The Memories of Marcel Proust

"A book is a product of another self to the one we display in our habits, in society, in our vices."

Only a great man, such as Marcel Proust, could hold an abundant of factual and imaginative memories in his mind. The memory is our source of power; our source of tranquility as well as misery; our door into the past. In the minds of Proust, this door has never been closed: the past, the present, the future, exist as one single being. With Proust, as with Dickens, one is always a child. With Proust, one is always on one's bed, with a cup of tea and a plate of madeleine cakes on the side-table, and is always taking one's imagination back into the past; but such endeavor often ends in vain. Our remembrance of the past is but a reconstruction of our own imagination. Hence, I am reminded of Wordsworth's poem:

For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.

Over the years, this blog has been my storage of memories. I tend to forget the books that I have read; be it three years ago, or something very recent. How I long to have the library-like memories of Proust. Perhaps, only through reading; repetitive reading, one can access into such majestic library of greatness.