Ruskin, Reflection, Self Recognition and Self Creation in Proust

Abstract

The reader of A la recherche du temps perdu should know better than to dismiss anything the pedant Brichot says as uninteresting. Presented as an utter bore, he nevertheless fascinates the narrator. For the duration of the train ride to Raspeliere, the latter is entirely absorbed in Brichot's account of the local etymology. Brichot is clearly mocked in the narrative. His nature as a bore is emphasised by his thick­ rimmed glasses and the fact that too much time spent with his head in books has made him extremely short-sighted. It is perhaps surprising, therefore to find, slipped into the account of the local etymology, a subtle observation of the natural world: 'La riviere qui a donne son nom a Dalbec [sic] est d'ailleurs charmante. Vue d'une falaise [ ... ], elle voisine les fleches de l'eglise situee en realite a une grande distance, et a l' air de les refleter'. 1 What does he mean by the fact that the river 'seems' to reflect the church spires? Surely it either reflects them or it does not. Does he mean that the reflections in the water are actually of something else? Or does he mean that the reflected images are so distorted that they can no longer be considered to be reflections, that the inverted image is unfaithful? Or is it the spectator himself who projects a prolongation of the spires in an imaginary reflection? Brichot, in spite of his poor eyesight, or perhaps because of it, seems to have identified a curious optical illusion. 2 Beginning with Ruskin's theory of reflection, this article will explore how image and reflected image do not always coincide in Proust. I go on to consider how Proust exploits the metaphor of reflection further as a rhetorical figure for the presence or absence of self recognition leading to the act of self creation which constitutes the Proustian enterprise itself.