The wall was holding up. The defences were strong. It was never going to be easy.
"Bergson on memory without any madeleines?" they jeered, "you must be mad."
You can buy a bag of madeleines at the cornershop for around a pound. They make your mouth furry because they are cheaply produced. Good lord! is this muck supposed to bring back memories of my aunt?
"Has anyone read Proust?" he began. My heart fluttered, then sank. "The cake...you know."
We did indeed know.
"He ate the cake and his distant past was brought to mind."
There are a number of things we may learn from this.
i) Proust shouldn't have been translated,
ii) There is evidence for bringing back (or continuing with) the death penalty.
iii) Proust wrote 6000-pages to clarify the muffin matter. If publishers had asked him to trim the work down into an accessible 20-page pamphlet, he would have agreed.
Long live philosophy!
