Marcel Proust in the Light of William James: In Search of a Lost Source by Marilyn M. Sachs

Abstract

his philosophical attitudes; one might consider, for example, Epicurean notions of the relation between order and chaos. Louisiana State University Gregory B. Stone Sachs, Marilyn, M. Marcel Proust in the Light of William James: In Search of a Lost Source. Lanham: Lexington, 2014. ISBN 978-0-7391-8162-1. Pp. v + 311. $100. Proust studies abound with books that unearth the innumerable literary and philosophical works which influenced À la recherche du temps perdu. Sachs concludes succinctly: “There can be little doubt that James’s works inspired Proust’s modernity and assist interpretation of his novel” (267). Sachs makes a convincing if somewhat uneven case that James’s theories on memory and human consciousness, published in works such as The Principles of Psychology (1891) and Psychology: Briefer Course (1892) could have influenced a young Proust studying under philosophy professor Alphonse Darlu, or the mature author, an avid reader of scientific journals that discussed James’s theories, both directly in translation or as filtered through philosophers such as Henri Bergson. James was, as Sachs optimistically puts it, in “l’air du temps” (xiii) in which Proust lived and wrote. James’s potential influence on some of À la recherche’s most Proustian themes has indeed been neglected and Sachs does convince that James and Proust are kindred spirits. However, even if Proust is a Jamesian novelist and James a Proustian psychologist, it is hard to give much credence to conclusions that suggest, for example, that the Saint-Loup table-jumping scene’s evolution from Jean Santeuil to À la recherche“has undergone a Jamesian transformation in which past experience is seen anew, in a process and using language that illustrates the relational fringe”(91). Was it really “Proust’s exploitation of the artistic potential inherent in the Jamesian ‘fringe’ of relations that allowed him to develop his mature style” (92)? This is simply impossible to prove based on the evidence Sachs musters. In addition to overstating her case at times, Sachs also distracts the reader with numerous typos in spellcheck- “corrected” French quotations and a final chapter cluttered with clumsy repetitions that leave Sachs stealing her own thunder and the reader begging for better proofreading . On one conspicuous occasion,Sachs cites Proust’s famous thoughts on reading in Combray (I, 84) indirectly from Dorrit Cohn’s Transparent Mind, an inexplicable shortcut for a critical work otherwise given to quoting Proust in French and English (61).Sachs is at her best in comparing Jamesian language to Proustian literary representations of experience and memory. In this regard, her reading of standard Proustian themes and tropes“in the light of William James”deepens our appreciation of Proust, even if the topics illuminated are very familiar. For example, she demonstrates how reading James on “voluntary and involuntary attention” (107–14) sheds light on numerous aesthetic lessons Proust’s narrator learns, either from an artist such as Elstir, or a lover such as Swann, whose syndrome Sachs sums up perfectly in this Jamesian 230 FRENCH REVIEW 89.3 Reviews 231 inspired gem: “And Swann and the narrator are riding the waves of obsession, the outer limit of attention” (113). Her discussion of James’s thoughts on “Habit” (114– 26),“association and metaphor”(126–38),and his concept of the“fringes”that surround associations (127) are excellent examples of how her Jamesian inspired light, while not entirely novel, renews our reading of Proust through its brightness and intensity. University of Central Arkansas Phillip Bailey Savoie, Chantal. Les femmes de lettres canadiennes-françaises au tournant du XXe siècle. Québec: Nota bene, 2014. ISBN 978-2-89518-497-3. Pp. 243. $26 Can. Savoie focuses her study on a nexus of factors at the turn of the twentieth century that, as she claims, created for French-Canadian women the conditions favorable to writing. Her assertion is intriguing given that the works of the more than one hundred writers signing under a woman’s name in this period (1895–1933) were, in great part and particularly in the early years, intentionally, almost embarrassingly, modest in terms of literary ambitions: contes, causeries, saynètes, short poems, children’s literature, religious literature, moralizing literature, etc. Savoie convincingly presents the rapid move from...