Postmodern Proust.

Author(s): Margaret E. Gray and Richard Macksey

Source: MLN, Vol. 107, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1992), pp. 1088-1091
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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 BriefMentions

Note: Appearance among these brief mentions of recent publications

does not preclude more competentand extended review in a later issue
of MLN.

Margaret E. Gray, Postmodern Proust.

Philadelphia: Universityof PennsylvaniaPress, 1992. vii + 189 pages.
More than sixtyyears ago Walter Benjamin wrotesuggestivelyof Proust's
vast novel as a "Penelope work of forgetting," a progressive"unravelling"
as well as a weaving of the text. In this, as in so many other cases, he
anticipatedthe moves and ironic reversalsof a post-structuralist era. But
the undoing,the unsettling ambiguities, were always already there in
Proust's enterprise,waitingfor the kind of "postmodern"approach that
Margaret Gray proposes in her study.
Postmodern Proust,despite the intricacyof some of its textualargument,
has a rather simple structure:an introductionpresentingthe case for a
"postmodern" reading of Proust's novel and seven chapters that address
successive issues in the "destabilizing"of much earlier criticismof the
Recherche. Proust'sworkhas oftenbeen taken (along withJoyce'sUlysses)as
the paradigm case of "high modernism"in the literatureof our century.
And the author himselfat times supplied his criticswith much of their
rhetoric for a triumphalist,"masterly,"architectonicassessment of the
narrative. Certain aspects of the recent (admittedlyconfusing) debates
about postmodernismhave, however,sensitizedreaders to a "new," un-
settling,and profoundlyskepticalProust.In Gray'sterms,thiscan be seen
as a shiftin emphasis from the bookas an architectural,holisticachieve-
ment to the experience of the readeras an endless, uncertainprocess of
reinterpretation.Proust,fromthisperspective,has embedded thisreader-
of-processwithinhis book, deferringsome of the imperial claims for his
workto the livrea venir.Proustthus insiststhathis projectis not simplyto
writea magisterialbook (a project that,as Gray demonstrates,stubbornly
resistsany finalclosure), but ratherto "create an instrument"wherebyhis
reader can "read himself' (III, 911; 1033).

MLN, 107,(1992): 1088-1097? 1992byThe JohnsHopkinsUniversity

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 M L N 1089

Withadmirable concision,Grayin her introductionreviewsthe criticsof

postmodernism,many of whom, withJameson, dismiss Proust as a "ca-
nonical" modernist.The term"postmodern"is itselfa palimpsestof occa-
sionallycontradictoryassumptions,obviouslytied to antecedenttermslike
the modern, modernism, and modernity,and inflected by ideological
claims about our end of the century.(VincentDescombes, in a chapter on
"The Modern Regime of Art" in his Proust:Philosophy of theNovel,has a
briefuseful note on this vexed semanticquestion.) "The modern" (espe-
ciallyin itsGerman sense of dieNeuzeit)oftenrefersto the conceptualbases
of "modern thought"descending fromthe Enlightenment;counterpoised
to it, the "postmodern" here involves a systematicquestioning of these
assumptions.Proustclearlyhas no investmentin the moral significanceof
historicalevolution,and so has alwaysbeen on the side of the postmodern
in thissense. A second meaning of postmodernisminvolvesa challenge at
the level of styleto the value of the complex of meanings or totalizations
associated with"modern art" in the sense defined by,say,Clement Green-
berg. And yet a thirdsense of postmodernitycould be derived fromthe
decline of what Baudelaire describes as "the heroism of private life."
Descombes discusses this sense in some detail and argues that Proust dis-
places the "poetryof privatelife" and circumscribesit withinthe limitsof
"individuality"and not "life." Gray extends and analyzes all these basic
aspects in some ratherdensely packed pages of her introduction.Follow-
ing Brian McHale's suggestion,she also makes a strikinggeneralization
that the shiftfrom "modern" to "postmodern"involvesa change in em-
phasis fromepistemological concerns. Since much of the "dis-
to ontological
course of postmodernity"is so resolutelyantifoundationalist, one mightob-
ject that she can maintain the notion of an ontological bias only if she
identifiesthe postmodern enterpriseas an ultimaterefusalof ontology.
The seven main chaptersof her book are successivelycoordinatedto the
critical"red thread" of postmodernistskepticism,but each is of capital
interestas a freshapproach to the novel. (One feels thattheycould stand
as freshnew readings of Recherche even withoutthe framingissue of post-
modernism.) Each of the essays raises an importantquestion about the
revaluation of Proust's work in the light of recent criticaldebates about
marginalityand the primacyof the reader. The firstchapter, "Criticism,
Violence, and Desire," is a suggestiveexplorationof how Proustcritiqueis
imbricated(to use one of Gray's favoritewords) in the long enterpriseof
Proustromancier.His two Baudelaire essays of 1909 and 1921, which she
analyzes acutely,serve her deconstructivepurpose verywell and illustrate
Proust'saudacious scramblingof genericboundaries. The secondchapter,
"Postmodern Selfhood .... ," addresses that ubiquitous narrating voice, the
"monsieur qui dit 'je'," that generates the vast narrative.This is a subtle,
detailed essay thatin its investigationof an "evacuated subjectivity"makes
good use of McHale's Postmodern Fictionas well as Genette'sand Bersani's
analyses of Proust's narrativestrategies.

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1090 BRIEF MENTIONS

The thirdchapter ("Memory, Neurology, and Narration") investigates

the Recherchein the light of a recent model of memoryin the neurosci-
ences. It is the firsttimeI knowof thatGerald Edelman's suggestivemodel
for neocortical processes (a model he has also applied to immune re-
sponses and evolution!) has been enlisted in the reading of a literary
fiction.Here memoryis a process not so much of retrievalas of recatego-
rization and reorganization. Memory, an ongoing revisionaryprocess
in this representation,thus becomes much more a matterof the contin-
uously reentrant present than of a static, "vases clos" past. The fourth
chapter ("Marcel's Ecriture feminine") moves from the processes of
narrationand recall to theirproduct. Enlistingrecentwork on "the space
of feminine writing,"this essay explores the profound ambiguities of
the Marcel/Albertinevolumes (where the very category of "feminine"
dissolves in ambiguityand oscillation). The fundamental "undecidabil-
ity"of questions of masteryand closure in these volumes has only been
heightened by the recent recoveryof the variant typescriptof Albertine
disparue.Marcel's protracted failure to "contain" Albertine is shrewdly
illustratedin Gray's textual analyses, including one of the bravura ice-
cream fantasia.
The fifthchapter, on the "subversive"effectsof figuration,makes an
importantcontributionto the understandingof Proust's strange meta-
phors that serve to interruptand displace the narrative,preservingthe
past, Gray argues, from interpretive appropriation. These "image-
displacements"are effectivelyillustratedby readings of metaphoricpas-
sages, which range from the famous "anneaux necessaires"through the
more extended arias of the soiree chez Mme de Saint-Euverte,the "ma-
rine" vision of the Opera, the magic lantern,the clochersde Martinville,
the
ambiguous "fertilization"scene of Charlus and Jupien, the petitebandeof
Balbec, and other familiarset-piecesread in a new and deeply ambivalent
light. The "real," like the past, is eclipsed by its image or simulacrum.
These readings lead to the conclusion that the famous "temporal meta-
phors" are remarkablyresistantto mastery:"image,ratherthan conveying
and reflectingexperience,acts,curiouslyenough, againstit,throttling and
suspending interpretation'sappropriations"(136).
The sixthchapter ("Skipping Love Scenes") explores new hesitations,
reluctances,and resistencesthat inhabit Proust's intentionto record the
past in a work of literature.This analysisof the recurrentrole of another
literarytext,Francoisle Champi,as itis staged in Swannand Le tempsretrouve,
is a finelyexecuted study of the narrator'sultimate"refusals"of closure
and literature.Gray's intertextualreading of the George Sand text is as
alert as her analyses of the Recherche.One does not have to embrace all of
Gray'sjudgments to recognize the recuperativepower of her argument
here. And, paradoxically,her version of Marcel's "refusal of literature"
leaves us witha more challengingconception of literaturethan the tradi-
tional reading provides.

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 M L N 1091

The final chapter ("Proust, Narrative,and Ambivalencein Contempo-

rary Culture") moves to a new terrainof "violence and desire," to com-
modityculture and some (often hilarious) appropriationsof "Proust" in
jokes, puns, cartoons,advertisements,and the popular press-from Sem-
pre and Russell Baker to "Proust'sChocolate Chip Cookies Madeleine" [!].
Gray relates the fortunesof Proust in the marketplaceto a well informed
discussion of kitsch,fetish,Benjamin's "aura," and the canon. The sub-
culturalaggressionsdepend upon the survivalof a "certainsmile"directed
back at the audience by the elusive work itself.
Throughout MargaretGray'sbook, one of its persistentstrengthsis her
talentforusing richlysuggestivepassages in the novel to anchor her more
general argument.Some of these passages, here recontextualizedand vig-
orouslyread, have oftenengaged Proust'sreaders (videthe manyexamples
above); others have been largely neglected (e.g., the repeated passages
about Morel's involvementwithalgebra); yetothers (e.g., the variantpas-
sages from the Gallimard and Grasset [1987] editions of La Fugitivel
Albertine disparue)depend upon very recent textual work. She also navi-
gates with skilland judgment the immensesecondaryliteraturesurround-
ing the approaches to Proust.Postmodern Proust,even forthose who retain
some skepticismabout the "stability"of the adjective,is a challenging,aptly
illustrated,and criticallynuanced performance.It is resolutelyup-to-date
in its scholarship,sensitiveto importantcriticalissues, and a substantial
contributionto the revaluationof an author who seems constantlyto de-
mand freshrereadings.
TheJohnsHopkinsUniversity RICHARD MACKSEY

Peter D. Fenves, A PeculiarFate: Metaphysics in Kant.

and World-History
Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1991. xii + 306 pages.
A PeculiarFate is a book of impressivescholarship,conceptual originality,
and great subtletyof argument. It addresses an aspect of Kant's thought,
his life-longattemptto reconcile metaphysicaland strictlyhistoricalcon-
cepts with his notion of world-history, that has been generallymarginal-
ized in standard treatmentsof the philosopher. The jacket copy quotes
Timothy Bahti, who has himselfmade importantrecent contributionsto
the understandingof Kant's historiography:"A PeculiarFate is the most
excitingclose reading of German philosophyI have read since Derrida's
Glas and Hamacher's Pleroma."This is distinguishedcompany indeed, but
it is also a clue to the degree to whichthe book fallsoutside the domain of
traditionalKantstudien.
The author chartshis path modestlyand disavowsthe goal of describing
a traditionalmetaphysicaltrajectory:
Mystudyof metaphysics and worldhistory itselffromthe
in Kantdistinguishes
manyattempts todelineateKant's'development'outoftheclassicalmetaphysical

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