A few lines by @evelyneblochdano in this 2017 book published by @editionsstock, which won the “Prix Céleste”…

A few lines by @evelyneblochdano from this 2017 book published by @editionsstock, which won the “Prix Céleste Albaret” 👌🏻:

🖋️ The young girls in the questionnaire play guessing games or ‘furet’ just like Albertine and her friends. But reading and daydreaming have given way to physical fitness and the joys of sport. Horse riding 🏇🏻, of course, but also golf, cycling 🚴🏻‍♀️, tennis or, for Albertine, the diabolo, which was all the rage in the early 20th century. Modernity and freedom had made their presence felt. A few points of reference, notably the allusions to the Dreyfus Affair, allow us to situate the action around 1898, some ten years after the questionnaire 📝. This was the period of the craze for the ‘little queen’. Although Pierre de Coubertin opposed women’s participation in the Olympic Games 🥇🥈🥉, more and more women were developing a passion for sport. Scandal! Hampered by their crinoline skirts, they wore bloomers – baggy knickerbockers that allowed them to ride their ‘bécane’. The most refined among them gracefully displayed their legs, sheathed in silk, beneath their zouave-style knickers.

“Don’t you think we’re getting a bit silly, just lying on the beach all the time? ⛱️ Ah! Do you like lazing about? You must have time to spare. I can see you’re not like me – I love all sports!” declares Albertine to a somewhat intimidated but smitten Marcel. “Do you think women’s fashion for cars is rather lovely?” she asks the painter Elstir 🖼️. “No, but they will be.” The future is on the move. The ‘little white geese’ in long dresses and large hats are giving way to emancipated girls, who shake hands 🤝🏻 with the boys, dance breast-to-breast with one another at the casino and embody “a rejuvenating society where health, sensuality, cruelty, intellectual indifference and joy reigned”. 💃🏻🪩🎉

#UnejeunessedeMarcelProust #MarcelProust #AlbertineSimonet #Balbec #proustagram #RTP #JFF #QuestionnairedeProust

Have you read it?