Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Having sex with a fictional/fantasy character

roachboy · 10-24-2007, 09:05 AM

well, ustwo, maybe you should read some of "in search of lost time" rather than relying on biographical factoids--which happen also to be wrong (the money question) and right (proust was gay) in a way that indicates that whatever "source" you took that factoid from couldnt distinguish the novel from proust's life--a typical dilletante mistake--but one that you wouldnt catch--you couldnt catch---simply because you havent read the book.

much of the book--once you get past combray--is about love, desire and their links to the construction of a fantasy image based on the other but which is not identical to the other, which you substitute for the other--since what you find desirable is about you, not the other really--so it follows that desire is about a refiguring of the other in the image of your sensibility, which is the frame from within whcih desire operates---linked to this substitution in proust is a concomitant desire for control--which flips around the meaning of this refiguring in the image of desire process, making of it (or revealing, depending on your view) the linkage between desire and fetishism--which is metonymic (substituting of a part for the whole, conflating the two)---so love and desire are linked to fantasy/projection on the one hand and a desire/need to hold the other in one place/control on the other--and so is mostly self-defeating in the novel, leading inevitably to loss and the ambiguities of affect that follow from loss.

but it's a novel, not a guide for life. so it channels minute dissections of love in general and desire in general through a particular overall dynamic--which may or may not be an aspect of all types of love and desire.

but certainly no-one in their right mind will read "in search of lost time" and think at all points "i wish i was like the narrator."

that said, there is one thing for sure, though:
proust was a better observer than any of us.
and he made extraordinary sentences.

10-24-2007, 09:05 AM	#25 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	well, ustwo, maybe you should read some of "in search of lost time" rather than relying on biographical factoids--which happen also to be wrong (the money question) and right (proust was gay) in a way that indicates that whatever "source" you took that factoid from couldnt distinguish the novel from proust's life--a typical dilletante mistake--but one that you wouldnt catch--you couldnt catch---simply because you havent read the book. much of the book--once you get past combray--is about love, desire and their links to the construction of a fantasy image based on the other but which is not identical to the other, which you substitute for the other--since what you find desirable is about you, not the other really--so it follows that desire is about a refiguring of the other in the image of your sensibility, which is the frame from within whcih desire operates---linked to this substitution in proust is a concomitant desire for control--which flips around the meaning of this refiguring in the image of desire process, making of it (or revealing, depending on your view) the linkage between desire and fetishism--which is metonymic (substituting of a part for the whole, conflating the two)---so love and desire are linked to fantasy/projection on the one hand and a desire/need to hold the other in one place/control on the other--and so is mostly self-defeating in the novel, leading inevitably to loss and the ambiguities of affect that follow from loss. but it's a novel, not a guide for life. so it channels minute dissections of love in general and desire in general through a particular overall dynamic--which may or may not be an aspect of all types of love and desire. but certainly no-one in their right mind will read "in search of lost time" and think at all points "i wish i was like the narrator." that said, there is one thing for sure, though: proust was a better observer than any of us. and he made extraordinary sentences. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 10-24-2007 at 09:08 AM..