DAY 2: A bit about Proust, and the issue of LENGTH!

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (with a name like that, perhaps we have our first intimation of the future length of À la recherche!) was born on 10 July 1871 in Auteuil to wealthy parents.  

Achille Adrien Proust

His father, Achille Adrien Proust (1834-1903), was a noted physycian and epidemiologist whose stout, bearded, bespectacled figure and steely gaze left one in no doubt of just who was in charge. Born in the Age of Enlightenment and with an insatiable curiosity, he went against his father's wishes and abandoned the priesthood in favor of pursuing a medical career. The nineteenth century was a time of major scientific and medical exploration when such profound discoveries as electromagnetism and the electric light, x-rays, germ theory, antispetics, and anesthesia were made, and Adrien wanted to be part of this exciting world. His subsequent studies both at home and abroad resulted in his playing a major role in discovering the epidemiology of cholera. He was also a prolific author, whose seminal work was Essai sur l'hygiène internationale. He died in 1903 of a cerebral hemmorhage.

Jeanne Weil

 Marcel's mother, Jeanne Weil, the daughter of wealthy Jewish stockbroker, was a sensitive, intelligent, extremely well-educated woman who doted on the sickly Marcel (he was not expected to live when he was born) and whose death in 1905 affected him profoundly. She was an accomplished pianist and had also a profound appreciation of literature and art, as befitted the daughter of a family of the haute bourgeiousie of Paris. Interestingly, her marriage to the Catholic Adrien Proust was not opposed by her family as they were apparently not orthodox Jews and did not keep a kosher house, nor observe the Sabbath. Of course, she was expected to raise the children as Catholics; however, she herself never converted, out of respect for her parents. Tragically, she died of nephritis in 1905, just two years after her husband, leaving Marcel unretrievably bereft.


Marcel was born in July of 1871 in the midst of a dangerous and violent insurrection know as "The Commune." His father, insisting on continuing to see his patients at the Hôpital de la Charité, narrowly missed being killed by an insurgent's musket ball one day on his way there. This incident left his wife, 6 months preganant with Marcel,  in state of extreme fear and trepidation, resulting in their leaving Paris for the relatively safe haven of Auteuil where her uncle Louis had a spacious home situated amidst a large garden. It was in this bucolic setting that Marcel was born and, shortly after his arrival, not expected to live, but did. His poor state was blamed on his mother's high level of stress and malnutrition due to the lack of food during the Prussian siege of Paris during that year. Despite his poor health, as he grew older, he showed signs of precociousness and charm, attributes which would later enable him to move up in society. However, his parents, especially his mother, lavished him with their attentions to the point of morbidity, creating an almost pathologic co-dependence which would later precipitate his withdrawal from society.

Marcel continued to be a sickly child and at the age of nine, after returning from a spring pollen-filled walk in the Bois de Boulogne with his parents, was stricken with an asthma attack so severe that his breathing ceased. His father feared he was dead, but he revived, only to have the specter of death loom over him for the rest of his life: the return of Spring, a walk outside in the park, the smallest whiff of pollen could mean his death. 

Although he attended the Lycée Condorcet from 1882-89, his attendance was irregular. Despite his health problems, he was able to fulfil his year of military service at Orléans, and later studied law at the Sorbonne but left before finishing. After this, his life was apparently taken up with failed attempts at finding an acceptable career: lawyer - given up after spending a couple of weeks with a solicitor ("In my most desparate moments, I have never conceived of anything so horrible as a law office"); Foreign Ministry - too far from his beloved mother; and even librarian - death from dust. Realizing he would probably never have a "proper" job, he then went the route of the idle rich: endless dinner parties, social ladder climbing, and insouciant spending of money, much to the chagrin of his father.

The year 1905 marked the beginning of his withdrawal from society. Marcel's relationship with and attachment to his mother was stifflingly neurotic (interestingly, he and Freud co-existed but had no knowledge of each other...I'm sure Freud would have had something to say about this!) and her death from nephritis in 1905 "severed the only tie that bound him to the life of the world." (Joseph Krutch)
What followed has many interpretations, but essentially, he withdrew to an apartment soundproofed with walls of cork, where his solitary cogitations produced his masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu.

Clearly, a fascinating man who lived in fascinating times. And about whom we shall learn a great deal more...

Sources and further reading:

How Proust Can Change your Life, Alain de Botton, 1997. "Curious, humorous, didactic and dazzling.. It contains more human interest and play of fancy than most fiction." 
   - The New York Times

Marcel Proust: A Life, William C. Carter, 2000.

Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust, trans. Scott Moncrieff, 1934. Introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch is most informative.

Wikipedia: Marcel Proust, Achille Adrien Proust