987 Words About Proust's Novel and How It Grew

After Proust died on November 18th, 1922, his friends came to the apartment at 44 rue Hamelin to pay their respects. There, Jean Cocteau noticed these unfinished manuscripts scattered around the room beside Proust's bed, how "that pile of paper on his left was still alive, like watches ticking on the wrists of dead soldiers."

Proust's cork-lined bedroom at 44 rue Hamelin

Given the way Proust worked and given the recent state of his health, it wasn't going to be easy sorting through this "pile of paper" to see what remained of his supposedly finished novel.

Most readers probably think a writer sits down, starts at the beginning, and, sooner or later, inspiration willing, reaches the end. Then it's only a matter of sending it off to the waiting publisher. Weren't we lucky Proust could write "The End" to his life's work, In Search of Lost Time, months before he died?

The author's original manuscript, presumably, had been cleanly typed, thoroughly proof-read, and, complete and ready to print, sent to the publisher. Usually, a publisher's "proofs" were meant to check spellings and make necessary corrections. Instead, Proust treated them like one more step toward a final draft, writing copious marginal notes and pasting in additional paragraphs.

Proofs & Paperolles: The Prisoner, c.1921

Eventually this turned into not just new pages, but new plot threads which led to entirely new volumes to handle them; the first of these involved meeting the love of his Narrator's life, Albertine.

Proust had only met Alfred Agostinelli shortly before completing Swann's Way and their tumultuous relationship lasted barely half a year before his new secretary left and was subsequently killed in an accident in 1914. He became, with Proust's typical alchemy, the model for Albertine and the object of the Narrator's jealous obsessions for future volumes. Originally, it was Time Lost (later Swann's Way), the Guermantes Way, and Time Regained. But the "Albertine Story" became the newly inserted second volume and grew into the new fourth volume, Sodom & Gomorrah.

On Oct 13th, 1917, Proust received 5,000 pages of proofs. Correcting them would've been laborious even if his eyes had been normal, but without glasses and "without much eyesight," it became a frightful job. Still, he refused to get spectacles. Four days later, his publisher announced Proust's novel, formerly three books, will now become five.

But as Proust's ever-expanding imagination proceeded to "edit" his newest volume, within fourteen months Sodom & Gomorrah (published as Cities of the Plain by squeamish English translators), filling in details between The Guermantes Way and the now revised war-time setting for the final volume, Time Regained, was first split into two, then eventually three books.

Meanwhile, once the War finally ended, Proust saw these post-Swann volumes into print before spending months rewriting parts of Time Regained, initially written simultaneously with Swann's Way (originally entitled Time Lost) back in 1913.

However, his health, never good and often precarious, became increasingly worrisome. In early 1922, he wrote to friends about thoughts of suicide, wishing he'd had some cyanide, months before he published Sodom & Gomorrah. The expanded "spin-off" of these latest proofs became another volume, The Prisoner, announced days before his famous dinner with James Joyce.

In late-June, 1922, Proust managed to write to his editor, "the reworkings of this typescript where I am making additions everywhere and changing everything, has hardly begun," One can only imagine his editor's expression. Remember, earlier that spring he'd told his faithful housekeeper, Céleste Albaret, "Last night, I wrote 'The End.' Now I can die."

In October, catching a cold which turned into bronchitis, he completed The Prisoner but started revising the next new volume, The Fugitive, apparently not fully satisfied he'd written "The End" on his life's work.

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Consider the chronology of these facts: Proust had written "The End" in the Spring of 1922; in late-June, he informed his editor "the reworking of this typescript... has hardly begun"; and now he indicated he had made an enormous cut of, according to Hayman, some 250 pages which amounted to almost two-thirds of The Fugitive! It should be noted the frequently quoted Wikipedia entry called The Fugitive "the most editorially vexed volume", and stated without verification the cut consisted of 150 pages: both were subsequently ignored by posthumous editions.

Proust had a new manuscript typed up, retitled Albertine disparue, having already promised his publisher he would have "more books to offer you," apparently whole new volumes [plural!] between The Fugitive and Time Regained. He also mentioned he considered the Death of Albertine and the whole process of forgetting her some of his finest writing.

While Proust didn't break his volumes down into internal chapters per se, Hayman indicated this cut began on p.648 of the proofs after "the first chapter" and ended at p.898 with "the Venice Episode." This includes memories of "a sweetly innocent Albertine" and conversations with her friend Andrée about his suspicions of Albertine's lesbian affairs; how the Duchesse de Guermantes' attitude towards Swann had changed since his death; how Gilberte, Swann's daughter, helped the Narrator "get over" Albertine; and the discovery of his old friend Robert de Saint-Loup's homosexuality.

Now, if it's true Proust regarded this part of Albertine's Story as some of his best writing, would he logically have merely discarded it to present his publisher with a shorter, more salable book? How much of it would have become fuel for one of these new volumes, not merely fragments inserted into Time Regained? Yes, in August he'd joked how “short books sell better,” but that would've been the first time in eight years he apparently cared about sparing his publisher from longer and continuously longer books!

Each time I read through Time Regained and think of this massive cut, I wonder what part of the Narrator's story was left to tell? There are large gaps of time during the War when the Narrator is absent from Paris, times he spent in a sanatorium: perhaps this volume would've been called The Invalid?

- Dick Strawser

987 Words about Proust's Remains

The grave at Paris' Père Lachaise Cemetery

There's a certain wistfulness, when an artist dies in the midst of working, to discover something left incomplete (or, worse, incompletable): imagine "What If...?," holding sketches for that 10th Symphony found in Beethoven's desk? The mind has stopped creating; the body, living. Published works live on; the possibility of works that weren't finished tantalizingly survive. Even though you may own or even have read the complete À la recherche du temps perdu, it's not that easy when you realize he hadn't really finished it – when then, voilá, Proust died.

And when he died, we were told his vast novel, the only major work he wrote, was "more or less" complete. At least, that's the "short" version one usually reads in those biographical summaries. Of its seven volumes, each one a separate novel, the last three were published posthumously, but he hadn't finished editing them.

Keep in mind, this means we have no definitive version of what Proust intended to do with this apparently never-ending novel which he'd initially planned as two or three novels, ending with Time Regained. It's not really a finite story: the hero isn't born and then dies; a goal isn't necessarily sought and ultimately reached. But there are telling details – the myriad "What Ifs?" of the imagination's potential – many of which I've found in Ronald Hayman's 1990 biography, making me wish I'd at least paged through it years before.

When World War I started and his publishers put everything on hold for the duration, Proust decided to fill things in. Otherwise, instead of sequels or pre-quels, he might have published some... well, "mid-quels." I knew, courtesy of various introductions to those volumes of the novel I'd read, how he gradually inserted four new novels. I was less interested in these details at the time, more concerned with trying to figure out what was going on. Keeping Proust's cast of thousands and reading voluminous explanatory footnotes was enough work.

While the opening, Swann's Way, first appeared in bookshops on November 11th, 1913, Hayman mentions Proust's secretary had already been typing up the manuscript for the novel's second part before he quit that December. In June, Proust was correcting new proofs but war broke out by August; and by January, the publication was officially suspended.

This second part, completed in 1914, had not yet been definitively titled – in fact, the whole novel underwent numerous title transformations – and Proust continued adding new characters like Albertine into an organically evolving plot. Knowing how he wanted it to end, what was originally the middle volume became five, one thing leading inevitably to another. Throughout the course of the war, he exasperated his publisher by adding and revising these new volumes even after the Armistice. By then constantly ill, Proust would add this disclaimer: if only he lived.

Photograph of Proust writing letters in bed (c.1913)

In February, 1922, Proust still wrote there'd be more books to come, inserting "whole volumes" between The Fugitive and Time Regained. He told his publisher, "À la recherche du temps perdu is scarcely beginning." Then, in the early spring that year, he told his housekeeper, "Last night, I wrote 'The End.' Now I can die."

Proofs for The Prisoner

Since he'd begun correcting the initial proofs of Swann's Way by 1913, Proust's usual approach to editing was not to make corrections or small cuts but to add new text and lots of it, resulting in margins filled with additional lines and scraps of paper inserted between or pasted onto the original (the famous paperolles).

In 1921, he told his current publisher the sequence following the death of Albertine was better than anything he'd ever written. But even this was being considerably revised, eventually causing lots of unresolvable confusion.

In The Fugitive, Albertine, the Narrator's mistress, escapes from his control and dies in a riding accident. The Narrator then spends the rest of the volume trying to prove she'd been having lesbian affairs. In the new version, cutting some 250 pages from the proofs, she dies along a river, his ensuing obsession considerably reduced.

By August, 1922, he'd called this new, shortened version Albertine disparue ("Albertine Missing") but his posthumous editors eventually suppressed the revision. The typescript itself "went missing," not to be discovered and published until 1987.

In October, after finishing work on The Prisoner, he resumed editing The Fugitive, before he decided to change the title to Albertine disparue, hoping to avoid any confusion with Tagore's new novel, The Fugitive. Some published editions would call Proust's sixth volume La fugitive and others, Albertine disparue, but only the title had been changed.

The cork-lined bedroom Proust rarely left

The confusion is not entirely unexpected, given Proust worked from his sickbed, rarely leaving his apartment during these last few years. By June, he continued editing even though his temperature was often around 102°. In August, he couldn't tell his typist what he wanted her to do; in September, he had several severe asthma attacks.

His eyesight deteriorated, he had periods of giddiness, flu turned into bronchitis. He tried to stand up but often "fell over." By November, bronchitis became pneumonia. But he continued to edit his novel's proofs.

One major problem with the revised Albertine disparue (not to mention several other last-minute revisions) was, there was no easy continuity with the opening of Time Regained, even as to where it should begin. Would he have inserted another volume about those years his Narrator spent in a sanatorium during and immediately after the War?

There were minor, contradictory details still needing clarification that perhaps another pair of eyes might find so he could correct them. Yet, considering how his creative process worked, could he have ever finished it...?

Looking at the piles of papers left in Proust's room, there was no way, now, there'd ever be "a definitive text." Ironically, on November 18th, Marcel Proust ran out of Time. He was 51. 

Regardless of his having written "The End," his novel still wasn't quite finished when his funeral was held on November 22nd.

– Dick Strawser

Read my 1st installment for The Proust Centennial, "987 Words: Remembrance of Things Proust," here... 

 

987 Words: Remembrance of Things Proust

Celebrating major anniversaries of someone's birth makes sense though many of us fall short of bringing balloons and gobbling down cake. "Observing" the date someone died on (since "celebrating" sounds ghoulish) presents different issues, more as a way to commemorate someone influential in our own lives, examining a legacy that brings us enjoyment or inspiration.

The Centennial of the death of Marcel Proust, which occurs today, probably isn't going to draw big crowds in Paris streets. Where are the annual celebrations like Bloomsday recreating scenes from James Joyce's Ulysses?

Few fans today will be re-enacting Proust's narrator eating a madeleine with tea; visiting a male brothel to watch some aristocrat beaten until "blood spurts everywhere;" attending soirees hoping someone will talk to you; or desperately feigning symptoms of an illness to coerce your mother into coming up to give you that all-important bedtime kiss.

Two of my favorite authors – or rather their works influencing my own attempts to become a writer (which is, at its core, one of the things Proust's In Search of Lost Time is "about") – are Proust and Joyce. And Henry James (okay, three of my favorite authors...) and Monty Python (which probably no one expected). Four more disparate styles would be hard to imagine coexisting in one creative psyche and yet they've informed all six of the novels I've written and all the music I'm still trying to compose.

Curiously, with the exception of Monty Python (whatever you want to call it, it certainly had a "style"), they were all creating their most influential works in the first decades of the 20th Century. Henry James came into the realization of his final masterpieces including The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl between 1902 and 1904. James Joyce began the long journey of Ulysses, which takes place on a beautiful June Day in 1904, ten years later. Proust attended the premiere of Le Sacre while correcting proofs for Swann's Way.

When Joyce finally published Ulysses in February, 1922, Proust was anxiously finalizing two more of the seven volumes of In Search of Lost Time while still planning additional volumes that would be inserted between The Fugitive and the concluding volume, Time Regained, which he'd already completed in 1916.

But he died on November 18th, 1922.

Not a scholar, I'm not intending to write about Proust's life (or, given the date, his death), and if you don't know what In Search of Lost Time is – or Remembrance of Things Past if you grew up, as I did, on the original English translation – you should probably check out some other sources first. It's clearly one of The Great Novels but I'd always put it off because of books entitled "How to Read Proust." I'd fall asleep after a few pages more likely because it bored me.

While I may research the life of a particular composer to better understand his music in the context of its creation, I've rarely done this with an author (except Henry James; that's another story). I scoffed at needing to read a biography of Proust if I've already read his novel: it's famously autobiographical, isn't it?

I'm not sure how many biographies of Proust are out there or if the only one I own (and never cracked open until last night), Ronald Hayman's 1990 Proust, is even the best one. I'd probably be intimidated meeting Henry James and confused by James Joyce; Proust, as a person, would probably have repelled me.

In this short essay – imagine praising Proust in 987 words when his novel of 3,275 pages (in the edition I started with) contains roughly 1,405,000 words – I need to distinguish between work and artist.

For my 32^nd birthday, an actor-friend gave me Part One of the new Random House edition of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past because, he said, "now that you've survived 30, you're ready for Proust." I'm not sure what that implied (he'd turn 30 himself weeks later) but I've had few gifts offer such long-lasting rewards. Since then, I've read the complete novel once through, Swann's Way twice by itself, before starting up again, most recently with the more current Penguin translations up to the fourth volume, Sodom & Gomorrah.

It's the fifth and sixth volumes I found the most tedious to deal with: if Swann's Way opened with 30 pages about turning over in his sleep, I swear 40 pages of The Prisoner were about him buying his mistress a hat. His paranoid obsession with Albertine, even after her death, would drive anyone crazy.

At first, when I decided to try my hand at writing a novel (not a short story), I made the mistake of imitating Proust and before filling hundreds of pages with outright, indigestible trash, I discovered that's not something you can do any more than you could imitate Beethoven starting out first composing a symphony.

That didn't mean Proust's ideas about what a novel could be couldn't, more importantly for me, inspire me to figure out what my novel could be, and maybe help me find my own voice.

For me (and many other writers and readers), the most significant adjustment came in realizing the role of memory and how it can work, the famous Madeleine Scene being just one of many instances. For Proust's narrator (conveniently named Marcel), it begins a journey back to his childhood, and from there the whole novel springs. It annoyed me, beyond this initial "Time Traveling" and occasional flash-backs, the story moved forward in a fairly straight chronological line. But still, the fluidity of memory in the opening pages set the stage.

My own novels, their Proustian parodies and puns aside (In Search of Tom Purdue?), are often defined by little nuggets of inspiration lovingly pilfered from different passages in À la recherche du temps perdu. Finishing The Salieri Effect's impact on Tom, I'm ready for the next volume.

So, Happy Death Day to you, Marcel Proust!

Marcel Proust on his deathbed (sketch by Paul-César Helleu)

– Dick Strawser

Read my second installment for the Proust Centennial, "987 Words about Proust's Remains," here...