Re-perusal, Registered

James and Proust give us surprisingly divergent representations of psychic phenomena such as introspection, the analysis of others, sexual drives, loyalty and betrayal, the social impulse, and the sense of time. More than thirty-five years ago, without intending to do so, I had already begun to specify the differences between the Jamesian and Proustian subjects. This essay has been my registering, after re-perusal, of the designs I suppose I have always had on and for James. We can’t help but be critics, which means that our re-perusals will inevitably include modifications and accretions. We develop. And yet we develop within a fundamental sameness; while our re-perusals of our past may almost never include re-writing, they do allow for modifications or what I now like to call re-categorizations of our always present past. We can, like Witt, remain immobile as we participate in our multiple reappearances in the universe.