The Victorian Novel and the Problems of Marine Language: All at Sea by Matthew P. M. Kerr (review)

I will end on this note, Deleuze’s idea of a “new image of thought.” If this volume tells us anything about Proust’s proximity to philosophy, it is that, while we would not be amiss in expressing trepidation about calling him a philosopher outright, he most certainly invites us—really, urges us—to think in a new way. This volume, hopefully, will close the book on attempts to either align Proust’s work with a particular philosopher or to expound upon a supposed Proustian philosophy. What we have here is an attempt to push beyond this tendency, to read Proust on his own terms, which also means reading him beyond himself, beyond any of his “theories.” As the editors write of the Recherche: “The narrator treats the production of art as one way, perhaps the best and only way, to expose, preserve and communicate the deeper reality, and corresponding joy, which has been encountered in experiences of involuntary memory and in certain other revelatory experiences which are not straightforwardly memories of any kind” (4). To take Proust’s philosophical import seriously, it seems, is to read his novel, but not only that. We must experience the joy of what his hero, along with him, has undergone.