Marcel Proust’s first letter to Jacques Rivière is dated around 7 February 1914.

Marcel Proust’s first letter to Jacques Rivière is dated around 7 February 1914. Proust did not date his letters. In it, he replies to a letter from Rivière which has not survived. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Jacques Rivière, then secretary of @nrf.larevue, was one of the first keen readers of “Swann's Way”, which Proust had just published on 14 November 1913 at his own expense through @editionsgrasset. 📗

Rivière was already corresponding with Claudel, and had grown closer to Gide since 1909 (the date of his first contribution to @nrf.larevue, which had been published since 1908). He may have been looking for a new mentor to admire. 🤵🏻‍♂️

What does this first letter from Proust tell us? Things that are essential to any proper reading of the “Search”. Judge for yourselves:

🖋️ “At last I’ve found a reader who realises that my book is a dogmatic work and a construct! And what a joy it is for me that this reader is you. For the feelings you are kind enough to express to me are ones I have often felt whilst reading your work; so that, each in our own way, we have taken the first steps towards one another and laid the foundations for a spiritual friendship. (…) It is only at the end of the book, and once life’s lessons have been learnt, that my thoughts will be revealed. What I express at the end of the first volume, in that digression on the Bois de Boulogne—which I inserted there merely as a screen to conclude and bring to a close a book that, for practical reasons, could not exceed 500 pages—is the opposite of my conclusion. It is a step – seemingly subjective and amateurish – towards the most objective and faithful of conclusions.”

Proust’s foresight regarding his work can be explained by the fact that, long before publishing “Swann's Way”, the author had conceived his work as ✌🏻 two contrasting parts: “In Search of Lost Time” and “Finding Time Again”. Having written the beginning and the end of his novel from the outset, he then developed it from the centre outwards, much like drawing an arch upon which the entire structure rests. ❤️‍🩹

And in 1916, Rivière persuaded Proust to join @la_nrf 🌟📚

#MarcelProust #JacquesRivière #proustagram #NRF #RTP #ÀlaRechercheduTempsperdu