Beautiful cheese that is already eaten

The Image of Proust Illuminations Walter Benjamin

II

Approaching things that are hard to understand often starts by focusing on things that are clear but maybe not connected to the meaning of what is to be understood. So here we'll start at the beginning and the end of the passage. At the start Benjamin finds a peculiarity of how we keep things to ourselves even to our closest friends who we cultivate almost for the sole purpose of sharing intimate things. The end consists of Benjamin explaining Proust's relation to his own class and how he satirizes it while being part of it.

His description of Proust is a vaporous being without form. He takes on the guise of the people around him but for the purpose of mocking them in a subtle way by observing their chatter. Apparently his world is one that is cultivated and has Machiavellian kindness and to appropriately mock this class of people one must also learn its rules. Benjamin praises Proust for his satire but also at his skill for being part of the bourgeois culture that he haunts which however horrendous requires intellect.

Proust does not exhibit brevity nor directness of thought. In this way explaining we keep the direct motive of our actions to ourselves and endlessly describe the details that surround it. These details, however, reveal a great deal about who's talking and tend to be sultry and erotic. As we avoid being rational we then become poetic and the details of ordinary things are symbols for what we desire but directly relate to the world around us.

The class the Proust inhabits is characterized by Benjamin as a group of snobs. People who consume other people's labor without producing anything of value. Their culture depends on being particular about the things they consume and being convincing that it is a skill that rewards them with their lifestyle without having to work.

In their material ways Benjamin relates them to plants who are rooted and depend on the sun. But I think he back tracks on this because even though plants might look like laggards, they still are hard at work growing. As we contemplate this severed garden we can bring back a theme Benjamin wrote in an essay past. Previously he discussed a garden which a critic speaks into and hears his own echo. Perhaps this is was Proust is doing to his severed garden and is involved with the lost time he cherishes.

Female Centaurs Imagines Philostratus

We first start thinking about how centaurs are born. The author suggest maybe they just pop out of rocks or maybe just a transformed horse. But we quickly turn away from why centaurs exist to their beauty. Which sounds more and more like the likely answer to begin with. Their beauty does not lie in something material but in being two things at the same time.