Beckett and Deleuze each approached Proust’s work from distinct philosophical lenses, highlighting different aspects of his writing.
1. Beckett’s View of Proust: Beckett’s essay on Proust, written in 1931, emphasizes the themes of suffering, time, and memory as they relate to the futility of human experience. For Beckett, Proust’s In Search of Lost Time represents an exploration of the inevitability of suffering and the role of involuntary memory in fleeting moments of meaning. He sees memory as a force that confronts individuals with the limitations of their desires and the impossibility of lasting fulfillment. Beckett’s reading is, in many ways, existential, focusing on the inevitability of decay and loss within the temporal flow of life.
2. Deleuze’s View of Proust: Deleuze, on the other hand, approaches Proust from a more affirmative and philosophical perspective. In Proust and Signs (1964), Deleuze interprets Proust as a thinker who uncovers a philosophy of signs. He argues that Proust’s novel is less about memory and more about different types of “signs” or truths that characters encounter, ranging from worldly signs (like those of society and love) to artistic signs. Deleuze sees Proust’s work as a journey of learning to interpret these signs, which eventually leads to an understanding that the highest form of truth is aesthetic or artistic. Instead of emphasizing suffering as a dead end, Deleuze finds in Proust’s work a progression toward transformation and creative self-expression.
3. Key Differences: In sum, Beckett’s Proust is an existential figure entangled in cycles of desire and suffering, revealing the futility of human striving in the face of time. Deleuze’s Proust, by contrast, is a seeker of signs and truths, gradually uncovering the transformative power of art and the transcendence of experience through interpretation. Where Beckett finds in Proust a narrative of despair, Deleuze sees a philosophical investigation of meaning and creation.
