The relationship between Marcel Proust 🤵🏻‍♂️ and Jacques Rivière, who was first secretary and then editor of @nrf.larevue…

The relationship between Marcel Proust 🤵🏻‍♂️ and Jacques Rivière – initially secretary and later editor of @nrf.larevue – appears, at first glance, to be one of mutual respect, friendship, and almost a father-son bond.

Proust was grateful to Rivière for having read “Swann's Way” 📗 carefully as early as January 1914, and for having worked to get it accepted by @la_nrf. As early as 1916, @editions_gallimard offered him a contract that released him from his obligations to Grasset. On 1 June 1919, the NRF was relaunched, and on 10 December, “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower” 🌺 won the Prix Goncourt 🌟.

The correspondence between Proust and Rivière is quite extensive. It should be supplemented by the correspondence between Proust and Gallimard, and that between Gallimard and Rivière. But between Gallimard and Proust, one does not see that bond of admiration and deep regard 🤍 that exists between Rivière and Proust. Gallimard is a publisher; Rivière is more than that: an author, a sensitive intellectual, a man who reflects on human relationships and faith ✨.

Take, for example, what he wrote to Proust on 6 February 1920:

🖋️ “Your letter does me a world of good, giving me the feeling that I am protected: there is nothing I need more right now, for the slight bout of neurasthenia I’ve been struggling with occasionally fills me with the heart-wrenching thought that I am alone in the world, or rather – since that is so at odds with the facts – that my friends (I have some very good, very reliable ones) can do nothing for me. You reassure me; you restore my sense of companionship and support. Thank you.”

We are well aware of Proust’s ‘anti-friendly’ attitude, which is also that of the narrator in “the Search”. But what do you make of these words by Rivière? And how would you describe their relationship? 🗳️📝

#MarcelProust #proustagram #JacquesRivière #NRF #GastonGallimard #Correspondance #CorrProust #1920