Art as Counter-Transience

A thread I have seen tying the five course books so far together has been the use of art (particularly writing) as a method to preserve fleeting, transient moments or experiences.

Stephen is all about being an artist by the end of Portrait. Admittedly, he is focused more on capturing something with his art than a moment in time.

I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use--silence, exile, and cunning. (Joyce 268-289)

One of the most tender moments in Catcher (and one of my favorites) is when Holden writes the composition for Stradlater about Allie's baseball mitt (hence preserving him) and he recounts Allie's death to us for the first time. In this quotation, he expresses his sentiment to Phoebe:

"I like Allie," I said. "And I like doing what I'm doing right now. Sitting here with you, and talking, and thinking about stuff, and--"
"Allie's dead--You always say that! If somebody's dead and everything, and in Heaven, then it isn't really--"
"I know he's dead! Don't you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can't I? Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God's sake--especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're alive and all." (Salinger 171)

Also worthy of mention from Catcher is the Museum of Natural History:

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way--I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it. (Salinger 121-122)

In Black Swan Green, Madame Crommelynck describes her childhood home, Zedelgem Château:

“Do you still own it?”
“It no longer exists. The Germans built an airfield where you see, so the British, the Americans . . .” Her hand made a boom gesture. “Stones, craters, mud. Now is all little boxes for houses, a gasoline station, a supermarket. Out home who survived half a millennium exists now only in a few old heads. And a few old photographs. My wise friend Susan has written this. ‘By slicing out this moment and freezing it . . .’ ” Madame Crommelynck studied the girl she’d once been and tapped ash from her cigarette. “ ‘. . . all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.’ ” (Mitchell 157)

Even in the books without explicit reference to art as amber, the novels themselves function (and excel) as vessels of a specific time and place. (It could be said that such an effect is inherent to all art.) The Bell Jar chronicles Esther being dragged through mental illness and depression. In class, I recall a mention that Housekeeping, as written by Ruth, preserves both Edmund's house and transient imagery, such as the wind blowing leaves around the house.