“In Search of
Lost Time” – what does that mean? It is the search for happiness, for the
connection between past happiness and the state of being in the present which allows
us to exist outside time and to enjoy the essence of things. It is the search
for that which is common to the past and the present and which is more
essential than both because it energises the desire to live.
“let
a sound, a scent already heard and breathed in the past be heard and breathed
anew, simultaneously in the present and in the past, real without being actual,
ideal without being abstract, then instantly the permanent and characteristic
essence hidden in things is freed and our true being which has for long seemed
dead but was not so in other ways awakes and revives, thanks to this celestial
nourishment.”
Although the
book has strong themes of unequal love, of jealousy, hatred and disgust, of
death and grief, there is also an irrepressible happiness. The point is that,
although time will eventually drag us all down, it is only the extent to which our
spirit has soared with the joy of life that really matters.
