Towards the end of last week, I went to a lecture called “Why Read Proust” given by William C. Carter, PhD. If you don’t know, Carter is a renowned Proust scholar who has given lectures in Paris and Lincoln Center (NYC). There were only 14 people in the audience, which provided a kind of intimacy you don’t normally get in these types of events.
I haven’t read Proust… Yet. By right, I should’ve read him many years ago. A number of writers who I’ve been influenced by have been forthright in their devotion to Proust. Kerouac is just one example. I love Kerouac, therefore, I should love Proust.
But I don’t gravitate towards French culture. I’ve been to Paris and I didn’t think it lived up to the hype. (Heathen! Heathen!) While visiting museums, I walk swiftly past the Rococo exhibits. (Does anyone like that stuff?) I spent a year and a half learning French and regretted it. (The only place it was useful was in an old Normandy neighborhood. Certainly not in Paris.)
I’ve been tossing around a number of thoughts on love. In meditation, I’ve considered how love fits in the paradigm of life. Creativity is a kind of “energy flow” which can be a form of love.
At one point, Carter talked on how art connects us to each other through universal spirit. The role of diety/God/higher self/universal spirit in art has intrigued me for a quite a while now. When I’m attracted to a painting, play or book, it’s because I can feel the inspiration of the artist or writer. Art that misses that, misses me entirely. It feels hollow to me, self-aggrandizing and empty.
This doesn’t mean that I only respond to religious artists and writers. On the contrary, I respond to those who are able to transcend themselves. Frank O’Hara was, at the very least, an agnostic, yet his work connects with the commonality in all of us. He is an inclusive critic and poet. As a reader, I’ve never felt that he was better or smarter than me.
As a writer, I tend to gravitate towards being directly inspired by diety/God/higher self/universal spirit. In my experiences, I found that people in theater couldn’t quite relate to it. (“It’s that God thing,” someone once said about my work.) The funny thing is, I’m too busy dealing with my own raw issues with diety/God/higher self/universal spirit to preach to people. I’ve had a ton of anger towards God and have written plays about it both directly and indirectly. I’ve also had other thoughts about diety/God/higher self/universal spirit, but dealing with it in any form in that world just hasn’t been acceptable.
I’m at peace with all that, however. I’ve been a part of theater long enough to know that it works in cycles. Themes and forms come and go in trends. At this point, I’d rather work in a form where my themes will be tolerated, and perhaps even understood.
(I can just see getting flamed for those last two paragraphs. It’s not my intention to start heat. I’m just writing what my experience has been, and that’s that.
Wait. Why do I feel like I have to put a disclaimer every freakin’ time I talk about theater? Sheesh.)
At any rate, Carter’s lecture was a great introduction into Proust’s work. And I will read Proust, sooner rather than later.