Cent ans de jalousie proustienne ed. by d’Erika Fülöp, Philippe Chardin (review)

It is well known that jealousy lies at the heart of Proust’s pessimistic depiction of love. The compulsive desire to know that accompanies jealousy has led critics such as Malcolm Bowie to consider it in relation to the hermeneutic and epistemological aspects of À la recherche du temps perdu (Bowie, Freud, Proust and Lacan: Theory as Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)). The short contributions collected in this volume, drawn from a conference in 2013 marking the centenary of the publication of Du côté de chez Swann, approach jealousy not only as a theme, but also as a form of language (Isabelle Serça), a structuring device (Rainer Warning, Philippe Chardin), and a mode of thought (Mina Darabi Amin, Christina Kkona). The concept of jealousy itself is defined both from within À la recherche (Daniele Garritano, Darabi Amin, Stéphane Chaudier) and from without (Serça’s examples range from La Fontaine to Pagnol). The wide range of backgrounds of this international team of contributors manifests itself through the different methodologies to be found within the pages of the volume, including genetic criticism (Jean-Marc Quaranta), material culture (Áine Larkin), comparative literature (Jennifer Rushworth), and reception studies in both literature (Audrey Giboux, Maja Vukušić Zorica, Thanh-Vân Ton-That, Yona Hanhart-Marmor) and film (Erika Fülöp, Candida Yates). While most contributions focus on the parallels and contrasts between the couples Swann/Odette and protagonist/Albertine, we also encounter examples drawn from other couples such as Charlus/Morel or Gilberte/Saint-Loup. The volume’s central papers offer a stimulating range of interpretations of À la recherche: we go from Jasmine Richardson’s account of the positive potential of the awkward scenes caused by jealousy, to Chaudier’s robust critique of the narrator’s devalorization of love, to then encounter Donatien Grau’s strikingly original suggestion that jealousy is not a requisite component of love in À la recherche, affirmed through the example of Norpois and Mme de Villeparisis’s mutual love in Albertine disparue. This series of positions alone demonstrates the complexity of the question of jealousy as it intersects with central debates of Proust criticism, such as for example the relationship between plot and the narrator’s aphorisms. Beyond its obvious importance for those interested in representations of jealousy in literature (and film), this book also functions as a showcase of the wide range of approaches and interpretations that Proust’s novel continues to generate.