So when I was eight years old, a new girl came to join the class, and she was so impressive, as the new girl always seems to be. She had vast quantities of very shiny hair and a cute little pencil case, super strong on state capitals, just a great speller. And I just curdled with jealousy that year, until I hatched my devious plan. So one day I stayed a little late after school, a little too late, and I lurked in the girls' bathroom. When the coast was clear, I emerged, crept into the classroom, and took from my teacher's desk the grade book. And then I did it. I fiddled with my rival's grades, just a little, just demoted some of those A's. All of those A's. (Laughter) And I got ready to return the book to the drawer, when hang on, some of my other classmates had appallingly good grades too. So, in a frenzy, I corrected everybody's marks, not imaginatively. I gave everybody a row of D's and I gave myself a row of A's, just because I was there, you know, might as well.
Torej, ko sem imela osem let, je v razred prišla nova deklica. Bila je čudovita, kot so ponavadi vse nove deklice. Imela je ogromno količino zelo svetlečih las in ljubko majhno peresnico, še glavna mesta je znala na pamet, bila je odlična v črkovanju. Tisto leto me je zvijalo od ljubosumja, potem pa sem razvila svoj zlobni načrt. Nekega dne sem po pouku <br> malo dlje ostala v šoli in se skrila v dekliško stranišče. Ko je bil zrak čist, sem prišla ven, se splazila v učilnico in vzela redovalnico z učiteljeve mize. In potem sem nekaj naredila. Spremenila sem ocene svoje tekmice, čisto malo, malo sem znižala nekaj njenih petic. Pravzaprav vse petice. (Smeh). Skoraj sem že vrnila redovalnico v predal, ampak čakaj, tudi nekateri drugi sošolci so imeli odvratno dobre ocene. V svoji blaznosti sem spremenila ocene vsem, a ne kar tako. Vsem sem dala po nekaj dvojk, sebi pa nekaj petic, ker sem pač bila tam, saj veste - zakaj pa ne.
And I am still baffled by my behavior. I don't understand where the idea came from. I don't understand why I felt so great doing it. I felt great. I don't understand why I was never caught. I mean, it should have been so blatantly obvious. I was never caught. But most of all, I am baffled by, why did it bother me so much that this little girl, this tiny little girl, was so good at spelling? Jealousy baffles me. It's so mysterious, and it's so pervasive. We know babies suffer from jealousy. We know primates do. Bluebirds are actually very prone. We know that jealousy is the number one cause of spousal murder in the United States. And yet, I have never read a study that can parse to me its loneliness or its longevity or its grim thrill. For that, we have to go to fiction, because the novel is the lab that has studied jealousy in every possible configuration. In fact, I don't know if it's an exaggeration to say that if we didn't have jealousy, would we even have literature? Well no faithless Helen, no "Odyssey." No jealous king, no "Arabian Nights." No Shakespeare. There goes high school reading lists, because we're losing "Sound and the Fury," we're losing "Gatsby," "Sun Also Rises," we're losing "Madame Bovary," "Anna K." No jealousy, no Proust. And now, I mean, I know it's fashionable to say that Proust has the answers to everything, but in the case of jealousy, he kind of does. This year is the centennial of his masterpiece, "In Search of Lost Time," and it's the most exhaustive study of sexual jealousy and just regular competitiveness, my brand, that we can hope to have. (Laughter) And we think about Proust, we think about the sentimental bits, right? We think about a little boy trying to get to sleep. We think about a madeleine moistened in lavender tea. We forget how harsh his vision was. We forget how pitiless he is. I mean, these are books that Virginia Woolf said were tough as cat gut. I don't know what cat gut is, but let's assume it's formidable.
Še vedno se čudim svojemu obnašanju. Ne razumem, odkod sem dobila zamisel. Ne razumem, zakaj sem se počutila tako dobro, ko sem to počela. Odlično sem se počutila. Ne razumem, zakaj me niso nikoli ujeli. Hočem reči, bilo je ja očitno. Nikoli me niso ujeli. Najbolj od vsega pa me čudi, da me je tako motilo, da je ta majhna deklica, ta drobcena deklica tako obvladala črkovanje. Ljubosumje me čudi. Tako skrivnostno, tako prodorno je. Vemo, da so dojenčki ljubosumni. Primati prav tako. Drozgi so temu zelo podvrženi. Vemo, da je ljubosumje največji vzrok za umore partnerjev v ZDA. A nisem še naletela na študijo, ki bi razčlenila njegovo samotnost, dolgotrajnost ali grozljivo vznemirljivost. Za to se moramo zateči k fikciji, saj je roman laboratorij, ki ljubosumje proučuje v vseh možnih oblikah. Pravzaprav morda ni pretirano reči, da če ne bi bilo ljubosumja, morda sploh ne bi imeli literature? Nobene nezveste Helene, nobene Odiseje. Nobenega ljubosumnega kralja, nobenih Arabskih noči. Nobenega Shakespeara. Adijo gimnazijsko domače branje, saj ne bi bilo romana Krik in bes, ne bi bilo Gatsby-ja, ne romana Sonce tudi vzhaja, izgubili bi Gospo Bovary, Ano K. Brez ljubosumja ne bi bilo Prousta. Saj vem, da je moderno reči, da ima Proust odgovore na vsa vprašanja, a v primeru ljubosumja jih nekako res ima. Letos mineva sto let od njegove mojstrovine V iskanju izgubljenega časa, kar je najbolj poglobljena študija seksualnega ljubosumja in splošne tekmovalnosti - to je moja spretnost - kar bi jih sploh lahko imeli. (Smeh). Ko pomislimo na Prousta, se spomnimo bolj sentimentalnih delov, kajne? Spomnimo se dečka, ki se trudi zaspati. Pa magdalenic namočenih v sivkin čaj. Pozabimo, kako oster je bil. Kako nemilosten. To so vendar knjige, za katere je Virginia Woolf dejala, da so napete kot struna. Ne vem, kako močne so strune, a predstavljajmo si, da so izjemne.
Let's look at why they go so well together, the novel and jealousy, jealousy and Proust. Is it something as obvious as that jealousy, which boils down into person, desire, impediment, is such a solid narrative foundation? I don't know. I think it cuts very close to the bone, because let's think about what happens when we feel jealous. When we feel jealous, we tell ourselves a story. We tell ourselves a story about other people's lives, and these stories make us feel terrible because they're designed to make us feel terrible. As the teller of the tale and the audience, we know just what details to include, to dig that knife in. Right? Jealousy makes us all amateur novelists, and this is something Proust understood.
Poglejmo, zakaj tako lepo gresta skupaj, roman in ljubosumje, ljubosumje in Proust. Je morda očitno, da je ljubosumje, ki se zreducira na osebo, poželenje, oviro, enostavno tako trdna osnova za zgodbo? Ne vem. Mislim, da je to blizu resnici. Kaj se namreč zgodi, ko smo ljuosumni? Ko smo ljubosumni, si pripovedujemo zgodbo. Zgodbo o življenju drugih ljudi, zaradi česar se počutimo grozno, saj je tak tudi namen takih zgodb. Kot pripovedovalec in občinstvo vemo, katere podrobnosti naj vključimo, da bi še globlje zarili nož. Mar ne? Zaradi ljubosumja postanemo ljubiteljski pisatelji, kar je Proust dobro razumel.
In the first volume, Swann's Way, the series of books, Swann, one of the main characters, is thinking very fondly of his mistress and how great she is in bed, and suddenly, in the course of a few sentences, and these are Proustian sentences, so they're long as rivers, but in the course of a few sentences, he suddenly recoils and he realizes, "Hang on, everything I love about this woman, somebody else would love about this woman. Everything that she does that gives me pleasure could be giving somebody else pleasure, maybe right about now." And this is the story he starts to tell himself, and from then on, Proust writes that every fresh charm Swann detects in his mistress, he adds to his "collection of instruments in his private torture chamber."
V prvem delu, V Swannovem svetu, ki je serija knjig, Swann, eden od glavnih junakov, ljubeče razmišlja o svoji ljubici in o tem, kako dobra je v postelji. Potem pa v nekaj povedih in to so Proustove povedi, torej so dolge kot reka, v nekaj povedih spremeni pogled in ugotovi: "Čakaj, vse, kar ljubim na tej ženski, bi lahko ljubil tudi kdo drug. V vsem, pri čemer z njo uživam, bi lahko užival tudi kdo drug, morda prav zdaj." Pripovedovati si začne to zgodbo in odtlej, piše Proust, vsaka nova privlačna stvar, ki jo Swann opazi pri ljubici, postane del njegove "zbirke orodij v njegovi zasebni mučilnici."
Now Swann and Proust, we have to admit, were notoriously jealous. You know, Proust's boyfriends would have to leave the country if they wanted to break up with him. But you don't have to be that jealous to concede that it's hard work. Right? Jealousy is exhausting. It's a hungry emotion. It must be fed.
Priznati moramo, da sta bila tako Swann kot Proust znana po ljubosumju. Proustovi ljubimci so morali zapustiti državo, če so hoteli končati razmerje z njim. A ni treba biti tako ljubosumen, da bi priznali, da je to zahteven opravek. Ne? Ljubosumje nas izčrpa. Lačno čustvo je. Treba ga je hraniti.
And what does jealousy like? Jealousy likes information. Jealousy likes details. Jealousy likes the vast quantities of shiny hair, the cute little pencil case. Jealousy likes photos. That's why Instagram is such a hit. (Laughter) Proust actually links the language of scholarship and jealousy. When Swann is in his jealous throes, and suddenly he's listening at doorways and bribing his mistress' servants, he defends these behaviors. He says, "You know, look, I know you think this is repugnant, but it is no different from interpreting an ancient text or looking at a monument." He says, "They are scientific investigations with real intellectual value." Proust is trying to show us that jealousy feels intolerable and makes us look absurd, but it is, at its crux, a quest for knowledge, a quest for truth, painful truth, and actually, where Proust is concerned, the more painful the truth, the better. Grief, humiliation, loss: These were the avenues to wisdom for Proust. He says, "A woman whom we need, who makes us suffer, elicits from us a gamut of feelings far more profound and vital than a man of genius who interests us." Is he telling us to just go and find cruel women? No. I think he's trying to say that jealousy reveals us to ourselves. And does any other emotion crack us open in this particular way? Does any other emotion reveal to us our aggression and our hideous ambition and our entitlement? Does any other emotion teach us to look with such peculiar intensity?
In kaj mu je všeč? Podatki. Podrobnosti. Velike količine svetlečih las, ljubka majhna peresnica. Ljubosumje ima rado fotografije. Zato je Instagram tak hit. (Smeh) Proust pravzaprav poveže akademski jezik in ljubosumje. Ko je Swann v oklepu ljubosumja, ko naenkrat prisluškuje pri vratih, ko podkupuje ljubičine služabnike, brani svoje ravnanje. Pravi:" Poglejte, vem, da mislite, da je to odvratno, a nič drugače ni kot interpretirati starinsko besedilo ali si ogledovati spomenik." Pravi: "To so znanstvene raziskave s pravo intelektualno vrednostjo." Proust nam želi pokazati, da se ljubosumje zdi nevzdržno in da nas dela absurdne, a je v svojem jedru iskanje védenja, iskanje resnice, boleče resnice, in kar se tiče Prousta, pravzaprav, bolj boleča ko je resnica, toliko bolje. Žalovanje, ponižanje, izguba. To so bile Proustove poti k modrosti. Dejal je: "Ženska, ki jo potrebujemo, zaradi katere trpimo, v nas zbuja spekter čustev, ki so veliko globlja in bolj bistvena, kot bi to uspelo geniju, ki nas zanima." Nam mar pravi, naj gremo iskat krute ženske? Ne. Mislim, da hoče reči, da nas ljubosumje razkrije nam samim. Nas še kakšno drugo čustvo odpre na tak način? Ali nam kako drugo čustvo razkrije lastno agresivnost in odvratno ambicijo ter zahtevo po tistem, kar nam po naše pripada? Nas katero drugo čustvo uči gledati s tako posebno intenzivnostjo?
Freud would write about this later. One day, Freud was visited by this very anxious young man who was consumed with the thought of his wife cheating on him. And Freud says, it's something strange about this guy, because he's not looking at what his wife is doing. Because she's blameless; everybody knows it. The poor creature is just under suspicion for no cause. But he's looking for things that his wife is doing without noticing, unintentional behaviors. Is she smiling too brightly here, or did she accidentally brush up against a man there? [Freud] says that the man is becoming the custodian of his wife's unconscious.
Freud je kasneje pisal o tem. Nekega dne ga je obiskal tesnoben mladenič, ki ga je obsedla misel na to, da ga žena vara. Freud je menil, da je na tem moškem nekaj čudnega, saj ni opazoval, kaj počne njegova žena. Bila je nedolžna, vsi so to vedeli. Ampak ubožico je brez razloga sumil. Iskal je kretnje, ki jih je delala podzavestno, iskal je naključno obnašanje. Se tu morda preveč smehlja, se je tam morda po nesreči dotaknila moškega? Freud meni, da je mož postal skrbnik ženine podzavesti.
The novel is very good on this point. The novel is very good at describing how jealousy trains us to look with intensity but not accuracy. In fact, the more intensely jealous we are, the more we become residents of fantasy. And this is why, I think, jealousy doesn't just provoke us to do violent things or illegal things. Jealousy prompts us to behave in ways that are wildly inventive. Now I'm thinking of myself at eight, I concede, but I'm also thinking of this story I heard on the news. A 52-year-old Michigan woman was caught creating a fake Facebook account from which she sent vile, hideous messages to herself for a year. For a year. A year. And she was trying to frame her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend, and I have to confess when I heard this, I just reacted with admiration. (Laughter) Because, I mean, let's be real. What immense, if misplaced, creativity. Right? This is something from a novel. This is something from a Patricia Highsmith novel.
Roman je pri tem odličen. Odlično opisuje, kako nas ljubosumje nauči gledati intenzivno, a nenatančno. Pravzaprav bolj ko smo intenzivno ljubosumni, bolj postajamo del fantazije. Mislim, da nas ljubosumje zato ne vodi samo v nasilje ali v nelegalna dejanja. Ljubosumje povzroči, da se obnašamo na noro iznajdljive načine. Pri tem mislim nase pri osmih letih, priznam, mislim pa tudi na zgodbo, ki sem jo našla v novicah. 52-letno žensko iz Michigana so ujeli, ko je ustvarila lažni profil na Facebooku, od koder je leto dni pošiljala zlobna, grozna sporočila sami sebi. Eno leto. Eno leto. Hotela je obtožiti novo punco svojega bivšega fanta. Priznati moram, da ko sem to slišala, sem jo občudovala. (Smeh) Ker, hočem reči, bodimo iskreni. Kakšna neznanska, čeprav neustrezna kreativnost. Ne? To je nekaj, o čemer beremo v romanu. To je nekaj iz knjig Patricie Highsmith.
Now Highsmith is a particular favorite of mine. She is the very brilliant and bizarre woman of American letters. She's the author of "Strangers on a Train" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley," books that are all about how jealousy, it muddles our minds, and once we're in the sphere, in that realm of jealousy, the membrane between what is and what could be can be pierced in an instant. Take Tom Ripley, her most famous character. Now, Tom Ripley goes from wanting you or wanting what you have to being you and having what you once had, and you're under the floorboards, he's answering to your name, he's wearing your rings, emptying your bank account. That's one way to go.
Highsmithova je ena mojih najljubših. Odlična in bizarna ženska ameriške literature je. Je avtorica Tujcev na vlaku in Nadarjenega gospoda Ripleya. Ti knjigi prikazujeta, kako ljubosumje zamegli naš razum, in ko smo enkrat v sferi, v območju ljubosumja, lahko membrano med tem, kar je in kar bi lahko bilo, prebodemo v trenutku. Tom Ripley, njen najslavnejši junak, recimo. Ripley gre od želje po tebi ali po tem, kar imaš, do tega, da postane ti in ima, kar si nekoč imel, ti pa si pod rušo, oglaša se na tvoje ime, nosi tvoje prstane, prazni tvoj bančni račun. To je eden od načinov.
But what do we do? We can't go the Tom Ripley route. I can't give the world D's, as much as I would really like to, some days. And it's a pity, because we live in envious times. We live in jealous times. I mean, we're all good citizens of social media, aren't we, where the currency is envy?
Kaj lahko naredimo? Ne moremo ponavljati za Tomom Ripleyem. Ne morem vsemu svetu dati dvojke, čeprav bi si včasih zelo želela. Škoda, saj živimo v ljubosumnih časih. Živimo v ljubosumnih časih. Hočem reči, vsi smo dobri državljani družbenih medijev, kajne, kjer je ljubosumje valuta.
Does the novel show us a way out? I'm not sure. So let's do what characters always do when they're not sure, when they are in possession of a mystery. Let's go to 221B Baker Street and ask for Sherlock Holmes. When people think of Holmes, they think of his nemesis being Professor Moriarty, right, this criminal mastermind. But I've always preferred [Inspector] Lestrade, who is the rat-faced head of Scotland Yard who needs Holmes desperately, needs Holmes' genius, but resents him. Oh, it's so familiar to me. So Lestrade needs his help, resents him, and sort of seethes with bitterness over the course of the mysteries. But as they work together, something starts to change, and finally in "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons," once Holmes comes in, dazzles everybody with his solution, Lestrade turns to Holmes and he says, "We're not jealous of you, Mr. Holmes. We're proud of you." And he says that there's not a man at Scotland Yard who wouldn't want to shake Sherlock Holmes' hand.
Nam roman kaže izhod? Nisem prepričana. Naredimo to, kar junaki naredijo, ko niso prepričani, ko se znajdejo pred skrivnostjo. Gremo na Baker street 221B in povprašajmo po Sherlocku Holmesu. Ko ljudje pomislijo na Holmesa, se spomnijo njegovega antijunaka, profesorja Moriartija, njegovega genialnega kriminalca. A meni je ljubši inšpektor Lestrade, neprivlačni šef Scotland Yarda, ki Holmesa nujno potrebuje, potrebuje njegov razum, a ga prezira. To mi je tako znano. Lestrade ga potrebuje, ga prezira in poka od zagrenjenosti pri reševanju skrivnosti. Ko pa sodelujeta, se nekaj spremeni, in končno v Pustolovščini šestih Napoleonov, ko Holmes vstopi in vse očara s svojo rešitvijo, se Lestrade obrne k njemu in reče: "Nismo ljubosumni na vas, g. Holmes. Ponosni smo na vas." Doda, da ga ni moža na Scotland Yardu, ki se ne bi želel rokovati s Holmesom.
It's one of the few times we see Holmes moved in the mysteries, and I find it very moving, this little scene, but it's also mysterious, right? It seems to treat jealousy as a problem of geometry, not emotion. You know, one minute Holmes is on the other side from Lestrade. The next minute they're on the same side. Suddenly, Lestrade is letting himself admire this mind that he's resented. Could it be so simple though? What if jealousy really is a matter of geometry, just a matter of where we allow ourselves to stand in relation to another? Well, maybe then we wouldn't have to resent somebody's excellence. We could align ourselves with it.
To je eden redkih trenutkov, v katerih vidimo Holmesa ganjenega, kar se tudi meni zdi ganljivo, a ta kratek prizor je obenem tudi skrivnosten, ne? Zdi se, da ljubosumje obravnava kot problem geometrije, ne čustev. Veste, v enem trenutku je Holmes nasprotje Lestrada. V drugem sta na isti strani. Naenkrat si Lestrade dovoli občudovati razum, ki ga je preziral. Je lahko tako enostavno? Kaj, če je ljubosumje res stvar geometrije, stvar tega, kam se postavimo glede na drugega? No, morda nam potem ni treba prezirati odličnosti nekoga drugega. Lahko se uskladimo z njo.
But I like contingency plans. So while we wait for that to happen, let us remember that we have fiction for consolation. Fiction alone demystifies jealousy. Fiction alone domesticates it, invites it to the table. And look who it gathers: sweet Lestrade, terrifying Tom Ripley, crazy Swann, Marcel Proust himself. We are in excellent company. Thank you. (Applause)
A jaz imam rada rezervne načrte. Ko čakamo, da se to zgodi, se spomnimo, da nas lahko tolaži literatura. Fikcija sama odvzame skrivnostnost ljubosumju. Udomači ga in ga povabi k mizi. In glejte, kdo se zbere: nežni Lestrade, grozljivi Tom Ripley, nori Swann, sam Marcel Proust. V odlični družbi smo. Hvala. (Aplavz)