Frenchman Marcel Proust, who died 100 years ago on Friday, is considered one of the greatest novelists of all time – but few can truthfully claim to have read his 2,400-page masterpiece “In Search of Lost Time”.
For those waiting for another lockdown to curl up with his magnum opus, here are five fun facts to slip into a conversation to make you sound like an expert.
– Unwanted Masterpiece –
In 1909 Proust began his masterpiece, a novel about memory and the nature of art.
The project grew from one book to a second in 1912 and a third the following year.
In Search of Lost Time eventually grew to seven volumes, four published during Proust’s lifetime and three after his death in 1922 at the age of 51.
But it wasn’t easy to find a publisher.
After receiving three rejections for the first volume, Swann’s Way, Proust decided to self-publish with the help of Grasset Verlag.
Nobel laureate Andre Gide, then editor at NFR-Verlag (later Gallimard), was among those who passed on Proust’s dense prose.
“Rejecting this book will remain NRF’s greatest mistake,” Gide later wrote to Proust, calling it “one of the bitterest regrets of my life”.
Gallimard managed to lure Proust back in 1916 with his second novel, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flowers, which won the Goncourt Prize, France’s highest literary prize.
– ‘Oh’: when winning the grand prize –
When the Goncourt jury announced Proust as the winner in 1919, Gallimard rushed to break the good news to the author.
Arriving at his home near the Champs-Elysees, Gallimard found Proust, a die-hard sleeper, asleep in a room filled with steam treatments for his asthma.
“Oh?” said the author flatly upon hearing that he’d won the literary equivalent of the jackpot.
His victory provoked an outcry from the French left, which supported Roland Dorgeles’ epic account of life in the trenches during World War I over what they described as Proust’s smug musings about the passage of time.
Proust’s critics went on to argue that he was too old – he was 48 at the time – and too rich to win the CHF5,000 prize.
– on and on and on –
“For a long time I went to bed early…”, this is how “In Search of Lost Time” begins and this is how the story ends for some readers who find Proust’s prose soporific.
Poetic and dreamy, dotted with hyphens and brackets, his sentences are extraordinarily long – averaging 30 words, twice the length of most novelists.
– The madeleine was almost toasted –
The madeleine or mini sponge cake that has become the most famous detail of all seven volumes appears early in the first book.
For the protagonist Marcel, tasting the cupcake triggers a flood of vivid memories and gives him access to the “lost time” he is looking for.
“As soon as I recognized the taste of madeleine dipped in lime blossom tea that my aunt used to give me…” he enthuses.
And yet the mighty Madeleine was almost a humble piece of toast, as early sketches of the scene discovered in Proust’s notebooks show.
– Maternal Molly Kisses –
Proust suffered from severe asthma for most of his life, and while he enjoyed socializing – he had some tantalizing secret homosexual love affairs – he also spent long stretches in bed writing with a tablet on his knee.
His neurological father urged his ailing son to get some fresh air and exercise, as asthma is not contagious.
But Proust’s mother was molly-cuddling, and by 1906 he was taking her advice and keeping a recluse inside, with a steady supply of caffeine and aspirin.
His breathing problems would finally defeat him. He died of pneumonia, which turned into bronchitis and then an abscess in the lungs.
