One evening at work, a year ago, I was listening to an audiobook on the big
names in French literature like Balzac and Flaubert and Proust, and
the lecturer got to the part where she said friendship doesn't work.
The context is a
part of "In Search of Lost Time" where this lady has a
friend finally tell her he's dying by saying he's terribly sorry that
he can't make it to the party. She goes to the party anyway. The
lecturer believes that anyone meeting such news would do the same --
live it up while you can, right? And her basic idea is that the
feeling of friendship is not enough to overcome one's inability to
communicate critical concepts. She says that according to Proust,
having friends doesn't really help you, that joining groups doesn't
help you, that people can turn on you at any moment.
I have to wonder
what kind of friends Proust had. Maybe when the lecturer says
"friend" she means "friendly acquaintance" and
not "good buddy who always had my back"? But if Proust
never really had the latter then I do NOT want to live in his world.
It sounds really cold.
And I know what
kind of friends I have, and what friendship means to me. It brought
me in out of the cold twice. Friendship made me who I am now, because of the help I
have received and the advice I have followed. I know my friends have
my back now, just as I try to do what I can for them.
And I have had
two hometown friends die. Both times, my friends here in town were
distraught, as I would expect anyone to be when they had a friend
die. The last time it happened I wound up sitting on the porch
looking up at the sky with "You Are The Moon" playing in my
head over and over.
Honestly, if you
tell someone you're dying and they're like "lol sucks bye"
then maybe they were never your friend in the first place! And the
lecturer thinks I would react the same? Well, I can't say exactly how
I would react, but give me or anyone else some credit -- that's not a
situation of low emotions.
It sounds like
Proust is saying all people are awful, but from what I know about my
own life, I know that's not realistic. There is good in this world
and it's worth fighting for.