Translations:CP 03988/85/en
- ↑ 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]