Le Cercle de Marcel Proust by Jean-Yves Tadié (review)

In this volume Jean-Yves Tadié presents the proceedings of a conference held in 2011, the second in a series entitled ‘Proust et ses amis’ that began in 2008 (the proceedings, also edited by Tadié, were published in 2010 as Proust et ses amis (Paris: Gallimard)) and the third of which took place in 2013. The two published volumes, exploring the influence of the author’s circle of friends on his life and work, constitute a valuable biographical companion to Proust studies. If Tadié’s introduction to the present volume is disappointingly short (a mere two pages), he endeavours to emphasize the wide range of friends covered by the contributors, a diversity that spans social classes and milieus, from driver to publisher, banker to art collector. Proust, Tadié stresses, was not the solitary recluse he is often depicted to be; rather, he was constant in his friendships, relying on his friends for affection and amusement, and also for information. Furthermore, many friends provided role models for his various characters, while others promoted his literary talents often through simple word of mouth. The essays appear not to have been organized in any particular way, and the reader might be puzzled by the inclusion of some figures and the absence of others, but this can be explained by the serial nature of the undertaking. From an editorial point of view, it would have been useful to have a résumé of the chapters, as well as biographies of the contributors, but such information can be found on the conference website. The research presented in the volume is rigorous and of the highest standard, and diaries, correspondence, and cross-references are exploited to the full. Sometimes, letters between Proust and a particular correspondent have been lost: in the case of the diplomat Bertrand de Fénelon, Pierre-Edmond Robert offers us a precious work of reconstruction, pieced together from the archive of correspondence with others in order to give a clearer picture of the embassy attaché he describes as one of the most enigmatic of Proust’s friends; in so doing, Robert has been able to re-evaluate Fénelon’s fictionalization as Saint-Loup. In a valuable contribution on the French neurologist Joseph Babinski, Dominique Mabin, himself a neurologist, brings a clinical perspective to literary studies on the subject of Proust’s mental health; he reveals the debilitating effect of substance abuse — notably, the barbiturate veronal — on the writer’s written and spoken command of language. Several articles revisit Proust’s sexuality and its transposition into fiction. Emily Eells concludes the volume with the ‘rencontre textuelle’ of Proust and Wilde on the question of homosexuality, but concludes that, while Wilde’s work is a ‘succès à scandale’, Proust’s invites self-contemplation on the part of the reader (p. 236). Tadié’s validation of Sainte-Beuve’s method is certainly borne out here by the insight afforded into Proust’s circle of friends (p. 10).