u/thiscommonplace

I don't think this was specifically a Pynchon reference but I've decided to live my life as if TRP was here.

I'm getting close to the end of The Prisoner (Carol Clark trans.). This is my first full read through of the entirety of In Search of Lost Time. I'd read Swann's Way about 15+ years ago, then decided to read the full series about 3 years ago. I've been slowly working my way through ever since (read a volume, read some other books, then come back to the next volume.)

Anyway, THIS QUOTE. Every time memory and time and change and passing came up as a distinct theme (so, like, every page), I kept trying to put my finger on what idea exactly it was it was bringing up to and in me. And this is it, finally, a succinct statement: the impossible race to reconstitute the past. What an amazing way to re-envision the unique take the book series has: taking the notion of you never step in the same river twice, but adding that additional complication of: it's not only time that's passing, it's the layering of new memories at the same time, the changing of the present, the changing of those memories as they interact with new memories... And such an interesting metaphorical counterpoint to "À la recherche du temps perdu", from searching to racing, this push further into urgency and the necessity of speed...