It was in 1907, recluse in his room, shaken by asthma, lying on his bed, a year after the death of his beloved mother, that Marcel Proust gave birth to his great work. In Search of Lost Time. Fifteen years and seven volumes later, on November 18, 1922, the French writer died at the age of 51, exhausted, from poorly treated bronchitis. In 1919, amid controversy, he had received the Goncourt Prize for In the shade of the maidens in bloom, the second volume of The research.
Considered by many to be the greatest Western writer of the 20the century, Marcel Proust continues to live in Quebec, beyond the grave and across the Atlantic. His fine description of the snobbery of French society at the turn of the XXe century, and the human passions that drive it, retains its relevance today. Among his great readers, the lawyer Marc Bellemare organized last weekend in Quebec a series of events devoted to the work and the centenary of the death of Proust. He himself received In Search of Lost Time as a gift, “in the condensed version of Gallimard, a book of 2401 very fine pages of missal style. It took me 10 years to read it. I started it in 2010”, says the lawyer in an interview. “To read such a dense novel, with such rich content, it takes concentration, no phone and not too much noise around,” says the man who is also the father of five children.
Leafing through the pages of the masterpiece, the lawyer has “a revelation”. “For the quality of French, the quality of poetry, prose, the quality of words. The writing of the emotions that Proust succeeded in translating into prose, Swann’s amorous passion for Odette, his amorous passion for Albertine which in fact translates his amorous passion for Albert, he enumerates. The excerpt I liked the most was the one from The prisoner, where Proust translates in hundreds of pages the jealousy he feels and the love he has for Albertine. Does she like women? Is she faithful? Does she really love me? »
Self-discovery
Former Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard is also a great admirer of Proust. “His sensitivity, his tragedy, of a man who wants to become a writer, who doesn’t succeed right away, who gropes around for a long time, and who one day is struck by grace and finds his way. He will run out of time, he has very fragile health, and he is engaged in a frantic race for the success of his work, and he loses his skin there, ”he said in an interview.
“I read it in my late twenties. If you are a reader, you get to Proust at some point”, says Lucien Bouchard.
The actress and playwright Sylvie Moreau also dated Proust relatively early in her life. “Me, it was like discovering a whole relationship to beauty, to art, but above all also to a vision of the human and of human intimacy to which I had never had access, with an intelligence of gaze, this witness of humans,” she explains.
In 2017, she created the piece Inside Proust’s head, which she proposed to read last week in Quebec. “It’s really a pastiche collage”, she says, adding that she designed this piece, in which she summons the “most flamboyant” characters of Proust’s work, a bit “like a guide to Proust”. to “demystify Proustian literature”. “We always make a big mountain” around the reading of Proust, she says, “but it is above all a different approach to reading and literature”.
Bookseller at Pantoute, in Quebec, Christian Vachon, 61, only recently started reading Proust.
“I have wanted to get into In Search of Lost Time. I got into it a few months ago, reading a few pages a night. I saw it as climbing a mountain. When you get to the top, you are so happy. As you climb, you discover a whole world, the power of memory, that of art over death, and the passage of time, tell the insiders. Mr. Vachon also had the pleasure of discussing this reading with the customers of the bookstore.
The test of time
“Reading it made me realize the importance of the past,” continues Marc Bellemare. We know of course the description of Proust’s madeleine, these small cakes whose smell and texture suddenly bring the author back to the heart of childhood. “What Proust teaches us is that the past and the present are somewhat confused,” says the lawyer.
Marc Bellemare’s enterprise will not have been in vain. Yolande Dubé, contemplating the display dedicated to Proust that the Pantoute bookseller Édouard Tremblay has set up to mark the centenary of the writer’s death, has just decided to embark on The research.
“I had only read his essay Against Sainte Beuve “, she says. But it was while attending the weekend activities that the desire came to him to start The research. “I was repulsive to read In Search of Lost Time, she admits. […] But there were activities this weekend, and I was won over by the comments that were made. […] It shows how important events like this are. It was full, and it was done intelligently and subtly. »
The sum of works which appear to mark the birthday of Proust will take part in relaunching the craze for the French writer.
“It is also the role of independent booksellers to continue to promote these books to readers, in the mass of new publications, says the bookseller at Pantoute, Édouard Tremblay. When something stands the test of centuries, and retains its resonance, its relevance, it is because there is something to draw from it. »