelpful. As such, Bergsonian time is neither the principle theme of the Recherche nor even an accurate characterization of time's role within it; it is simply the intrusive overture of that which keeps us from forever escaping the cave, and that which is the ultimate basis for the immanence that mocks the characters: the death of the grandmother in the indifferent walkway stones, the little mannerisms of Odette, the inexplicably insistent existence of Rachel -- all so affective and torturous to Marcel because of their immediate and yet disfigured existence within our timely world. Yet where Plato had taken the way of Logos, the complex nature of conceptions intertangled paradoxically between political opinion and the ineffable knowledge of our souls, Proust had chosen what Deleuze calls "antilogos" -- a collage of images all functioning as signs, part of a literary machine designed to recapture the essences lurking within. As Deleuze iterates an obnoxious number of times in the book, it is not that Proust has regained Combray from the madeleine, but that he has regained the raw emotion which he felt, and done so in a way that transmits it literally to the reader -- and this is why everyone who reads this book carefully is as moved by Proust's memories as he is.

This thesis is interesting but perhaps dubious; apparently Julia Kristeva does battle with it in her book. What's interesting is the consequences on literary psychology -- Deleuze derives the double profundity and yet unreality of Freudian neurosis, eg in a character like the Baron de Charlus, whose hyperrational delusions are outlined in pure detail and yet presented as irrelevant to the emotive journey of the narrator. How Marcel differs from the other characters of the novel is that he entirely lacks their bourgeois narcissism, and is immune to even the shrewdest of Lacanians -- for he is a collection of parts and not a whole ... yes ... a Body without organs, as Deleuze coins here. Indeed, much of this commentary appears to fundamentally share the motives of Deleuze' later works: to present a way of philosophizing that can preserve the positive actions of artistry and idiosyncratic analysis while distinguishing itself from the 'black holes' of Heidegger, Freud, Plato, etc. But he would have to wait until he met Felix Guattari to really go all the way with these heavy handed and perhaps unrealistic desires.

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sem dúvida um trabalho de elucidação excelente por parte de Deleuze, mas Em Busca do Tempo Perdido é tão obra prima que basta a si mesmo e qualquer tentativa teórico-filosófica de colocá-lo em perspectiva não passará de redundância.

[Michael]

I found this book absolutely brilliant. A couple highlights from it: "It may be that friendship is nourished on observation and conversation, but love is born from and nourished on silent interpretation". (ch. 1) "Then, thanks to intelligence, we discover what we could not know at the start: that we were already apprenticed to signs when we supposed we were wasting our time. We realize that our idle life was indissociable from our work: 'My whole life...a vocation'." (ch. 2) "Each line of apprenticeship undergoes these two moments: the disappointment afforded by an attempted objective interpretation, then the attempted remedy of this disappointment by a subjective interpretation in which we reconstruct associative series." (ch. 3) "Proust is Leibnizian: the essences are veritable monads, each defined by the viewpoint to which it expresses the world, each viewpoint itself referring to an ultimate quality at the heart of the monad." (ch. 4) "Even the deepest dream implies, according to Bergson, a corruption of pure memory, a descent from memory into an image that distorts it." (ch. 5) "The transition from one love to another finds its law in Forgetting, not in memory; in Sensibility, not in imagination." (ch. 6) "It is also there, subjacent, in the sensuous signs, introducing a sense of nothingness even in the joys of sensibility....What is essential in the Search is not memory and time, but the sign and truth." (ch. 6)

Since you get the idea from above, lastly, I leave you with this:

"In the 'philosopher' there is the 'friend.' It is important that Proust offers the same critique of philosophy as of friendship. Friends are, in relation to one another, like minds of goodwill who are in agreement as to the signification of things and words; they communicate under the effect of a mutual goodwill. Philosophy is like the expression of a Universal Mind that is in agreement with itself in order to determine explicit and communicable significations. Proust's critique touches the central point: truths remain arbitrary and abstract so long as they are based on the goodwill of thinking. Only the conventional is explicit. This is because philosophy. like friendship, is ignorant of the dark regions in which are elaborated the effective forces that act on thought, the determinations that force us to think; a friend is not enough for us to approach the truth. Minds communicate to each other only the conventional; the mind engenders only the possible. The truths of philosophy are lacking in necessity and the mark of necessity. As a matter of fact, the truth is not revealed, it is betrayed; it is not communicated, it is interpreted; it is not willed, it is involuntary."

For some reason, I found this claim absolutely mind blowing. It is another way of saying, in friendship as in philosophy, when you are most wanting something or aiming at something specific, that's when you don't get it. You can't make a check list: 1) make a friend; 2) figure out the truths of the universe. These things don't happen in the way that you want them-- when and if they happen, they are a suprise, coming in unlikely venues and occasions, nothing like you expected. Isn't this like life? I didn't know I'd eat this book up like I did....

[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 3 out of 5]

Şöyle sorunlarım var: edebiyatı bu ölçüde yapısöküme uğratmayı vallahi sevmiyorum ya ben. Şimdi burada Deleuze’e laf etmek elbette haddime değil, üstelik çok ilginç noktalar yakalamış ve Proust’u semiyotik üzerinden okumak ilginç olmakla beraber, ben sevmiyorum vallahi. Edebiyatın lezzeti kaçıyor gibi hissediyorum böyle olunca. Katmanlara ayıralım, derinleşelim, anlayalım ama her şeyin de neyi sembolize ettiğini bilmeyelim sanki. Böyle işte. Göstergebilim camiasından özür diliyorum.

[Caterina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisini bitirdikten sonra Proust külliyatı okumaları kapsamında takip ettiğim listenin önerdiği kitaplardan biriydi. Okuduğuma pişman etmedi. Öğreticiydi.

Bölümlere ayrılarak kaleme alınmış eseri okurken Proust'un eserinin felsefi açıdan derinleme incelemesini okuyacaksınız. Gösterge tanımınından sonra seriden örnekler eşliğinde göstergeler aracılığıyla varılacak yeri yani hakikati görme imkanınız olacak.

Birkaç noktada aklıma takılanlar var bu noktaların kendi yetersizliğimden olduğunu düşünüyorum. Samuel Beckett'in Proust ve André Aciman'ın Proust Projesi de bitince kendimce külliyatı tamamlamış olacağım. Yapabileceğim bir kaç ek okuma daha var devam edecek enerjim şimdilik yok.

Bu yüzden külliyata ve yazara dair ilgili kitaplara ara versem de devam edeceğim.

[Toni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zalim sto nemam homoseksualne porive, zalim sto ne citam Prousta trenutno, zalim sto ne pisem svoju Potragu

[Ο σιδεράς · Rating 4 out of 5]

Εντάξει, ψιλοσκιαχτηκα αντιλαμβανόμενος το πλήθος των νοημάτων κ το βάθος της ανάλυσης του Δον Τζουλιανο (του Ντελεζ) .. Απλά 2 ενστάσεις:
Ι. Δεν είμαι τόσο σίγουρος ότι το δοκίμιο αυτό θα έπρεπε να χρησιμοποιηθεί ως οδηγός ανάγνωσης του "Αναζητώντας" , περισσότερο από ότι ως μία αυτόνομη πραγματεία κάποιου (του Ντελεζ) πάνω στα επιμέρους της θεματικής .. Δεν επιθυμώ προσωπικά να κάνω τη σύνδεση, προτιμώ να περιπλανιέμαι στις αλέες του κήπου του ΣΟΥΑ��, κ να ονειροπολώ στον ωραίο τον ίσκιο, τον ανθισμένο.. Θέμα γούστου και ψυχολογικού τοπίου στο οποίο κατοικώ αυτή την εποχή..
Μ αρέσει όμως κ να κρυφοκοιτάζω τους λαβύρινθους των σκέψεων του φιλοσόφου (του Ντελεζ) με βοηθάει να μην ξεχνώ τη διανοητική μου ανεπάρκεια..
Τώρα μετά από αυτό, και αφού ένοιωσα την ένταση της συγκέντρωσης ενός οδηγού γκραν πρι, λέω να πάω να ξεπετάξω κ την Κριτική του καθαρού Λόγου (όχι του Ντελεζ), έτσι για να χαλαρώσω λίγο..

Στην τελική αναγνωστική ευθεία, οι δύο μας τωρα Ζυλ (ναι εσυ). .
ΙΙ.Κι αύριο μέρα είναι..

12/3/2024 (ή μήπως να το συζητήσουμε κι αυτό, Ζυλ;)

Α ναι, η ένσταση νούμερο δύο: ΙΙ. Αχ Ζυλ, ήταν ανάγκη να είσαι ΤΟΣΟ μα ΤΟΣΟ ΓΑΛΛΟΣ; Και να συναντηθούμε εκεί που μιλούσες για έναν άλλο Γάλλο; Τι θα πει δεν με κατάλαβες; Εγώ να δεις:
«Είναι ολοφάνερο πως κάτι το ουσιαστικό ξεφεύγει από τη θεληματική μνήμη: το καθαυτό είναι του παρελθόντος. Η θεληματική μνήμη προσποιείται πως το παρελθόν διαμορφώνεται ως παρελθόν, αφού υπήρξε παρόν. Θα έπρεπε λοιπόν να περιμένουμε ένα καινούργιο παρόν για να περάσει το προηγούμενο ‘ή να γίνει παρελθόν. Έτσι όμως μας διαφεύγει η ουσία του χρόνου. Γιατί αν το παρόν δεν ήταν παρελθόν και ταυτόχρονα παρόν, αν η ίδια στιγμή δεν συνυπήρχε και ως παρόν και ως παρελθόν, ποτέ δεν θα περνούσε, ποτέ ένα καινούργιο παρόν δε θα ερχόταν να αντικαταστήσει το τωρινό παρόν. Το παρελθόν, όπως είναι αυτό καθαυτό, συνυπάρχει με το παρόν που κάποτε υπήρξε, δεν το διαδέχεται… σελ. 74…

Με καταλαβαίνεις, Ζυλ.

[natalia · Rating 5 out of 5]

''há, portanto, uma contradição no amor. não podemos interpretar os signos de um ser amado sem desembocar em mundos que se formaram sem nós, que se formaram com outras pessoas, onde não somos, de início, senão um objeto como os outros. o amante deseja que o amado lhe dedique todas as suas preferências, seus gestos e suas carícias. mas os gestos do amado, no mesmo instante em que se dirigem a nós e nos são dedicados, exprimem ainda o mundo desconhecido que nos exclui. o amado nos emite signos de preferência; mas, como esses signos são os mesmos que aqueles que exprimem mundos de que não fazemos parte, cada preferência que nós usufruímos delineia a imagem do mundo possível onde outros seriam ou são preferidos.''
que livro maravilhoso. queria não ter demorado tanto pra terminar de ler ele

[jeremiah]

Deleuze's reading of the Search as a kind of sign-churning machine sucks all the humanity out of the novel and his skirmish with 'Platonism' doesn't appear to amount to much. While this study was apparently a radical reading of Proust's novel when it was first published, it has, alas, worn out its novelty.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The single best book of theory I’ve read. This book totally changed my perspective on art.

[Abdullah Başaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Instead of drawing a conclusion, in my reading of Deleuze's work on Proust, I will raise a question here. With Roland Barthes's the idea of the death of the author, we should say the Narrator, Marcel, cannot be Proust himself. Proust, as the author, is dead after he finished the text. Yet Deleuze, like the other writers who wrote on Proust, is not that far from from the overinterpretation of reading Proust. Deleuze applies the Narrator, Marcel is Proust himself; the author merges the hero. This means the author still lives in the novel. Deleuze, in his reading, makes him alive. Thus a quasi-real person Marcel's journey is the ideal journey of us. Ironically, as the author of the novel and as an incomplete human being, Proust wrote the apprenticeship of Marcel, the protagonist who had ended up becoming sensitive to all kinds of signs. With this perspective, Proust’s text is no longer alive to us, the readers. Interpretations are over. In short, following the death of the author, the text of the author is dead.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastisch, goed, krachtig.

[Jeroen K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked that Deleuze provides an interpretation that doesn't focus on the involuntary memory and Bergsonian time, but a more broader interpretation that takes on the other themes and motives (like love, jealousy and art) in Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, namely as an 'apprenticeship of signs'. This yields some interesting insights, but also remains a bit of sketch and dependent on Deleuze's jargon. I guess the about hundred pages is just not enough (surprise!) to discuss a seven volume spanning novel.
It is easier to read than some of Deleuze other other works, but that doesn't say much: it still feels like a draft that could/should have been reworked and expanded into something more clear and thorough.

[Merve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Proust okuması zor bir yazar. Deleuze okuması zor bir yazar. Proust hakkında yazı yazan bir Deleuze okuması yapması çok çok zor. Üç günde nasıl bitirdiğimi anlayamadım. Sanırım tekrar tekrar dönüp bakmak gerekecek. Zaten öyle bir seferlik okumanın yeterli olduğu bir kitap değil. Okuduğunuz kitapla ilgili spoilerin okuma deneyiminizi çok etkilemedigini düşünüyorsaniz Proust'la -özellikle de serinin son kitabı Yakalanan Zaman'a atıf cok- paralel okunabilir.
Deleuze de Proust gibi dingin sakin bir zihin ve tam odaklanma isteyen bir yazar. Çok talepkar ancak bilgi haznesi genis ve derin bir yazar.

[michal k-c · Rating 4 out of 5]

everyday we undertake apprenticeships in love and disappointment, usually in that order. Probably my second favourite of Deleuze’s commentary books (after Spinoza: practical phil). For fans of the “BwO is an egg” metaphor, there’s something for you too here - this time the BwO is a spider

[Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great addendum to having just completed À La Recherche du Temps Perdu. A full breakdown and building up of the major themes and inner workings that makes La Recherche, in Deleuze’s summation, more than literature; a producing machine, a piece of Art.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deleuze does it again!