A wonderful book 📓 has just been published by @editions_bouquins; it is entitled “Jacques Rivière: critic and…”

A truly beautiful book 📓 has just been published by @editions_bouquins; it is entitled “Jacques Rivière: Criticism and Creativity” and opens with a foreword by Jean-Yves Tadié. J. Rivière (1886–1925) was originally from @villedebordeaux, the city of Montaigne and Mauriac, and @librairie_mollat, a true Bordeaux institution, pays tribute to him by contributing to this book. ✨👌🏻

From 1909 onwards, Rivière was a contributor to @nrf.larevue, which had just been founded. Proust was working on his great novel, the outline of which he had already sketched out: an essay on literature, a conversation with ‘Maman’. Whilst @la_nrf was promoting a new vision of literature and new links between literature and the world, Proust was crafting a novel-essay, a “third form” as Roland Barthes would put it, which was a sort of literary synthesis, a “let’s go further”. In short, it’s a perfect match. Yet the reading committee headed by A. Gide rejected Proust’s manuscript: “In Search of Lost Time”. 😵

Proust then decided to publish at his own expense through @editionsgrasset. “Swann's Way” was published on 14 November 1913 to relatively little notice. But Rivière read Proust’s work in early 1914 and wrote to him. Their correspondence 🖋️ led to the NRF buying out the contract between Proust and Grasset. Thus, at the end of the war, “Swann's Way” was republished thanks to Rivière.

A genuine editorial strategy: a volume entitled “Pastiches et mélanges” was also published, and, most importantly, the second volume of “The Search”: “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower”, which won the Prix Goncourt on 10 December 1919.

As @thierrylaget points out, this award caused a real stir 💥 in literary circles, sparking a scandal reported in the newspapers 🗞️ and echoed by sections of the public. Rivière then used @nrf.larevue to defend Proust: first with the article “Marcel Proust and the Classical Tradition”, followed by the NRF’s tribute to Proust in January 1923. 🪦

So you could say that, thanks to Rivière, Proust got into the “flow”. 🌊🏄🏻‍♂️

#JacquesRivière #MarcelProust #proustagram #NRF #AndréGide #GastonGallimard #Bordeaux #Paris #PrixGoncourt