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Volume 7 Number 2, August 2006

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Landy, Joshua Philosophy as Fiction: Self, Deception, and Knowledge in Proust, OUP, 2004, pp288, ISBN: 0195169395, £32.99 Hardback

Reviewed by

Anna Howitt

The Forward Company

 

It would be a futile exercise to begin this review by labouring the point of how the discourse, debate, and criticism surrounding Proust’s In Search of Lost Time has become somewhat entrenched and stale.  And this is the very reason why Joshua Landy’s exploration of the grand text is so timely.  

The backdrop for the deeper examination of the three elements in his title is a very simple, yet very insightful, premise; Proust did not write an autobiography. There.

What he did do, in fact, was construct a very clever piece of fiction in which he could posit various satellite points directing our attention to various philosophical ideas.  And where Marcel has been previously misinterpreted as Proust himself, Proust gives us Marcel as a tool through which to explore these concepts. 

At no point in the book do we have reason to question Landy’s intention.  The main elements of the title (Self, Deception, and Knowledge) are dealt with explicitly in turn by using significant scenes from the tome.  The passage in which Marcel exorcises his creative sensibilities for the first time - steeples of Martinville – are, as Landy argues Proust’s wink to Nietzsche’s ‘perspectivism’.  This, for me, is the pivotal part of this new debate for without some grasp of this concept of perspective we are unable to really grasp Proust’s intention at all.  During his creative endeavour, Marcel tells us how any description he attempts of this scene depends solely on where he is standing in relation to his subject.  Through Marcel, therefore, Proust hints to his readers that, by default, any observations, perceptions, understandings, or misunderstandings of the text he has authored are entirely bound by our own perspective.

The arguments Landy poses around perspective lend themselves further to his salient points.  Without perspective there is no conduit by which to discover one’s self and, although self-deception is inevitable through such subjectivity, a certain form and degree of knowledge can be reached.  A theory of knowledge then ensues and further reinforces the main premise where a convergence of the epistemiological, the ontological, and the axiological yields different kinds of truth about the ‘self’.

By analysing another passage from In Search of Lost Time, Odette’s face, Landy establishes that the ‘true self’ is ‘revealed’ through language.  Proust demonstrates the novel’s efficacy here by creating a new philosophical system by which to guide his readers. Not only then does Landy help us realise that Proust is asking us to take a look at our own ‘selves’ but that it is the book itself – its structure, its style, its narrative – that shows us the techniques we need to achieve this.  Marcel himself speaks oftentimes about the import of imagination, and how a true life cannot ‘effectively observe itself’ except through artistic creation.  Landy shows us how Proust the author creates Marcel the character as sometimes blissfully unaware of himself in order to demonstrate how his own creative pursuits offer him some kind of enlightment.

Here the ever-revolving debates around philosophy and literature are dealt with succinctly and Landy’s fresh exploration points to supporting a more rigorous acceptance of Proust’s work as a work of philosophy as well as literature.  The two are inextricably linked and it is the style and techniques of the latter that lends ease of access to the former.

As an introduction to In Search of Lost Time Landy’s book is clear, concise with a fluent and witty style.  Landy guides us through the salient points and does an awful lot of the work for us, giving us a headstart before actually chomping our way through this magnanimous text of 6 volumes.  As an academic text it is supportive in our reading and provides even more guidance through works of criticism to date and sailing past references to Nietzsche, Plato, and Schopenhauer with ease.  With this foundation Landy directs us straight to his key concepts; ideas of the self and how this is largely dictated by perception, how this acceptance of perspective inevitably leads to deception and, knowledge of some sort. 

Refreshing, also, is Landy’s straightforward text devoid of narcissism; yes, he has found something vital that he wishes to share with you, but the genius isn’t his. It was already put there by Proust, we just missed it.  For me this is encouraging. It makes me believe more in Landy’s premise compared to other critical works and breeds a certain confidence in the autonomy of the reader of La Recherche.  This is a creative work, there is no right or wrong, it’s about you the reader, how you relate to Marcel and engage with his perspective.  It’s about constructed realities, identities, the beauty of fiction and how art can throw a light on those parts of philosophy that have failed. 

More importantly it made me, as a reader, want to revisit In Search of Lost Time and reconsider it in light of this new discovery for, as Landy suggests, the title itself is misleading.  It is not about the past and so why search for anything lost in it?  The lessons the novel teaches us are insightful and catalytic so would it be out of place for this humble reviewer to propose another, more fitting, title? Landy’s message, for me, is clear; perhaps it should actually be entitled In Search of Lost Self.