On
Marcel Proust | ‘Taste & Memory’ Combo 😊
Remembering
Proust on his birthday today!
“A
lot can happen over coffee”, goes the famous tagline of Café Coffee Day!
Indeed,
“A lot can
happen over tea” as well, proves Proust, Marcel Proust, and goes on to connect ‘taste’
with memory!
Yes! A lovely Taste
& Memory Combo!
Imagine
yourself back
in your childhood days, ‘tasting’ a strange new variety of fruit, that made you
deliriously ill for the next couple of days.
Chances are, when someone gives
you the same fruit today, you will run helter skelter, far far away from the fruit,
won’t you?
Here,
the ‘taste’, the ‘memory’ of the taste and the place it happened get themselves
seated in the hippocampus of the brain, and helps you react in a certain way!
The
hippocampus then, happens to be the area where episodic memories or
autobiographical memories are stored and catalogued for your own future access.
Episodic
memories
could refer to specific incidents in our lives, like the coffee we had with our favourite
friend, at Starbucks or Coffee Day, a long time ago!
To
Marcel Proust, similarly, one small bite of a madeleine dipped in his tea was
enough to transport him on a beautiful journey through memory!
A
lovely instance of taste ‘summoning’ memory!
In
short, a
‘sense-evoked’ memory!
Yes!
One small bite of a madeleine dipped in his tea, was able to summon up a memory
that inspired him to write his seven-volumed, 4,215-page novel, titled, Remembrance
of Things Past.
One
day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered
me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take.
I
declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my
mind.
She
sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called ‘petites
madeleines.’
And
soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a
depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had
soaked a morsel of the cake.
No
sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a
shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary
changes that were taking place.
An
exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached,
with no suggestion of its origin.
And
at once
the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me!
I
had ceased
now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal.
Whence
could
it have come to me, this all-powerful joy?
I
was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but
that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same
nature as theirs.
Whence
did
it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?
Undoubtedly
what
is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual
memory which, being linked to that taste, has tried to follow it into my
conscious mind.
says
Proust,
in Volume 1 of this novel.
[T.
S. Eliot would call it, ‘disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves’
through the sensory memories.]
And
thus happened Proust’s monumental autobiographical novel of epic proportions, through
which, he recollects with such intense detailed descriptions on his
childhood experiences up till his adulthood in early 20th century aristocratic
France!
He
simultaneously reflects on the loss of time and lack of meaning in the
world!
The
role of memory assumes significance throughout the novel, through
involuntary memory, wherein sensory experiences of smells, touch, sights and
sounds, bring up a plethora of important memories right in front of him!
To
William Wordsworth, ‘the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts
that do often lie too deep for tears’.
Which
means,
‘thoughts’ can be sparked, and ‘memories’ kindled, when one’s consciousness is directed
towards an object.
To
Wordsworth, since his conscious thoughts are directed towards the
‘flower’, it makes nostalgic thoughts by the number well up within him!
To
Marcel Proust then, when his consciousness is directed towards the ‘dunking
of the morsel of cake in his tea’, it facilitates the insurrection of a
range of subjugated memories!
Wordsworth’s
Tintern Abbey is yet another delightful rumination on revisiting Tintern
Abbey five years later.
Every object that he sees here, impresses him to the
core, and the “steep and lofty cliffs” in especial, impress upon him “thoughts
of more deep seclusion”!
In
philosophy,
this experience is referred to as intentionality, the capacity of humans to
direct themselves at objects!
Brentano, a great inspiration for Husserl, says that,
Every
mental
phenomena, is directed at an object, which we might call, intentional
object or intentional inexistence or immanent objectivity!
Hence
it is
that, every belief has a believed!
Every
desire
has a desired! Every Love has a loved! Every Hate has a hated!!!
This
capacity
of directing one’s consciousness towards an object/s is also called ‘Aboutness’
or ‘directedness!’
It’s
called thus, since it is intended towards, is about, or directed towards
an object!
Intentionality,
then,
becomes the key to understanding human experience!
Thoughts
can
be sparked, and memories kindled, when one’s consciousness is directed towards
an object.
Well,
what’s
that one particular song that you so relish down the ages, and that still
resonates in your heart and soul even this very moment?
What’s
that
one particular sip of coffee that you so relish down the ages, and that still
resonates in your heart and soul even this very moment?
What’s
that particular nick-name of yours that you so cherish, across the years, and
that still stirs a chord in you even this very moment?
In
short, what’s that ‘disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves’ moment
for you?
PS: Photos and templates, this blogger’s.
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