0:00:01.617,0:00:03.582
So when I was eight years old,

0:00:03.582,0:00:05.740
a new girl came to join the class,

0:00:05.740,0:00:08.773
and she was so impressive,

0:00:08.773,0:00:11.055
as the new girl always seems to be.

0:00:11.055,0:00:13.733
She had vast quantities of very shiny hair

0:00:13.733,0:00:16.773
and a cute little pencil case,

0:00:16.773,0:00:20.361
super strong on state capitals,

0:00:20.361,0:00:22.853
just a great speller.

0:00:22.853,0:00:27.803
And I just curdled with jealousy that year,

0:00:27.803,0:00:31.346
until I hatched my devious plan.

0:00:31.346,0:00:35.579
So one day I stayed a little late after school,

0:00:35.579,0:00:39.659
a little too late, and I lurked in the girl's bathroom.

0:00:39.659,0:00:41.994
When the coast was clear, I emerged,

0:00:41.994,0:00:43.733
crept into the classroom,

0:00:43.733,0:00:47.590
and took from my teacher's desk the grade book.

0:00:47.590,0:00:49.926
And then I did it.

0:00:49.926,0:00:52.293
I fiddled with my rival's grades,

0:00:52.293,0:00:55.123
just a little, just demoted some of those A's.

0:00:55.123,0:00:58.222
All of those A's. (Laughter)

0:00:58.222,0:01:01.965
And I got ready to return the book to the drawer,

0:01:01.965,0:01:04.999
when hang on, some of my other classmates

0:01:04.999,0:01:08.492
had appallingly good grades too.

0:01:08.492,0:01:10.540
So, in a frenzy,

0:01:10.540,0:01:12.528
I corrected everybody's marks,

0:01:12.528,0:01:14.437
not imaginatively.

0:01:14.437,0:01:16.951
I gave everybody a row of D's

0:01:16.951,0:01:19.752
and I gave myself a row of A's,

0:01:19.752,0:01:22.552
just because I was there, you know, might as well.

0:01:22.552,0:01:28.162
And I am still baffled by my behavior.

0:01:28.162,0:01:30.574
I don't understand where the idea came from.

0:01:30.574,0:01:33.903
I don't understand why I felt so great doing it.

0:01:33.903,0:01:35.426
I felt great.

0:01:35.426,0:01:38.005
I don't understand why I was never caught.

0:01:38.005,0:01:39.601
I mean, it should have been so blatantly obvious.

0:01:39.601,0:01:40.914
I was never caught.

0:01:40.914,0:01:43.435
But most of all, I am baffled by,

0:01:43.435,0:01:44.942
why did it bother me so much

0:01:44.942,0:01:46.886
that this little girl, this tiny little girl,

0:01:46.886,0:01:48.600
was so good at spelling?

0:01:48.600,0:01:50.710
Jealousy baffles me.

0:01:50.710,0:01:53.634
It's so mysterious, and it's so pervasive.

0:01:53.634,0:01:56.100
We know babies suffer from jealousy.

0:01:56.100,0:01:59.750
We know primates do. Bluebirds are actually very prone.

0:01:59.750,0:02:03.270
We know that jealousy is the number one cause

0:02:03.270,0:02:06.186
of spousal murder in the United States.

0:02:06.186,0:02:09.290
And yet, I have never read a study

0:02:09.290,0:02:12.205
that can parse to me its loneliness

0:02:12.205,0:02:17.059
or its longevity or its grim thrill.

0:02:17.059,0:02:19.906
For that, we have to go to fiction,

0:02:19.906,0:02:22.246
because the novel is the lab

0:02:22.246,0:02:23.820
that has studied jealousy

0:02:23.820,0:02:25.894
in every possible configuration.

0:02:25.894,0:02:29.218
In fact, I don't know if it's an exaggeration to say

0:02:29.218,0:02:31.250
that if we didn't have jealousy,

0:02:31.250,0:02:33.800
would we even have literature?

0:02:33.800,0:02:37.390
Well no faithless Helen, no "Odyssey."

0:02:37.390,0:02:40.228
No jealous king, no "Arabian Nights."

0:02:40.228,0:02:43.365
No Shakespeare.

0:02:43.365,0:02:45.555
There goes high school reading lists,

0:02:45.555,0:02:47.367
because we're losing "Sound and the Fury,"

0:02:47.367,0:02:49.616
we're losing "Gatsby," "Son Also Rises,"

0:02:49.616,0:02:53.743
we're losing "Madame Bovary," "Anna K."

0:02:53.743,0:02:56.150
No jealousy, no Proust. And now, I mean,

0:02:56.150,0:02:57.911
I know it's fashionable to say that Proust

0:02:57.911,0:02:59.518
has the answers to everything,

0:02:59.518,0:03:02.224
but in the case of jealousy,

0:03:02.224,0:03:04.965
he kind of does.

0:03:04.965,0:03:08.951
This year is the centennial of his masterpiece, "In Search of Lost Time,"

0:03:08.951,0:03:12.952
and it's the most exhaustive study of sexual jealousy

0:03:12.952,0:03:15.104
and just regular competitiveness, my brand,

0:03:15.104,0:03:17.689
that we can hope to have. (Laughter)

0:03:17.689,0:03:20.116
And we think about Proust, we think

0:03:20.116,0:03:21.610
about the sentimental bits, right?

0:03:21.610,0:03:23.565
We think about a little boy trying to get to sleep.

0:03:23.565,0:03:27.746
We think about a madeleine moistened in lavender tea.

0:03:27.746,0:03:29.772
We forget how harsh his vision was.

0:03:29.772,0:03:31.612
We forget how pitiless he is.

0:03:31.612,0:03:33.933
I mean, these are books that Virginia Woolf said

0:03:33.933,0:03:36.269
were tough as cat gut.

0:03:36.269,0:03:38.317
I don't know what cat gut is,

0:03:38.317,0:03:41.218
but let's assume it's formidable.

0:03:41.218,0:03:44.436
Let's look at why they go so well together,

0:03:44.436,0:03:48.114
the novel and jealousy, jealousy and Proust.

0:03:48.114,0:03:51.345
Is it something as obvious as that jealousy,

0:03:51.345,0:03:54.728
which boils down into person, desire, impediment,

0:03:54.728,0:03:59.396
is such a solid narrative foundation?

0:03:59.396,0:04:02.071
I don't know. I think it cuts very close to the bone,

0:04:02.071,0:04:04.120
because let's think about what happens

0:04:04.120,0:04:05.898
when we feel jealous.

0:04:05.898,0:04:09.850
When we feel jealous, we tell ourselves a story.

0:04:09.850,0:04:14.133
We tell ourselves a story about other people's lives,

0:04:14.133,0:04:16.807
and these stories make us feel terrible

0:04:16.807,0:04:19.030
because they're designed to make us feel terrible.

0:04:19.030,0:04:21.564
As the teller of the tale and the audience,

0:04:21.564,0:04:23.538
we know just what details to include,

0:04:23.538,0:04:27.107
to dig that knife in. Right?

0:04:27.107,0:04:30.462
Jealousy makes us all amateur novelists,

0:04:30.462,0:04:32.478
and this is something Proust understood.

0:04:32.478,0:04:35.651
In the first volume, Swann's Way,

0:04:35.651,0:04:37.475
the series of books,

0:04:37.475,0:04:39.181
Swann, one of the main characters,

0:04:39.181,0:04:42.409
is thinking very fondly of his mistress

0:04:42.409,0:04:44.101
and how great she is in bed,

0:04:44.101,0:04:47.143
and suddenly, in the course of a few sentences,

0:04:47.143,0:04:49.184
and these are Proustian sentences,

0:04:49.184,0:04:50.696
so they're long as rivers,

0:04:50.696,0:04:52.959
but in the course of a few sentences,

0:04:52.959,0:04:55.366
he suddenly recoils and he realizes,

0:04:55.366,0:04:58.649
"Hang on, everything I love about this woman,

0:04:58.649,0:05:02.420
somebody else would love about this woman.

0:05:02.420,0:05:05.511
Everything that she does that gives me pleasure

0:05:05.511,0:05:07.220
could be giving somebody else pleasure,

0:05:07.220,0:05:09.498
maybe right about now."

0:05:09.498,0:05:12.282
And this is the story he starts to tell himself,

0:05:12.282,0:05:14.145
and from then on, Proust writes that

0:05:14.145,0:05:17.192
every fresh charm Swann detects in his mistress,

0:05:17.192,0:05:19.856
he adds to his collection of instruments

0:05:19.856,0:05:23.478
in his private torture chamber.

0:05:23.478,0:05:25.753
Now Swann and Proust, we have to admit,

0:05:25.753,0:05:27.429
were notoriously jealous.

0:05:27.429,0:05:29.133
You know, Proust's boyfriends would have to leave

0:05:29.133,0:05:31.737
the country if they wanted to break up with him.

0:05:31.737,0:05:34.640
But you don't have to be that jealous

0:05:34.640,0:05:37.551
to concede that it's hard work. Right?

0:05:37.551,0:05:39.160
Jealous is exhausting.

0:05:39.160,0:05:42.807
It's a hungry emotion. It must be fed.

0:05:42.807,0:05:44.896
And what does jealousy like?

0:05:44.896,0:05:47.986
Jealously likes information.

0:05:47.986,0:05:50.375
Jealously likes details.

0:05:50.375,0:05:53.198
Jealously likes the vast quantities of shiny hair,

0:05:53.198,0:05:55.664
the cute little pencil case.

0:05:55.664,0:05:57.206
Jealously likes photos.

0:05:57.206,0:06:00.936
That's why Instagram is such a hit. (Laughter)

0:06:00.936,0:06:04.897
Proust actually links the language of scholarship and jealousy.

0:06:04.897,0:06:07.339
When Swann is in his jealous throes,

0:06:07.339,0:06:09.510
and suddenly he's listening at doorways

0:06:09.510,0:06:11.533
and bribing his mistress's servants,

0:06:11.533,0:06:12.985
he defends these behaviors.

0:06:12.985,0:06:15.402
He says, "You know, look, I know you think this is repugnant,

0:06:15.402,0:06:17.208
but it is no different

0:06:17.208,0:06:19.558
from interpreting an ancient text

0:06:19.558,0:06:21.225
or looking at a monument."

0:06:21.225,0:06:23.822
He says, "They are scientific investigations

0:06:23.822,0:06:26.825
with real intellectual value."

0:06:26.825,0:06:28.937
Proust is trying to show us that jealousy

0:06:28.937,0:06:31.828
feels intolerable and makes us look absurd,

0:06:31.828,0:06:36.498
but it is, at its crux, a quest for knowledge,

0:06:36.498,0:06:39.899
a quest for truth, painful truth,

0:06:39.899,0:06:41.828
and actually, where Proust is concerned,

0:06:41.828,0:06:44.620
the more painful the truth, the better.

0:06:44.620,0:06:49.357
Grief, humiliation, loss:

0:06:49.357,0:06:52.313
These were the avenues to wisdom for Proust.

0:06:52.313,0:06:56.215
He says, "A woman whom we need

0:06:56.215,0:06:59.001
who makes us suffer elicits from us

0:06:59.001,0:07:02.506
a gamut of feelings far more profound and vital

0:07:02.506,0:07:06.945
than a man of genius who interests us."

0:07:06.945,0:07:09.820
Is he telling us to just go and find cruel women?

0:07:09.820,0:07:12.117
No. I think he's trying to say

0:07:12.117,0:07:15.286
that jealousy reveals us to ourselves.

0:07:15.286,0:07:18.182
And does any other emotion crack us open

0:07:18.182,0:07:20.510
in this particular way?

0:07:20.510,0:07:22.590
Does any other emotion reveal to us

0:07:22.590,0:07:25.923
our aggression and our hideous ambition

0:07:25.923,0:07:28.322
and our entitlement?

0:07:28.322,0:07:30.972
Does any other emotion teach us to look

0:07:30.972,0:07:34.164
with such peculiar intensity?

0:07:34.164,0:07:36.316
Freud would write about this later.

0:07:36.316,0:07:38.570
One day, Freud was visited

0:07:38.570,0:07:40.892
by this very anxious young man who was consumed

0:07:40.892,0:07:43.395
with the thought of his wife cheating on him.

0:07:43.395,0:07:45.472
And Freud says, it's something strange about this guy,

0:07:45.472,0:07:47.586
because he's not looking at what his wife is doing.

0:07:47.586,0:07:49.557
Because she's blameless; everybody knows it.

0:07:49.557,0:07:50.887
The poor creature is just

0:07:50.887,0:07:52.885
under suspicion for no cause.

0:07:52.885,0:07:55.694
But he's looking for things that his wife is doing

0:07:55.694,0:07:58.194
without noticing, unintentional behaviors.

0:07:58.194,0:08:00.511
Is she smiling too brightly here,

0:08:00.511,0:08:03.851
or did she accidentally brush up against a man there?

0:08:03.851,0:08:06.527
Proust says that the man is becoming

0:08:06.527,0:08:10.875
the custodian of his wife's unconscious.

0:08:10.875,0:08:12.696
The novel is very good on this point.

0:08:12.696,0:08:15.504
The novel is very good at describing how jealousy

0:08:15.504,0:08:19.488
trains us to look with intensity but not accuracy.

0:08:19.488,0:08:23.563
In fact, the more intensely jealous we are,

0:08:23.563,0:08:26.082
the more we become residents of fantasy.

0:08:26.082,0:08:29.002
And this is why, I think, jealousy doesn't

0:08:29.002,0:08:31.818
just provoke us to do violent things

0:08:31.818,0:08:33.818
or illegal things.

0:08:33.818,0:08:36.100
Jealousy prompts us to behave in ways

0:08:36.100,0:08:38.458
that are wildly inventive.

0:08:38.458,0:08:40.901
Now I'm thinking of myself at eight, I concede,

0:08:40.901,0:08:44.920
but I'm also thinking of this story I heard on the news.

0:08:44.920,0:08:48.828
A 52-year-old Michigan woman was caught

0:08:48.828,0:08:51.697
creating a fake Facebook account

0:08:51.697,0:08:55.420
from which she sent vile, hideous messages

0:08:55.420,0:08:59.645
to herself for a year.

0:08:59.645,0:09:01.770
For a year. A year.

0:09:01.770,0:09:03.645
And she was trying to frame

0:09:03.645,0:09:05.802
her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend,

0:09:05.802,0:09:09.443
and I have to confess when I heard this,

0:09:09.443,0:09:11.355
I just reacted with admiration.

0:09:11.355,0:09:12.932
(Laughter)

0:09:12.932,0:09:15.347
Because, I mean, let's be real.

0:09:15.347,0:09:19.664
What immense, if misplaced, creativity. Right?

0:09:19.664,0:09:22.084
This is something from a novel.

0:09:22.084,0:09:25.485
This is something from a Patricia Highsmith novel.

0:09:25.485,0:09:27.655
Now Highsmith is a particular favorite of mine.

0:09:27.655,0:09:31.707
She is the very brilliant and bizarre woman of American letters.

0:09:31.707,0:09:33.900
She's the author of "Strangers on a Train"

0:09:33.900,0:09:35.948
and "The Talented Mr. Ripley,"

0:09:35.948,0:09:39.013
books that are all about how jealousy,

0:09:39.013,0:09:40.888
it muddles our minds,

0:09:40.888,0:09:43.882
and once we're in the sphere, in that realm of jealousy,

0:09:43.882,0:09:49.145
the membrane between what is and what could be

0:09:49.145,0:09:52.038
can be pierced in an instant.

0:09:52.038,0:09:54.486
Take Tom Ripley, her most famous character.

0:09:54.486,0:09:57.325
Now, Tom Ripley goes from wanting you

0:09:57.325,0:09:59.501
or wanting what you have

0:09:59.501,0:10:02.929
to being you and having what you once had,

0:10:02.929,0:10:04.462
and you're under the floorboards,

0:10:04.462,0:10:05.825
he's answering to your name,

0:10:05.825,0:10:07.517
he's wearing your rings,

0:10:07.517,0:10:09.518
emptying your bank account.

0:10:09.518,0:10:11.493
That's one way to go.

0:10:11.493,0:10:15.157
But what do we do? We can't go the Tom Ripley route.

0:10:15.157,0:10:17.194
I can't give the world D's,

0:10:17.194,0:10:20.041
as much as I would really like to some days.

0:10:20.041,0:10:23.539
And it's a pity, because we live in envious times.

0:10:23.539,0:10:26.446
We live in jealous times.

0:10:26.446,0:10:28.459
I mean, we're all good citizens of social media,

0:10:28.459,0:10:31.843
aren't we, where the currency is envy?

0:10:31.843,0:10:36.312
Does the novel show us a way out? I'm not sure.

0:10:36.312,0:10:39.753
So let's do what characters always do when they're not sure,

0:10:39.753,0:10:41.929
when they are in possession of a mystery.

0:10:41.929,0:10:44.203
Let's go to 221B Baker Street

0:10:44.203,0:10:46.221
and ask for Sherlock Holmes.

0:10:46.221,0:10:48.690
When people think of Holmes,

0:10:48.690,0:10:51.799
they think of his nemesis being Professor Moriarty,

0:10:51.799,0:10:54.006
right, this criminal mastermind.

0:10:54.006,0:10:56.469
But I've always preferred Inspector Lestrade,

0:10:56.469,0:10:59.374
who is the rat-faced head of Scotland Yard

0:10:59.374,0:11:01.104
who needs Holmes desperately,

0:11:01.104,0:11:03.408
needs Holmes' genius, but resents him.

0:11:03.408,0:11:05.265
Oh, it's so familiar to me.

0:11:05.265,0:11:09.282
So Lestrade needs his help, resents him,

0:11:09.282,0:11:12.593
and sort of seethes with bitterness over the course of the mysteries.

0:11:12.593,0:11:16.470
But as they work together, something starts to change,

0:11:16.470,0:11:19.513
and finally in "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons,"

0:11:19.513,0:11:23.443
once Holmes comes in, dazzles everybody with his solution,

0:11:23.443,0:11:26.884
Lestrade turns to Holmes and he says,

0:11:26.884,0:11:31.165
"We're not jealous of you, Mr. Holmes.

0:11:31.165,0:11:34.524
We're proud of you."

0:11:34.524,0:11:36.853
And he says that there's not a man at Scotland Yard

0:11:36.853,0:11:39.852
who wouldn't want to shake Sherlock Holmes' hand.

0:11:39.852,0:11:42.237
It's one of the few times we see Holmes moved

0:11:42.237,0:11:44.332
in the mysteries, and I find it very moving,

0:11:44.332,0:11:47.396
this little scene, but it's also mysterious, right?

0:11:47.396,0:11:49.309
It seems to treat jealousy

0:11:49.309,0:11:52.047
as a problem of geometry, not emotion.

0:11:52.047,0:11:54.913
You know, one minute Holmes is on the other side from Lestrade.

0:11:54.913,0:11:56.836
The next minute they're on the same side.

0:11:56.836,0:11:58.983
Suddenly, Lestrade is letting himself

0:11:58.983,0:12:01.950
admire this mind that he's resented.

0:12:01.950,0:12:03.879
Could it be so simple though?

0:12:03.879,0:12:06.310
What if jealousy really is a matter of geometry,

0:12:06.310,0:12:10.020
just a matter of where we allow ourselves to stand

0:12:10.020,0:12:12.350
in relation to another?

0:12:12.350,0:12:14.221
Well, maybe then we wouldn't have to resent

0:12:14.221,0:12:16.282
somebody's excellence.

0:12:16.282,0:12:19.656
We could align ourselves with it.

0:12:19.656,0:12:21.912
But I like contingency plans.

0:12:21.912,0:12:24.248
So while we wait for that to happen,

0:12:24.248,0:12:26.944
let us remember that we have fiction for consolation.

0:12:26.944,0:12:29.395
Fiction alone demystifies jealousy.

0:12:29.395,0:12:31.478
Fiction alone domesticates it,

0:12:31.478,0:12:33.356
invites it to the table.

0:12:33.356,0:12:35.229
And look who it gathers:

0:12:35.229,0:12:39.065
sweet Lestrade, terrifying Tom Ripley,

0:12:39.065,0:12:43.534
crazy Swann, Marcel Proust himself.

0:12:43.534,0:12:45.948
We are in excellent company.

0:12:45.948,0:12:47.368
Thank you.

0:12:47.368,0:12:52.184
(Applause)