The Condition of Language

【2 The Reading Self】(PARTIAL)

　　……

　　Marcel Proust, in the readers' eyes, is an author, who has been remembered in a particular literary style that he created. But it is exactly because of this, we somehow tend to forget about this - before Marcel Proust the author, there is Marcel Proust the person. He is a real human being who lived a life. That famous Madeleine cake connects to another real person in Proust's life - a family member who baked the cake - his grandmother. Before, or, after soaked ourselves in the labyrinth of Proust's texts, we ought to remind ourselves that the cake itself is not only a word, or only something literary in any case. Its taste does mean something extremely special to a person, in his childhood. As a writer and an adult, Proust recalled the memory which related to this cake - suddenly, automatically, and vividly.
　　Reading words and literary texts by writers, philosophers, or critics, we, as readers, firstly have a feeling of respecting these people, aroused by reading their work. We are fully amazed by what we read, because those literary texts stimulate our imagination, making us learn something new, feel something new, as we are all one step closer to be better persons. And yet, interestingly, all great writers or philosophers or critics - they tend to start reading when they were children. There are also, some family members - such as grandmothers of the authors who help to develop this interest of reading.

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　　Walter Benjamin, in his Berlin Childhood around 1900, mentioned about the way in which he came to his grandmother's apartment - Blumeshof 12 - feeling very safe and comfortable. He read his grandmother's handwriting, looked at her furniture, as a little boy. Moreover, in the grandmother's apartment, there was also the sensation of the sound of the doorbell ringing - as '[n]o bell sounded friendlier' (Benjamin 86).
　　As a boy, Benjamin felt even 'safer' in his grandmothers, comparing to be in his parents' (Benjamin 86). It is exactly this feeling of being safe, he could let his imagination go as far as it could be. Firstly, Benjamin read through the postcards that his grandmother sent him, during her 'long sea voyages' (Benjamin 86). All those places and all the high-class residences showed his grandmother's spirit of being a part of 'cosmopolitan' (Benjamin 86). For Benjamin the little boy - not the famous German critic, writer, and philosopher - his grandmother's handwriting showed that 'these places as so entirely occupied by her' (Benjamin 87) - as if his grandmother was the Queen, and these places 'became colonies of Blumeshof' (Benjamin 87) in this little boy's imagination.
　　Reading does stimulate one's imagination - no matter for a child or an adult. And this power of imagination can help one to achieve something particular. Benjamin's postcards, and his reading of them, later were developed into different energies. The reading became his passion of collecting (such as postcards). He also observed material objects in the cities (such as toys, children's books, Paris, Moscow) and paid attention to other kinds of collectors (such as the rag picking motive in Baudelaire's writing).

　　……

【2 The Reading Self】(PARTIAL)

　　……

　　Marcel Proust, in the readers' eyes, is an author, who has been remembered in a particular literary style that he created. But it is exactly because of this, we somehow tend to forget about this - before Marcel Proust the author, there is Marcel Proust the person. He is a real human being who lived a life. That famous Madeleine cake connects to another real person in Proust's life - a family member who baked the cake - his grandmother. Before, o...

【Acknowledgements】

　　I want to thank Mr. Michael Song, the President of Showwe Publisher (Taipei, Taiwan), for his encouragement and his thoughtfulness. My thanks also go to Irene Cheng and Lestat Yin for making this book possible.



【Preface】

　　The initial idea of writing such a book on the condition of language comes from a question, which was asked by Jean-Paul Sartre in his book, What is Literature? In fact, Sartre truly wanted to ask himself and the readers, this essential question - 'What is Writing'?
　　In Sartre's Words, again, he mentioned the way in which Charles Schweitzer was 'amazed' (Sartre 89) by the French language. In some ways, Schweitzer did not consider himself 'as a writer' - he 'played' with the language, and yet, 'had not quite made it his own' (Sartre 89).
　　Sartre's words indicate that to write in a specific language - as a writer - firstly one has to feel and to appreciate the sophistication of that particular language. Secondly, one needs to make this language his or her own, in order to make it alive in a written form.
　　Literature is not all about a play of a language, or a linguistic game. The written pages are not only a representation of the black and the white; the verbal and the visual. A writer somehow does not only write a book. He or she - most importantly - lives a book. The text itself does not only represent the condition of language - rather, it does represent the condition of one's own self.

Allison Lin
Gaziantep 2021

【Acknowledgements】

　　I want to thank Mr. Michael Song, the President of Showwe Publisher (Taipei, Taiwan), for his encouragement and his thoughtfulness. My thanks also go to Irene Cheng and Lestat Yin for making this book possible.



【Preface】

　　The initial idea of writing such a book on the condition of language comes from a question, which was asked by Jean-Paul Sartre in his book, What is Literature? In fact, Sartre truly wanted to ask himself and the readers, this essentia...

Acknowledgements
Preface

1 Seeing Nature and the Cities
2 The Reading Self

Works Cited

Acknowledgements
Preface

1 Seeing Nature and the Cities
2 The Reading Self

Works Cited