Proust as a Correspondent
Letters of Marcel Proust. Translated and edited with notes by Mina Curtiss. (Chatto & Windus. 21s.) THIS volume will delight Proustians, for it is an admirable handbook to the novel. True, one naturally prefers to read Proust's letters in French, for they present sometimes as many difficulties in translation as does the great work. But although they are often fascinating, their interest comes mainly from the light they cast on the growth of the novel, for, in face of the judgement of eminent critics, I have never found Prous's epistolary style fascinating in itself. Then Mrs. Curtiss has drawn upon many more sources than were open has been able, in some cases, to restore more complete to the compilers of the correspondance genirale, and she texts than were available when earlier collections were pub- lished. To these claims on the gratitude of Proustians she has added those due to her industrious elucidating of many allusions and to her provision of some excellent photographs. Nothing startingly new appears in this sell-portrait. We see the apparently idle, selfish, snobbish young climber become not suddenly, but apparently sudden:y, the admired author of Swann, the genius to whom Gide wrote the famous letter of apology, the recluse who—to the surprise of some men of letters and the anger of others—got, in 1919, the Prix Goncourt (mainly through the good offices of Leon Daudet as might have been made plain). The last four years of glory are, in a way, the most depressing of the lot, though whether one would find them so without any other knowledge of the extraordinary life of the dying man may be doubtful.
What is not new, but is made more vivid by these letters, is the great shock given by the Dreyfus case. That con, vinced Proust that the great people of the great world had bad hearts, that the noble faubourg was noble only in a genealogical sense. The disillusionment with the world that affects " Marcel " is here seen affecting his creator. As the novel grew, and as its dramatis personce grew more odious, the touchy persons who thought they were meant protested, and some of the most ingenious letters here are written to victims explaining that, of course, they were not Charlus or the later Saint-Loup. The most entertaining is that addressed to Laure Hayman who thought she was Odette- and although Mrs. Curtiss does not give Laure the biographical note she deserves, she more than makes up for it by printing a photograph which makes very p:ain the reasons for the game of catleyas.
But the main interest lies, of course, in the exposition of the plan of the book and in the adroitness with which Proust tried to build up a market for his audacities. It is cheering to see Mrs. Curtiss sweeping away the claims of that most sterile of critics, Paul Souday, to have been a " discoverer " of Proust. He was even foolish enough to reprint his reviews in Le Temps—thus destroying his own thesis. But Proust flattered him all the same, though he cannot have been deceived.
Mrs. Curtiss has done a great deal to make the letters more intelligible, so that it may seem ungrateful to ask for more, but not all Proustians will identify Longnon or Dimier, to choose names nearly at random. Yet Longnon for his toponymy and Dimier for his link with the Action Francaise deserved, perhaps, a little notice and there are other instances of letters being less clear in their allusions than the common reader will like. The translation is clear and consistent, but " Ecole Militaire " is not adequately translated (in the context) by " Military College " ; " arr8t " is not " arrest " ; and " at the Charles-Quint " is only intelligible if the idea of an hotel is dismissed and the reader is reminded of the abdication of Charles V. Then " major " doesn't mean any army officer ; it means an army doctor, a necessary distinction when Proust is discussing the risk of his being called up. A reference to the folly of a member of the Academie Francaise might mislead the reader into thinking that the scandal was fairly recent, but Proust is, in fact, using, as is his wont, an instance from Saint-Simon to make a modern point. But Proustians will profit by this book and non-Proustians can enjoy it.
D. W. BROGAN.
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