Voix entrelacées de Proust et de Ruskin. Par Cynthia Gamble

Abstract

Craftily interweaving the voices of John Ruskin and Marcel Proust, Cynthia Gamble amasses here an eclectic selection of her essays, reworked and expanded, previously published mostly in English between 2000 and 2016. Although the texts differ greatly from each other, together they amount to an illuminating theoretical stained glass that accounts for the decisive role played by Ruskin in Proust’s creative process. Echoing medieval Christian art, the book is organized as a triptych, preceded by a personal narrative marked by generous accounts of Gamble’s serendipitous academic encounters and relating the author’s introduction to the French language, Proust, and Ruskin, a testimony that, given Gamble’s distinguished contribution to both Proust and Ruskin studies, helps to chart the history of these two fields. An ‘onomastique poétique’ (p. 11), the book’s first section takes the reader on a trip to the Gothic cathedrals of Amiens and Chartres, an art nouveau gallery in Paris, and the Sistine Chapel. Interlacing Proust’s many works and Correspondance with Ruskin’s Diaries and Complete Works, Gamble reveals how these four locations are crucial markers of Proust’s and Ruskin’s intellectual and personal lives, and how they intersect, often with Proust setting off on Ruskinian pilgrimages. The second and most robust part of the book, ‘Traductions’, rigorously peruses Proust’s trajectory as one of Ruskin’s translators. Insightful and well documented, it examines Proust’s performance as a language student (based on his school records, esp. pp. 128–32) and his connection with the English language; it probes into Proust’s ‘cercle anglophone’ (p. 146), his relationship with English teacher Mrs Higginson, and his friendship and collaboration with Marie Nordlinger. It also examines Proust’s mother’s contribution to his translations of Ruskin’s works — she provided him with a literal translation of The Bible of Amiens, upon which he worked — ‘Pourtant, le rôle indispensable de Mme Proust […] n’a pas été reconnu publiquement par Proust’ (p. 262). This section, moreover, perspicaciously demonstrates that Proust ‘n’est pas le traducteur,mais “l’interprète” de Ruskin’ (p. 267), and that La Bible d’Amiens — a model forGamble’s own book? — is not only a translation but a polyphonic creation, the fruit of both Ruskin’s and Proust’s endeavours and whose reading requires ‘un mouvement incessant de l’œil et de l’oreille entre le canon de Ruskin, les commentaires de Ruskin et ceux de Proust’ (p. 272). The third section of the book brings this study to an elegant close by shedding light upon three figures distinctly associated with Proust: art collector René Gimpel, his son Jean Gimpel, and Sybil de Souza, author of one of the first doctoral theses devoted to Proust (L’Influence de Ruskin sur Proust (Montpellier: Imprimerie de la Manufacture de la Charité, 1932)). This final part reveals Gamble’s skill as a chronicler and presents the transcription of two valuable sets of documents: the ‘Cahier René Gimpel’ and fourteen letters De Souza addressed to Gamble between 1983 and 1991. If reading, as Proust suggests in the preface to his translation of Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies, is a ‘miracle fécond d’une communication au sein de la solitude’ (Sésame et les lys(Paris: Societé du Mercure de France, 1906), p. 29), Gamble’s passionate study of these varied voices offers an ingenious polyphony in the midst of this same solitude.