In early 1916, Gaston Gallimard followed the advice of Jacques Rivière and André Gide and re-established contact…

In early 1916, Gaston Gallimard followed the advice of Jacques Rivière and André Gide and resumed his correspondence with Marcel Proust 📩📬. His aim was to publish the rest of “the Search” at @la_nrf after the first volume had been published by @editionsgrasset at the author’s own expense. 📗

First, he tries to persuade him that at @nrf.larevue, everyone admires him 🫶🏻:

🖋️ “(…) and since you are kind enough to regard our refusal as a stroke of bad luck, let me finally tell you today that the bad luck is ours, and the most regrettable thing is that we bear full responsibility for it. We were foolishly careless. I am ashamed to think of it. Once success came, I no longer dared to write to you, fearing you might misinterpret such belated sympathy. You must know, however – and Gide must have told you – that at the “Nouvelle Revue Française” you have nothing but friends. Our poor Jacques Rivière, who is in prison, was still asking for your book as recently as last week, and he regularly enquires whether the sequel has been published. Copeau, Larbaud – we have all read it and reread it, and Fargue, that great idler, has even started writing his childhood memories.”

But Proust felt a sense of commitment ✍🏻 to Grasset, and before joining the NRF, he wanted to ensure that there was no misunderstanding about the nature of his work:

🖋️ “(…) I am very proud if my book helped to inspire Fargue – for whom I have great admiration – to write his “Souvenirs d’enfance”; but (the fact is) that, in my view, my book is not a book of childhood memories. It is a work whose structure, I admit, does not become apparent from the first volume (and I felt it was more honest not to announce or anticipate this), and in which childhood memories serve almost exclusively as examples within a theory of memory)”

🗳️ Do you think the Search is a book of childhood memories?

#MarcelProust #NRF #AndréGide #GastonGallimard #JacquesRivière #proustagram #RTP #LéonPaulFargue