Abstract

Marcel Proust

The article critically appraises the book "Marcel Proust, Sa Vie, Son Œuvre," by Par Léon Pierre-Quint. Pierre-Quint has based his study upon the three-fourths of novelist Marcel Proust's novel already in print, without waiting for "Le Temps Retrouvé." For he believes it possible at this stage to grasp the harmony of its vast proportions, a cathedral with uncompleted towers. His work includes an animated sketch of Proust's life; an interpretation of his universe, as reflected in his novel; and a technical analysis of his style. It deals lucidly with that absorption in the intricacies of memory association which grew out of Proust's conviction that people recapture the past, with its emotions, not by any effort of the intelligence but through the accidental stimulus of an odor, a musical phrase, an involuntary movement, a flavor upon the tongue.