BOOK NEWS: Exploring existential thought in Proust's fiction

Love, Subjectivity, and Truth: Existential Themes in Proust

BY RICK ANTHONY FURTAK

Oxford UP, 2023

ISBN: 9780197633724

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/love-subjectivity-and-truth-9780197633724?cc=us&lang=en&#

Love, Subjectivity, and Truth engages in a lively manner with the overlapping areas of philosophy and literature, philosophy of emotions, and existential thought. “Subjective truth,” a phrase used in Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time, is rich with existential connotations. It invokes Kierkegaard above all, but significantly Nietzsche as well, and other philosophers who thematize love, subjectivity, and truth. In Search of Lost Time is especially concerned about what we can know about others through love. Insofar as it conveys and analyzes experience, the novel is capable not only of exploring existential issues but also of doing something like phenomenology.

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What we know is shaped by our way of knowing, just as the properties of visible, colored objects are determined by the wavelengths of light our eyes can see. Nowhere does the subjective basis of our awareness appear so evident as it does when we view things through loving eyes. In Proust's novel we find skeptical views about love expressed again and again. However, we also note countercurrents, in which love is shown to provide a unique sort of insight. At those times, love seems to be a prerequisite of veridical apprehension. Love, Subjectivity, and Truth investigates this tension as it is played out in Proust's fiction.

"In this lucid and beautifully written book, Rick Anthony Furtak explores the infinite folds of the heart as it closes and opens to reality — the reality of the world, and the reality of the self. His inquiry into the truthfulness of love in Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu crosses seamlessly between literature, philosophy, and psychology, illuminating the grounds of perception and value." — Yi-Ping Ong, associate professor of Comparative Thought and Literature, Johns Hopkins University

"A hundred years on, Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu remains the leading candidate for The Great Philosophical Novel. Rick Furtak has written a great philosophical book to accompany that novel, a book that helps us navigate the complex, often contradictory statements of Proust's narrator and reveals the coherent philosophical sensibility that lies beneath. Furtak is the ideal guide to a potentially intimidating but profoundly rewarding and enriching literary work. Readers will find it both informative and inspiring, and will be inspired by it, I hope, to return to Proust's novel." —Troy Jollimore, author of Love's Vision and Earthly Delights: Poems

"Once in a rare while, a book comes along that makes you rethink everything you believed about Proust; Love, Subjectivity, and Truth is just such a book. It is original, persuasive, and as clear as it is erudite, and it has persuaded me to see matters of love and knowledge in an entirely new way. Elegantly written, and even moving at times, this is the best book on Proust I've read in many years." —Joshua Landy, author of The World According to Proust

Rick Anthony Furtak is associate professor of Philosophy at Colorado College. His work is focused on the moral psychology of the emotions, the relations between philosophy and literature, and the unique spirit of existential thought. He is past President of the Søren Kierkegaard Society. His translations from Rainer Maria Rilke and a book of his own poems are among his most recent publications.