Marcel Proust 8: lecteurs de Proust au XXe siècle et au début du XXIe ed. by Joseph Brami (review)

the twenty-first century, purged of the tincture of conventional Catholic piety that, in Sellier or Ferreyrolles, spoils so much of the most philologically responsible criticism devoted to his work. University of Colorado, Boulder Christopher Braider BRAMI, JOSEPH, éd. Marcel Proust 8: lecteurs de Proust au XXe siècle et au début du XXIe , vol. 1. Caen: Minard, 2010. ISBN 978-2-256-91155-2. Pp. 257. 23 a. The dozen essays in this first of a two-volume survey trace sustained and often transformative engagements with Proust. Many contributions loosely adhere to a common template; we see how Proust fared in a given writer’s theory and overt criticism, then discover the endless variety of metamorphoses through which his work reveals itself in the writer’s fiction. The collection’s organizing principle recalls that of Blanchot’s Faux Pas, as described in Annamaria Laserra’s remarkable essay (#9): these writers have been assembled not so much to highlight their differences as to catalyze their interactions with each other. The cohesion of structural consistency is reinforced by the recurrence of themes and motifs. Brassaï became a photographer “pour montrer la nuit” (90), says André Benhaïm (#4), who revisits “l’image de l’ombre des jeunes filles” and recalls that “la pénombre, c’est le style de Proust” (93). In “Proust et Levinas: la fatigue de la nuit,” Nathalie Debrauwere-Miller (#8) traces an itinerary from Talmudic disapproval of art and music to praise for Proust’s “travail nocturne” and “la nuit du néant qu’il comble de son écriture” (169). Marco Piazza’s excellent essay (#1) “Proust et Benjamin: le critique rédempteur et son phare” observes that an ideological commitment to Marxism impeded an interpretation “en harmonie avec le sentiment d’affinité profonde” (13), which Benjamin felt from his first reading. A more profound ambivalence marked Sartre’s response, painstakingly documented by Sandra Teroni in her extraordinary “Nous voilà délivrés de Proust” (#6). Anne Simon writes in her essay (#2) on Cohen that his difficulty in recognizing “ses dettes littéraires” (41) is already a Proustian trait; Maurice Couturier (#5) may suspect the same of Nabokov, noting that Proust’s name is not pronounced a single time in his (French-language) autobiography despite “une tonalité, une thématique et une syntaxe éminemment proustiennes”— no accident, perhaps, since at the time (in the 1930s) Nabokov “lisait voracement l’œuvre de Proust” (100). Elsewhere it is via pastiche and quotation that the silhouette of Proust is discerned, as in Lolita, where ‘Albertine’ becomes the scheming villain, as Humbert would have us believe. Madeleine Cottenet-Hage’s “Beckett dans le miroir proustien” (#7) documents parodic references to Proust in Molloy, adding that “[l]e geste parodique signale aussi l’existence d’un désir [...] de rejet, le sentiment d’une proximité encombrante dont Beckett voudrait se dégager” (146). There is little to suggest a similar anxiety underlying the perceptive criticisms of Julien Gracq, nicely juxtaposed by Marie Miguet-Ollagnier (#11) with evidence of his admiration. Intertextual appropriation retroactively affects any quoted text, but several writers exerted a more direct ‘influence’ on Proust. Beckett’s timely defense of his style in 1931 revealed a deep understanding and enthusiasm which he may well have imparted to the young Julien Gracq or indeed to Paul Gadenne, as Hélène Jacquelot (#10) explains. Benjamin’s “acrobaties dialectiques” (14) rescued Proust 566 FRENCH REVIEW 86.3 for a German public, while Levinas’s commentary revived curiosity at a time “où la Recherche risquait de tomber dans l’oubli” (152). In a subtle essay on Bataille (#3), Elisabeth Arnould-Bloomfield finds that “[a]u dialogue critique [...] s’ajoute l’écho secret mais insistant d’un intertexte” (58) through which Bataille’s thought on sacrifice and literature is transformed. Elsewhere intertexts point in opposite directions; although he sternly contradicts Proust in La nausée, Sartre’s “acharnement” (115) suggests a deep ambivalence and uninterrupted engagement. One of many reflections prompted by this superb collection is the degree to which a writer celebrated for style and derided for narcissism was ultimately esteemed by moral philosophers for his ethics, in particular for fostering...