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17 CHAPTER 1 The Eyes of a Parricide At bottom, we make old, we kill all those who love us, by the anxiety we cause them. —Marcel Proust, Filial Sentiments of a Parricide A ccording to Girard, an exploration of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time should not begin with the novel; rather, it should commence with reflection on a newspaper essay by Proust titled “Filial Sentiments of a Parricide.”1 Girard argues that this essay constitutes a transformative moment for Proust, providing an occasion for him to break through the strictures of metaphysical desire that have mired him in ontological illness. Girard contends that, in the aftermath of writing this essay, Proust is newly able to identify with others in a nonrivalrous way. Further, Girard submits that insights Proust attains from the essay provide him with the impetus to write In Search of Lost Time. The novel attests in fuller detail to a transformative process begun with Proust’s composition of the Le Figaro essay. I concur with Girard that “Filial Sentiments of a Parricide” lays the groundwork for In Search of Lost Time; however, I suggest that Girard underplays important features of this essay. As I focus on how “Filial Sentiments 18 Chapter One of a Parricide” depicts the human body and references maternal death, I establish a basis for exploring In Search of Lost Time in ways attuned to roles affective memory and sensory experience play in transforming the trajectory of mimetic desire. Both function to free the narrator of the novel from the painful confines of a family romance and to open him to an intimate domain of positive mimesis. Proust’s Copernican Revolution Late in Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, Girard focuses his attention on “Filial Sentiments of a Parricide.” The article, Girard asserts, sheds “brilliant light” on the miracle of novelistic insight that will subsequently prove crucial for Proust’swritingofInSearchofLostTime.2 WrittenandpublishedinLeFigaro in 1907, “Filial Sentiments of a Parricide” describes a young man, Henri van Blarenberghe, who kills himself after murdering his mother.3 Proust begins the article by referencing correspondence he has had with Henri, which has established Henri in Proust’s memory as a pleasant and distinguished young man. Subsequently, Proust turns his attention to the sensational details of the murder. As Henri’s mother lay dying, she is said to have cried out, “What have you done to me! What have you done to me!”4 Girard observes that, with a telescoping effect, Proust focuses on relations between mothers and sons in general even as his comments increasingly display a more personal tone.5 Writes Proust: If we think about it, perhaps there is no truly loving mother who would not be able, on her last day and often long before, to reproach her son with these words. At bottom, we make old, we kill all those who love us, by the anxiety we cause them, by that kind of uneasy tenderness we inspire and ceaselessly put in a state of alarm.6 Proust’s remorseful identification with Henri becomes revelatory when Proust muses about other mothers’ sons. Perhaps these sons, reflecting on their mothers’ aging and the trouble they have caused their mothers, could yet have a “belated moment of lucidity which may occur even in lives completely obsessed by illusions, since it happened even to Don Quixote” (dans ce moment The Eyes of a Parricide 19 tardif de lucidité que les vies les plus ensorcelées de chimère peuvent bien avoir, puisque celle même de don Quichotte eut le sien).7 Empathically connected with others, the parricide who “recovers his lucidity in the course of expiating the crime and expiates his crime in the course of recovering his lucidity” offers a point of entrée to the miracle of Proust’s own novel.8 Girard proposes that the Le Figaro article captures Proust, a struggling writer who has demonstrated little capacity for memorable prose, in the moment of discovery that starts him on a path to literary immortality. As Proust speaks of the lucidity of a son and Don Quixote, he lays out what alone has the power to break apart the mimetic rivalry that characterizes metaphysical desire. When we are able to identify with others, we establish a transforming distance from desire and open ourselves to truth. Empathy with another, exemplified by the son who recognizes near the end of his mother’s life that he has made her life...

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