Marcel Proust 4: Proust au tournant des siècles, vol. 1, by Bernard Brun, Juliette Hassine

Abstract

MLR, IOI.3, 2oo6 857 and elsewhere, a stimulating array of themes, a gallery of associated writers, artists, and historical figures, a bird's-eye view of critical and philosophical trends, each one a prism that casts light in surprising and enlightening directions. Apart from re wardingly informative factual information, tailor-made for both general reader and advanced Proustian researcher, we also have meaty examinations, by several hands, of speculative subjects from memory to la mort. Proust is proven to be an endless subject like an expanding universe and totally worthy of this scrutiny. No reader, who might simply, as is the way with dictionaries, have dipped into this collection for some specific information, will be able to escape the Proustian spell, addict or not. Those who consult itwill find that they are enticed further and further into the richly en dowed cross-referencing of these articles to browse enthralled and be amazed by the swathes Proust cut through French literature from the seventeenth century onwards, not forgetting English authors, fine-art history and appreciation from its beginnings to his contemporaries, and much more. Like it or not, Proust's gift of envoutement is as present here as in La Recherche itself. UNIVERSITYOFGLASGOW W. L. HODSON Marcel Proust 4: Proust au tournant des siecles, vol. I. Ed. by BERNARDBRUN and JULIETTE HASSINE. Paris and Caen: Lettres Modernes Minard. 2004. 292 pp. E2I. ISBN 2-256-9IO68-7. This collection of essays consists largely but not exclusively of papers submitted to an international conference in Israel in 2001 on the areas of genetic developments, inter textuality, and new departures. Two items under genetic studies stand out. Nathalie Mauriac Dyer in 'M. de Lomperolles dans Jean Santeuil ou un aspect neglige de la genese de Charlus' examines the preparatory hints of Charlus as 'pederaste viril [.. .] caractere litterairement neuf [. . .] et dont Lomperolles est incontestablement le premier crayon' (p. I9). By examining the career of Lomperolles and the recurrence of words and phrases she convincingly shows Proust working on such a character as early as I895-99. The grandly titled 'Genetique et intertextualite pour une lec ture epistemologique du corpus proustien' by Jean-Marc Quaranta relaunches the argument of intelligence versus instinct as part of Proust's aesthetic. The formula of Ernst-Robert Curtius, though not mentioned here, provided the foundation stone for this paradoxical problem as early as 1925, viz. the blend of intellectualism and im pressionism (see 'Psychologie undWirklichkeit', inFranzosischer Geist imzwanzigsten 7ahrhundert(Bern and Munich: Franke, I960), pp. 312-I3). The section on intertextuality bears most decisively on 'Proust lecteur deMaeter linck: affinites selectives'. Anne Simon has found a rich seam to follow but deals with the subject too tersely. There is good use of Maeterlinck's Le Double Jardin but the closeness of Proust's thought toMaeterlinck's is only fleetingly touched on. Where are the references to the 'vases clos' or the description of the sceptre of the water-iris virtually lifted from Maeterlinck, or his views on memory and his formula 'conscience mniemonique'? Further literary parallels are entertained with Joyce and Virginia Woolf. In 'Proust et Joyce: une rencontre autour de l'epiphanie', Edward Bizub compares Proust's Narrator with Stephen Dedalus inA Portrait of theArtist as a YoungMan for the theme of an artistic vocation and also of epiphany as revelation and enlightenment. The conclusion drawn is to Proust's advantage, especially when we realize in Ulysses that Stephen Dedalus 'ne devient pas poete, mais journaliste' (P.I 84). The final section underlines aspects of Proust's style and thought most usefully in the areas of characterization and memory. In 'Regards sur le corps humain dans 858 Reviews 1'ecriture proustienne' Vera Lasry investigates the subtleties of Proust's presenta tion of people, especially from the point of view of suggestion and veiled or partial revelation. Another aspect of Proustian characterization is examined in 'Mondanites proustiennes: le tournant de Sodome et Gomorrhe' by Elisheva Rosen. While the Narrator becomes aware that the ways of the world appear vain, frivolous, and un worthy of his time, he also realizes that his work needs to handle people and all their vagaries as the very stuff and subject of his...