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<ref name="n3"> Proust is referring back to the article by Jean de Pierrefeu which appeared on the front page of Le Journal des débats, 12 December 1919: see letter CP 03983. [FP] </ref>
<ref name="n3"> Proust is referring back to the article by Jean de Pierrefeu which appeared on the front page of Le Journal des débats, 12 December 1919: see letter CP 03983. [FP] </ref>


<ref name="n4"> In his correspondence with critics Proust often brings up the first and last chapter of his book, to insist upon the planned and deliberately constructed nature of his work. Sometimes, as here, he places the writing of the ending first: "The last chapter of the last volume, which has not yet been published, was written before the first chapter of the first volume" (CP 04159; Kolb, XIX, no. 121, to Alberto Lumbroso [14 May 1920]); "It is in fact too often overlooked that my books have been constructed, but with an open compass extended sufficiently wide so that its rigorous composition, for which I have sacrificed everything, takes a long time to reveal itself. It can't be denied when the last page of Le Temps retrouvé (written before the rest of the book) comes back full circle to the first page of Swann" (CP 04877; Kolb, XXI, no. 16, to Benjamin Crémieux, [18 or 19 January 1922]). But he sometimes writes the opposite, notably in December 1919: "[...] the last chapter of the last volume was written immediately after the first chapter of the first volume. Everything "in between" was written afterwards [...]" (CP 03995; Kolb, XVIII, no. 315, to Paul Souday, [17 December 1919]); "the last chapter of the last volume, which has not yet been published, was written immediately after the first chapter of the first volume" (CP 03999; Kolb, XVIII, no. 319, to Rosny the elder, [shortly after 23 December 1919]). [NM] </ref>
<ref name="n4"> In his correspondence with critics Proust often brings up the first and last chapter of his book, to insist upon the planned and deliberately constructed nature of his work. Sometimes, as here, he places the writing of the ending first: "The last chapter of the last volume, which has not yet been published, was written before the first chapter of the first volume" (CP 04159; Kolb, XIX, no. 121, to Alberto Lumbroso [14 May 1920]); "It is in fact too often overlooked that my books have been constructed, but with an open compass extended sufficiently wide so that its rigorous composition, for which I have sacrificed everything, takes a long time to reveal itself. It can't be denied when the last page of Le Temps retrouvé (written before the rest of the book) comes back full circle to the first page of Swann" (CP 04877; Kolb, XXI, no. 16, to Benjamin Crémieux, [18 or 19 January 1922]). But he sometimes writes the opposite, notably in December 1919: "[...] the last chapter of the last volume was written immediately after the first chapter of the first volume. Everything 'in between' was written afterwards [...]" (CP 03995; Kolb, XVIII, no. 315, to Paul Souday, [17 December 1919]); "the last chapter of the last volume, which has not yet been published, was written immediately after the first chapter of the first volume" (CP 03999; Kolb, XVIII, no. 319, to Rosny the elder, [shortly after 23 December 1919]). [NM] </ref>


<ref name="n5"> Paraphrase of Jean de Pierrefeu's article: "Since then he has added to this first book [Du côté de chez Swann] a second which continues it and he is preparing two more of them on the same theme. There is nothing to suggest that he will come to a halt on such a glorious path. In my opinion only fatigue or death could stop him on the task that he has undertaken in his search for lost time [...]". [PK, FP]  </ref>
<ref name="n5"> Paraphrase of Jean de Pierrefeu's article: "Since then he has added to this first book [Du côté de chez Swann] a second which continues it and he is preparing two more of them on the same theme. There is nothing to suggest that he will come to a halt on such a glorious path. In my opinion only fatigue or death could stop him on the task that he has undertaken in his search for lost time [...]" [PK, FP]  </ref>


<ref name="n6"> The adjective "inflexible" (rigid) appears regularly in Proust's writing when he wants to describe the composition or the "construction" of his novel: see his letters, between August and December 1919, to Abel Hermant  (CP 03897; Kolb, XVIII, no. 216), Jacques Boulenger (CP 03998; Kolb, XVIII, no. 318) and Rosny the elder (CP 03999; Kolb, XVIII, no. 319). [NM] </ref>
<ref name="n6"> The adjective "inflexible" (rigid) appears regularly in Proust's writing when he wants to describe the composition or the "construction" of his novel: see his letters, between August and December 1919, to Abel Hermant  (CP 03897; Kolb, XVIII, no. 216), Jacques Boulenger (CP 03998; Kolb, XVIII, no. 318) and Rosny the elder (CP 03999; Kolb, XVIII, no. 319). [NM] </ref>


<ref name="n7"> The letter that Jammes addressed to Proust after reading Du côté de chez Swann in November or December 1913 has not been found, but Proust quotes a long passage from it in a letter to Henri Ghéon [Friday 2 January 1914] (CP 02655; Kolb, XIII, no. 3). Proust explains in his letter to Paul Souday of 10 November 1919 (CP 03946; Kolb, XVIII, no. 266) that the episode in question is "a scene between two young girls", that is to say the sadism episode at Montjouvain (RTP, I, 157-163). [PK, FP, NM] </ref>
<ref name="n7"> The letter that Jammes addressed to Proust after reading Du côté de chez Swann in November or December 1913 has not been found, but Proust quotes a long passage from it in a letter to Henri Ghéon [Friday 2 January 1914] (CP 02655; Kolb, XIII, no. 3). Proust explains in his letter to Paul Souday of 10 November 1919 (CP 03946; Kolb, XVIII, no. 266) that the episode in question is "a scene between two young girls," that is to say the sadism episode at Montjouvain (RTP, I, 157-163). [PK, FP, NM] </ref>


<ref name="n8"> The formula, which marks an important change of voice compared to Proust's public statements at the time of the publication of Swann ("the character who is narrating, who says: "I" [...] is not me", EA, p. 558), occurs in the article on Flaubert that he mentions on the next page, and which he had sent to Jacques Rivière a few days earlier for La Nouvelle Revue Française (CP 03971; Kolb, XVIII, no. 291): "[the] narrator who says "I" and who is not always me" (EA, p. 599). [NM] </ref>
<ref name="n8"> The formula, which marks an important change of voice compared to Proust's public statements at the time of the publication of Swann ("the character who is narrating, who says: 'I' [...] is not me," EA, p. 558), occurs in the article on Flaubert that he mentions on the next page, and which he had sent to Jacques Rivière a few days earlier for La Nouvelle Revue Française (CP 03971; Kolb, XVIII, no. 291): "[the] narrator who says 'I' and who is not always me" (EA, p. 599). [NM] </ref>


<ref name="n9"> See the letter-dedication to Madame Scheikévitch of [shortly after 3 November 1915] (CP 03024), p. 2: "I would prefer to introduce you to some characters that you don’t yet know, one above all who plays the most important role and determines the turn of events, Albertine". On the structural importance Proust accords to the sadism scene see also his letters to François Mauriac of [23 or 24 September 1919] (CP 03911; Kolb, XVIII, no. 230), to André Chaumeix of [12 December 1919] (CP 03988; Kolb, XVIII, no. 308) and to Jean Ajalbert of [shortly after 10 December 1919] (CP 05359). [FP, NM] </ref>
<ref name="n9"> See the letter-dedication to Madame Scheikévitch of [shortly after 3 November 1915] (CP 03024), p. 2: "I would prefer to introduce you to some characters that you don’t yet know, one above all who plays the most important role and determines the turn of events, Albertine." On the structural importance Proust accords to the sadism scene see also his letters to François Mauriac of [23 or 24 September 1919] (CP 03911; Kolb, XVIII, no. 230), to André Chaumeix of [12 December 1919] (CP 03988; Kolb, XVIII, no. 308) and to Jean Ajalbert of [shortly after 10 December 1919] (CP 05359). [FP, NM] </ref>


<ref name="n10"> The Vie Heureuse prize (Prix Femina) for 1919 was awarded to Les croix de bois by Roland Dorgelès, Proust's unsuccessful
<ref name="n10"> The Vie Heureuse prize (Prix Femina) for 1919 was awarded to Les croix de bois by Roland Dorgelès, Proust's unsuccessful rival for the Prix Goncourt. [PK]  </ref>
rival for the Prix Goncourt. [PK]  </ref>


<ref name="n11"> Shortly after 13 November 1919 Proust had proposed an article on Flaubert's style to Jacques Rivière, in response to an article by Albert Thibaudet in La Nouvelle Revue Française on the same subject, ("Réflexions sur la littérature : Sur le style de Flaubert", 1 November 1919, p. 942-953): "If it would be agreeable to you to publish a letter by me on Flaubert's style (in response to M. Thibaudet) and on the defective methods by which we judge great writers in general, I could write a very short article or a note (CP 03950; Kolb, XVIII, no. 270). On 5 December Proust announces that he is working on "a long Flaubert", "this enormous Flaubert" (CP 03971; Kolb, XVIII, no. 288). On 8 or 9 December Proust sends Jacques Rivière a sixty page manuscript (CP 03971; Kolb, XVIII, no. 291) which was to appear in the NRF of 1 january 1920 under the title "À propos du 'style' de Flaubert" (p. 72-90). [CSz] </ref>
<ref name="n11"> Shortly after 13 November 1919 Proust had proposed an article on Flaubert's style to Jacques Rivière, in response to an article by Albert Thibaudet in La Nouvelle Revue Française on the same subject, ("Réflexions sur la littérature : Sur le style de Flaubert," 1 November 1919, p. 942-953): "If it would be agreeable to you to publish a letter by me on Flaubert's style (in response to M. Thibaudet) and on the defective methods by which we judge great writers in general, I could write a very short article or a note (CP 03950; Kolb, XVIII, no. 270). On 5 December Proust announces that he is working on "a long Flaubert," "this enormous Flaubert" (CP 03971; Kolb, XVIII, no. 288). On 8 or 9 December Proust sends Jacques Rivière a sixty page manuscript (CP 03971; Kolb, XVIII, no. 291) which was to appear in the NRF of 1 january 1920 under the title "À propos du 'style' de Flaubert" (p. 72-90). [CSz] </ref>


<ref name="n12"> Translation notes: </ref>
<ref name="n12"> Translation notes: </ref>

Revision as of 22:49, 5 October 2021

Other languages:

Marcel Proust to André Chaumeix [shortly after 12 December 1919 ]

(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the Corr-Proust digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)

[1]

44 rue Hamelin

Dear Sir,

I have only just received your letter[2] and I am much obliged. I see that mine was the result of an error. I thought you were the director of the Débats, or editor-in-chief and so I thought you could have had an article written. But never, even when I thought that was the case, did it enter my mind to ask you to exert your influence over M. de Pierrefeu[3], in one way or another. I have too much respect for freedom of thought for that, and if you had the power to do so, I would have been sorry had you used it. Simply put, my concern was that you commissioned the article from someone hostile rather than favourable, especially after the misunderstandings in the press arising from an illness that prevented me from receiving journalists, my publishers not receiving them well, which upset them, and the absurd idea that it was a "political" cost complicated everything. Naturally, I haven’t corrected anything that concerns my age, my financial situation, or political opinions, etc. Alas, you are no more the literary critic of the Débats than its director. But your sympathy is more precious to me than the articles you would have written about me in the first case, or in the second case, to have had written about me. To put all this to rest, if you were to get the chance to speak to M. de Pierrefeu, you could tell him that the last chapter of my novel, having been written before the first[4], and all the writing having been done and dusted, he won’t have to wait for my death as he suggests to see À la Recherche du Temps Perdu finished[5] (I recognise that this loathsome title may betray the strict structure of the book). Its composition is so rigid[6] that M. Francis Jammes, having urged me to remove from Du Côté de chez Swann a scene that shocked him[7], I was on the verge of giving in to his request, this scene being in fact irrelevant to the first volume. But I realised that if I removed it, the third and fourth volumes would be destroyed since it’s the recollection of this scene which, in inspiring the jealousy of the narrator, (he who says “I” and who is not necessarily me)[8] brought on what one would call in the the theatre, “peripeteia”[9]. I refuse, then, Les Débats not having mentioned la Vie Heureuse[10], any rectification. I will send you my article on Flaubert[11] once it’s published, not so that you can talk about it, since you don’t have the position at Les Débats that I thought you had, but so, in case you’re kind enough to read it, you see that I pay more attention to matters of grammar than has been suggested. Besides, what artist has not been told that he could not draw? What musician has not been told that he could not harmonise?


All of this does not prevent M. de Pierrefeu from being very talented, and he is quite right to say when he likes something, and to say when he does not.

Please accept, dear Sir, with my deep gratitude and sympathy, this expression of my admiration and devotion.

Marcel Proust

[12] [13]

Notes

  1. ↑ This letter follows on shortly after the letter to the same recipient of "Friday evening" [12 December 1919] (CP 03983; Kolb, XVIII, no. 303). [PK]
  2. ↑ Letter has not been found. [FP]
  3. ↑ Proust is referring back to the article by Jean de Pierrefeu which appeared on the front page of Le Journal des débats, 12 December 1919: see letter CP 03983. [FP]
  4. ↑ In his correspondence with critics Proust often brings up the first and last chapter of his book, to insist upon the planned and deliberately constructed nature of his work. Sometimes, as here, he places the writing of the ending first: "The last chapter of the last volume, which has not yet been published, was written before the first chapter of the first volume" (CP 04159; Kolb, XIX, no. 121, to Alberto Lumbroso [14 May 1920]); "It is in fact too often overlooked that my books have been constructed, but with an open compass extended sufficiently wide so that its rigorous composition, for which I have sacrificed everything, takes a long time to reveal itself. It can't be denied when the last page of Le Temps retrouvé (written before the rest of the book) comes back full circle to the first page of Swann" (CP 04877; Kolb, XXI, no. 16, to Benjamin Crémieux, [18 or 19 January 1922]). But he sometimes writes the opposite, notably in December 1919: "[...] the last chapter of the last volume was written immediately after the first chapter of the first volume. Everything 'in between' was written afterwards [...]" (CP 03995; Kolb, XVIII, no. 315, to Paul Souday, [17 December 1919]); "the last chapter of the last volume, which has not yet been published, was written immediately after the first chapter of the first volume" (CP 03999; Kolb, XVIII, no. 319, to Rosny the elder, [shortly after 23 December 1919]). [NM]
  5. ↑ Paraphrase of Jean de Pierrefeu's article: "Since then he has added to this first book [Du côté de chez Swann] a second which continues it and he is preparing two more of them on the same theme. There is nothing to suggest that he will come to a halt on such a glorious path. In my opinion only fatigue or death could stop him on the task that he has undertaken in his search for lost time [...]" [PK, FP]
  6. ↑ The adjective "inflexible" (rigid) appears regularly in Proust's writing when he wants to describe the composition or the "construction" of his novel: see his letters, between August and December 1919, to Abel Hermant (CP 03897; Kolb, XVIII, no. 216), Jacques Boulenger (CP 03998; Kolb, XVIII, no. 318) and Rosny the elder (CP 03999; Kolb, XVIII, no. 319). [NM]
  7. ↑ The letter that Jammes addressed to Proust after reading Du côté de chez Swann in November or December 1913 has not been found, but Proust quotes a long passage from it in a letter to Henri Ghéon [Friday 2 January 1914] (CP 02655; Kolb, XIII, no. 3). Proust explains in his letter to Paul Souday of 10 November 1919 (CP 03946; Kolb, XVIII, no. 266) that the episode in question is "a scene between two young girls," that is to say the sadism episode at Montjouvain (RTP, I, 157-163). [PK, FP, NM]
  8. ↑ The formula, which marks an important change of voice compared to Proust's public statements at the time of the publication of Swann ("the character who is narrating, who says: 'I' [...] is not me," EA, p. 558), occurs in the article on Flaubert that he mentions on the next page, and which he had sent to Jacques Rivière a few days earlier for La Nouvelle Revue Française (CP 03971; Kolb, XVIII, no. 291): "[the] narrator who says 'I' and who is not always me" (EA, p. 599). [NM]
  9. ↑ See the letter-dedication to Madame Scheikévitch of [shortly after 3 November 1915] (CP 03024), p. 2: "I would prefer to introduce you to some characters that you don’t yet know, one above all who plays the most important role and determines the turn of events, Albertine." On the structural importance Proust accords to the sadism scene see also his letters to François Mauriac of [23 or 24 September 1919] (CP 03911; Kolb, XVIII, no. 230), to André Chaumeix of [12 December 1919] (CP 03988; Kolb, XVIII, no. 308) and to Jean Ajalbert of [shortly after 10 December 1919] (CP 05359). [FP, NM]
  10. ↑ The Vie Heureuse prize (Prix Femina) for 1919 was awarded to Les croix de bois by Roland Dorgelès, Proust's unsuccessful rival for the Prix Goncourt. [PK]
  11. ↑ Shortly after 13 November 1919 Proust had proposed an article on Flaubert's style to Jacques Rivière, in response to an article by Albert Thibaudet in La Nouvelle Revue Française on the same subject, ("Réflexions sur la littérature : Sur le style de Flaubert," 1 November 1919, p. 942-953): "If it would be agreeable to you to publish a letter by me on Flaubert's style (in response to M. Thibaudet) and on the defective methods by which we judge great writers in general, I could write a very short article or a note (CP 03950; Kolb, XVIII, no. 270). On 5 December Proust announces that he is working on "a long Flaubert," "this enormous Flaubert" (CP 03971; Kolb, XVIII, no. 288). On 8 or 9 December Proust sends Jacques Rivière a sixty page manuscript (CP 03971; Kolb, XVIII, no. 291) which was to appear in the NRF of 1 january 1920 under the title "À propos du 'style' de Flaubert" (p. 72-90). [CSz]
  12. ↑ Translation notes:
  13. ↑ Contributors: Nseeligschattner, Shmackinnon, Yorktaylors
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