Introduce Julien Bogousslavsky & Olivier Walusinski’s〈Marcel Proust and Paul Sollier: the involuntary memory connection〉

Your letter comes to me in a nursing home, which I have just entered, and where I shall not be able to write. Out of affection for you I am making an absolute exception by writing you this little note...... 
( To：Louisa de Mornand, circa December 6, 1905 /《The Letters of Marcel Proust》)


【緣起】
談到 Involuntary memory，總有著某種程度的心虛，就像一位熟識的朋友，其實我一直不知道他到底喜歡什麼？他的故鄉在哪？他是否已經有了女朋友？
雖然我可以侃侃而談《追憶似水年華》裡頭有幾個重要的場景代表著 Involuntary memory 的出現，但真要問我 Involuntary memory 的定義為何？有什麼理論基礎嗎？似乎我只能瞠目結舌，無言以對…原來所謂熟識的朋友就只是點頭之交？

回溯古希臘哲學，我能夠清楚解釋柏拉圖所說的：「所有的知識不過是記憶」嗎？亞里斯多德的《論記憶》談的又是什麼？又或者我真的能夠區別柏格森的「記憶」哲學究竟與普魯斯特有何不同？

心虛之餘，就讓我再從一篇醫學史的報導試著找到一位醉心於研究「記憶」的 Dr. Paul Sollier 他那隱沒的身影吧！或許能夠再給我一些支持的力量從容面對那潛藏於內心隨著年紀增長更形巨大的無知 (Ignorance)。


【Dr. Paul Sollier 何人也】
援往例，請先參考維基百科的內容，對 Dr. Paul Sollier 就能夠有一些初步認識
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Sollier

而我想提的重點應該是以下這一句：
「Already in the 1890s, he developed cognitive-behavioral therapies, which he applied to his most famous patient Marcel Proust. Proust largely inspired himself from Sollier's The Problem of Memory (1900) for his emphasis on involuntary memory in his novel In Search of Lost Time.」
 

【SUMMARY】
這篇文章開宗明義就給了我們一個「總結」，有關 Dr. Paul Sollier 與 Proust 的因緣際會、Dr. Paul Sollier 對於記憶的專研，以及對 Proust 寫作上可能的影響。
http://www.baillement.com/lettres/sollier_involontary.pdf (全文出處)

「Bogousslavsky J, Walusinski O. Marcel Proust and Paul Sollier: the involuntary memory connection.Schweiz Arch Neurol Psychiatr. 2009;160:130–6.
In December 1905, eight years before he published the first volume of “In Search of Lost Time”, Marcel Proust entered a sanatorium (療養所) to follow a six-week treatment for “neurasthenia” (神經衰弱症) under the care of Dr Paul Sollier who, along with Babinski, was considered the cleverest pupil of Charcot. Following Charcot’s wish, Sollier had studied memory in depth, and he used this knowledge to provoke emotional surges of involuntary memories in his patients. Proust’s novel contains over 1200 allusions to memory, with a specific emphasis on involuntary memory, which was largely inspired by Sollier’s theories.
Beyond that, Sollier highlighted several other concepts which make him a major precursor of modern cognitive neurology: memory stabilization requires specific conditions, learning is based on cellular changes and plasticity (可塑性), memory is a universal phenomenon of the nervous system, memory organisation centres differ from perception centres, memory organisation is controlled by the frontal lobe, and neurophysiological (神經生理學的) mechanisms explain the difference between perception and memory.The rediscovery of Sollier’s extraordinary work on memory should rehabilitate a forgotten, atypical neurologist whose critical interest in psychology may, in retrospect, make him one of the first modern neuro-psychologists (神經心理學家).」


【SELECTIONS】
在「總結」之外，其實這篇文章還給了我們很多跟 Proust 相關而值得深入探討的線索，以下我摘要幾段精彩的片段給大家參考。

Sollier’s work on memory
「Sollier asked a series of simple questions, such as: What are the cellular modifications that underlie the process of memory? Which brain regions are active in memory? What are the components of autobiographical memories? What are the mechanisms of remembering? How do invariant and variable features of memories match with each other? Sollier’s main references include Ribot, Richet, Ebbinghaus and Pitres, while he virulently criticised Bergson’s spiritualist theories and poor knowledge of brain anatomy and function.」

Sollier 醫生在 Proust 的傳記中成為一個無法抹滅的名字，畢竟他曾經伴隨 Proust 長達 6 週的時間，就在他設立於巴黎近郊 Boulogne-Billancour 的療養所，時值 1905 年 12 月初的隆冬，也正是 Proust 母喪之後才剛過 2 個月不久，Proust 終究聽從 Sollier 醫生的建議離家治療他那神經衰弱的病症。
Proust 對於這段期間的療養並不認為有效，甚至感覺更糟，但或許是他本人還無法走出母喪的悲痛，也或許是 Proust 的幾位好友三番兩次的拜訪影響了 Sollier 醫生隔離治療的效果。
傳記中提到 Proust 跟 Sollier 醫生真正的交集其實是 Sollier 醫生對柏格森哲學輕蔑的評論，而這似乎讓 Proust 難以認同，但以下這一段內容則又反駁了 Proust 和 Sollier 醫生的意見相左的看法，甚至認為 Proust 在筆記本裡頭書寫 Sollier 醫生的名字流露出他不經意的致敬方式？
「However, in his 1908 notebook, in which he elaborated the framework for his novel, Proust wrote down Sollier’s name just beside the main involuntary memory phenomenon which leads to the final key understanding in the novel. This probably constitutes the best – though involuntary homage that Proust could ever give to Sollier. 」


Involuntary memory
「Although the phenomenon of an involuntary surge of memories had already been mentioned by Aristotle, Voltaire, Diderot and, more recently, by other neurologists such as Pitres, Sollier was the first to analyse this surge in such detail, in order to use it during specific therapy for his patients. He transformed Ribot’s idea that “forgetting is the condition of memory” into “the passage from the Conscious to the Unconscious”, with the reverse phenomenon during “re-experiencing” (“reviviscence”): “A memory is an image […] which reproduces a past impression. Re-experiencing is something more: it is not only the appearance of an image into the field of consciousness, but this appearance is so clear and is accompanied by such a precise and intense reproduction of the state of personality of the subject at the time of the initial impression, that this subject again believes they are going through the same events as before”」

Dr Paul Sollier 成為了第一位研究 involuntary memory 的學者，同時也把這個理論運用到病患的治療方法上。至於 Sollier 醫生提到有關 involuntary memory 如何與感情的 (affective) 或情感的 (emotional) 因素連結的部份，就可能還要讀者自己細看整段文章囉！


In search of lost time
「This is the exact translation of the title of Proust’s novel, which first appeared in English as the inaccurate rendition “Remembrance of Things Past”. We counted 1210 uses of terms relating to memory (like remembering, forgetting, recall, etc.) on 3125 pages, which corresponds to an allusion to memory every 2.6 pages. In the 270 pages of volume 6 (“The Fugitive”), memory is quoted more than once per page. Although certain experts have claimed that memory is not the central concept in the novel, “In Search of Lost Time” probably remains the great novel of autobiographic memory. This is not the venue to discuss the place of memory in Proust’s work, but we believe that it contains a thorough analysis of at least 10 main topics on memory: involuntary memory, voluntary memory, affective memory, the constructive and deconstructive process of memory, reality–memory discrepancy, the phenomenology of memory and remembering, habitude, forgetting, memory processing into patterns, the role of time in memory and memory dysfunction.」

這一段內容極具參考價值，雖然德勒茲認為：「普魯斯特的著作奠基於對於符號的學習，而非對於記憶的揭示。」，但這裡卻是認真計算「記憶」出現的次數及頻率，同時也揭示了 10 個有關「記憶」的主題。

「However, Proust went beyond Sollier on two matters. Firstly, he emphasized the “shock” provoked by the surge of a previously forgotten vivid memory, which may lead to an intense feeling of happiness and beatitude due to the affective overlap between the past and the present. This phenomenon leads to a synthesis of past and present persons in the subject, with a feeling of untemporality. Secondly, the resurgence of vivid past memories first produces an impression, which may subsequently lead to desire and decision, to be followed by action.」

最後，本文作者提出了兩點 Proust 迴異於 Dr Paul Sollier 對於「記憶」的看法：第一點是先前遺忘的鮮明記憶所引發的震撼 (shock) 將導致一種快樂或至福的強烈情感；第二點則是認為同樣藉由記憶產生印象之後將藉由行動發展成慾望或決定。


【後記】
這一篇極像是考古的學術論文，揭露了這些鮮為人知的歷史人物與事蹟，本文作者重新點燃 involuntary memory 的火炬，讓我們幸運看到那一段失落的時光所映照出的普魯斯特及 Dr Paul Sollier 的身影。

然而，我突然感到困惑，身為讀者的我們想要了解一位偉大的作家究竟需要多少的時間？而一部偉大的作品又真正耗費一位偉大的作家多少的時間？

或許說自詡為「文藝中年」的我，應當立志以「成為最偉大的讀者」做為人生努力的目標吧！