Proust and Beckett

 

Samuel Beckett

“And what is death but an emancipation from time? 

That is of course only on condition that death really means death, not an entry into another consciousness or another sphere. 

For Proust, the only real escape from life was into art and, through unexpected memory, into the golden moments of the past, always yielding a magic that is impossible in the present. 

But for Beckett even art was not enough. He saw it as a trap to turn our eyes away from the realities of life and the true horror of our predicament: facing the horror was for him the only way to be really alive.”

— John Calder, The Philosophy of Samuel Beckett

Marcel Proust