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So when I was eight years old,

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a new girl came to join the class,

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and she was so impressive,

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as the new girl always seems to be.

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She had vast quantities of very shiny hair

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and a cute little pencil case,

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super strong on state capitals,

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just a great speller.

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And I just curdled with jealousy that year,

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until I hatched my devious plan.

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So one day I stayed a little late after school,

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a little too late, and I lurked in the girls' bathroom.

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When the coast was clear, I emerged,

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crept into the classroom,

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and took from my teacher's desk the grade book.

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And then I did it.

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I fiddled with my rival's grades,

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just a little, just demoted some of those A's.

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All of those A's. (Laughter)

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And I got ready to return the book to the drawer,

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when hang on, some of my other classmates

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had appallingly good grades too.

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So, in a frenzy,

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I corrected everybody's marks,

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not imaginatively.

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I gave everybody a row of D's

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and I gave myself a row of A's,

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just because I was there, you know, might as well.

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And I am still baffled by my behavior.

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I don't understand where the idea came from.

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I don't understand why I felt so great doing it.

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I felt great.

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I don't understand why I was never caught.

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I mean, it should have been so blatantly obvious.

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I was never caught.

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But most of all, I am baffled by,

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why did it bother me so much

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that this little girl, this tiny little girl,

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was so good at spelling?

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Jealousy baffles me.

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It's so mysterious, and it's so pervasive.

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We know babies suffer from jealousy.

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We know primates do. Bluebirds are actually very prone.

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We know that jealousy is the number one cause

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of spousal murder in the United States.

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And yet, I have never read a study

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that can parse to me its loneliness

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or its longevity or its grim thrill.

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For that, we have to go to fiction,

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because the novel is the lab

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that has studied jealousy

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in every possible configuration.

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In fact, I don't know if it's an exaggeration to say

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that if we didn't have jealousy,

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would we even have literature?

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Well no faithless Helen, no "Odyssey."

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No jealous king, no "Arabian Nights."

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No Shakespeare.

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There goes high school reading lists,

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because we're losing "Sound and the Fury,"

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we're losing "Gatsby," "Sun Also Rises,"

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we're losing "Madame Bovary," "Anna K."

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No jealousy, no Proust. And now, I mean,

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I know it's fashionable to say that Proust

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has the answers to everything,

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but in the case of jealousy,

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he kind of does.

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This year is the centennial of his masterpiece, "In Search of Lost Time,"

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and it's the most exhaustive study of sexual jealousy

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and just regular competitiveness, my brand,

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that we can hope to have. (Laughter)

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And we think about Proust, we think

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about the sentimental bits, right?

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We think about a little boy trying to get to sleep.

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We think about a madeleine moistened in lavender tea.

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We forget how harsh his vision was.

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We forget how pitiless he is.

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I mean, these are books that Virginia Woolf said

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were tough as cat gut.

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I don't know what cat gut is,

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but let's assume it's formidable.

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Let's look at why they go so well together,

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the novel and jealousy, jealousy and Proust.

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Is it something as obvious as that jealousy,

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which boils down into person, desire, impediment,

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is such a solid narrative foundation?

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I don't know. I think it cuts very close to the bone,

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because let's think about what happens

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when we feel jealous.

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When we feel jealous, we tell ourselves a story.

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We tell ourselves a story about other people's lives,

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and these stories make us feel terrible

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because they're designed to make us feel terrible.

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As the teller of the tale and the audience,

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we know just what details to include,

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to dig that knife in. Right?

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Jealousy makes us all amateur novelists,

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and this is something Proust understood.

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In the first volume, Swann's Way,

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the series of books,

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Swann, one of the main characters,

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is thinking very fondly of his mistress

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and how great she is in bed,

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and suddenly, in the course of a few sentences,

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and these are Proustian sentences,

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so they're long as rivers,

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but in the course of a few sentences,

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he suddenly recoils and he realizes,

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"Hang on, everything I love about this woman,

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somebody else would love about this woman.

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Everything that she does that gives me pleasure

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could be giving somebody else pleasure,

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maybe right about now."

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And this is the story he starts to tell himself,

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and from then on, Proust writes that

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every fresh charm Swann detects in his mistress,

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he adds to his "collection of instruments

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in his private torture chamber."

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Now Swann and Proust, we have to admit,

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were notoriously jealous.

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You know, Proust's boyfriends would have to leave

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the country if they wanted to break up with him.

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But you don't have to be that jealous

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to concede that it's hard work. Right?

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Jealousy is exhausting.

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It's a hungry emotion. It must be fed.

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And what does jealousy like?

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Jealousy likes information.

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Jealousy likes details.

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Jealousy likes the vast quantities of shiny hair,

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the cute little pencil case.

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Jealousy likes photos.

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That's why Instagram is such a hit. (Laughter)

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Proust actually links the language of scholarship and jealousy.

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When Swann is in his jealous throes,

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and suddenly he's listening at doorways

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and bribing his mistress' servants,

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he defends these behaviors.

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He says, "You know, look, I know you think this is repugnant,

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but it is no different

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from interpreting an ancient text

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or looking at a monument."

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He says, "They are scientific investigations

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with real intellectual value."

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Proust is trying to show us that jealousy

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feels intolerable and makes us look absurd,

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but it is, at its crux, a quest for knowledge,

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a quest for truth, painful truth,

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and actually, where Proust is concerned,

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the more painful the truth, the better.

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Grief, humiliation, loss:

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These were the avenues to wisdom for Proust.

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He says, "A woman whom we need,

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who makes us suffer, elicits from us

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a gamut of feelings far more profound and vital

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than a man of genius who interests us."

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Is he telling us to just go and find cruel women?

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No. I think he's trying to say

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that jealousy reveals us to ourselves.

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And does any other emotion crack us open

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in this particular way?

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Does any other emotion reveal to us

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our aggression and our hideous ambition

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and our entitlement?

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Does any other emotion teach us to look

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with such peculiar intensity?

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Freud would write about this later.

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One day, Freud was visited

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by this very anxious young man who was consumed

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with the thought of his wife cheating on him.

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And Freud says, it's something strange about this guy,

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because he's not looking at what his wife is doing.

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Because she's blameless; everybody knows it.

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The poor creature is just

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under suspicion for no cause.

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But he's looking for things that his wife is doing

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without noticing, unintentional behaviors.

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Is she smiling too brightly here,

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or did she accidentally brush up against a man there?

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[Freud] says that the man is becoming

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the custodian of his wife's unconscious.

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The novel is very good on this point.

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The novel is very good at describing how jealousy

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trains us to look with intensity but not accuracy.

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In fact, the more intensely jealous we are,

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the more we become residents of fantasy.

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And this is why, I think, jealousy doesn't

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just provoke us to do violent things

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or illegal things.

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Jealousy prompts us to behave in ways

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that are wildly inventive.

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Now I'm thinking of myself at eight, I concede,

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but I'm also thinking of this story I heard on the news.

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A 52-year-old Michigan woman was caught

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creating a fake Facebook account

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from which she sent vile, hideous messages

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to herself for a year.

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For a year. A year.

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And she was trying to frame

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her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend,

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and I have to confess when I heard this,

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I just reacted with admiration.

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(Laughter)

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Because, I mean, let's be real.

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What immense, if misplaced, creativity. Right?

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This is something from a novel.

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This is something from a Patricia Highsmith novel.

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Now Highsmith is a particular favorite of mine.

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She is the very brilliant and bizarre woman of American letters.

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She's the author of "Strangers on a Train"

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and "The Talented Mr. Ripley,"

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books that are all about how jealousy,

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it muddles our minds,

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and once we're in the sphere, in that realm of jealousy,

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the membrane between what is and what could be

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can be pierced in an instant.

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Take Tom Ripley, her most famous character.

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Now, Tom Ripley goes from wanting you

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or wanting what you have

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to being you and having what you once had,

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and you're under the floorboards,

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he's answering to your name,

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he's wearing your rings,

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emptying your bank account.

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That's one way to go.

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But what do we do? We can't go the Tom Ripley route.

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I can't give the world D's,

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as much as I would really like to, some days.

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And it's a pity, because we live in envious times.

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We live in jealous times.

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I mean, we're all good citizens of social media,

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aren't we, where the currency is envy?

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Does the novel show us a way out? I'm not sure.

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So let's do what characters always do when they're not sure,

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when they are in possession of a mystery.

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Let's go to 221B Baker Street

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and ask for Sherlock Holmes.

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When people think of Holmes,

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they think of his nemesis being Professor Moriarty,

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right, this criminal mastermind.

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But I've always preferred [Inspector] Lestrade,

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who is the rat-faced head of Scotland Yard

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who needs Holmes desperately,

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needs Holmes' genius, but resents him.

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Oh, it's so familiar to me.

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So Lestrade needs his help, resents him,

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and sort of seethes with bitterness over the course of the mysteries.

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But as they work together, something starts to change,

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and finally in "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons,"

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once Holmes comes in, dazzles everybody with his solution,

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Lestrade turns to Holmes and he says,

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"We're not jealous of you, Mr. Holmes.

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We're proud of you."

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And he says that there's not a man at Scotland Yard

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who wouldn't want to shake Sherlock Holmes' hand.

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It's one of the few times we see Holmes moved

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in the mysteries, and I find it very moving,

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this little scene, but it's also mysterious, right?

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It seems to treat jealousy

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as a problem of geometry, not emotion.

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You know, one minute Holmes is on the other side from Lestrade.

262
00:11:54,913 --> 00:11:56,836
The next minute they're on the same side.

263
00:11:56,836 --> 00:11:58,983
Suddenly, Lestrade is letting himself

264
00:11:58,983 --> 00:12:01,950
admire this mind that he's resented.

265
00:12:01,950 --> 00:12:03,879
Could it be so simple though?

266
00:12:03,879 --> 00:12:06,310
What if jealousy really is a matter of geometry,

267
00:12:06,310 --> 00:12:10,020
just a matter of where we allow ourselves to stand

268
00:12:10,020 --> 00:12:12,350
in relation to another?

269
00:12:12,350 --> 00:12:14,221
Well, maybe then we wouldn't have to resent

270
00:12:14,221 --> 00:12:16,282
somebody's excellence.

271
00:12:16,282 --> 00:12:19,656
We could align ourselves with it.

272
00:12:19,656 --> 00:12:21,912
But I like contingency plans.

273
00:12:21,912 --> 00:12:24,248
So while we wait for that to happen,

274
00:12:24,248 --> 00:12:26,944
let us remember that we have fiction for consolation.

275
00:12:26,944 --> 00:12:29,395
Fiction alone demystifies jealousy.

276
00:12:29,395 --> 00:12:31,478
Fiction alone domesticates it,

277
00:12:31,478 --> 00:12:33,356
invites it to the table.

278
00:12:33,356 --> 00:12:35,229
And look who it gathers:

279
00:12:35,229 --> 00:12:39,065
sweet Lestrade, terrifying Tom Ripley,

280
00:12:39,065 --> 00:12:43,534
crazy Swann, Marcel Proust himself.

281
00:12:43,534 --> 00:12:45,948
We are in excellent company.

282
00:12:45,948 --> 00:12:47,368
Thank you.

283
00:12:47,368 --> 00:12:52,184
(Applause)