this French National Library (BNF) opens one of the most ambitious exhibitions this year for Marcel Proust, whose death will be commemorated on November 18, on Tuesday. With the title “Marcel Proust”. The factory of a work”, this Parisian institution, creative process of the In Search of Lost Time, the grand project of one of the geniuses of 20th century literature, consisting of seven novels. Thanks to BNF’s extensive archive of this French writer, the exhibition allows you to immerse yourself in the creation of a masterpiece of letters designed in a circular rather than linear way.
The exhibition will last until January 22, 350 piecesmany among them numerous hand-edited manuscripts by Prous himself. The visitor discovers them by following the publication order of the seven volumes that compose them. In Search of Lost Time. Each room corresponds to one of them. Start with the novel first. down Swann RoadIt was published in 1913 and ends with: time savedIn 1927, five years after the author’s death from pneumonia at the age of 51, the . This sequence does not coincide with that of the literary process, as the author writes the first and the last part at the same time.
Ancestors of Proust’s Madeleine
” structure of the In Search of Lost Time did not stop growing from the inside. Proust did not stop changing that,” said Nathalie Mauriac, one of the author’s prestigious experts and one of the curators of the exhibition, at one of the press visits attended by El Periódico de Catalunya from the Prensa Ibérica group. “She managed to print 250 pages of her work at once, which shows us her fun side,” he added of a unique creative process that was produced in sequence. In Search of Lost TimeIt is considered, the brightest portrait Bourgeois France Belle EpoqueIt was designed as a two-volume work. In the end, there were seven people.
The exhibition not only shows the evolution of the structure, but also some of its best-known pieces. The original manuscripts are displayed with numerous strikethroughs and hand-made additions. first and last sentence of the game. Additionally, they are projected onto the wall with different changes in chronological order so that a non-expert visitor understands the fragile and artisanal process it takes to write his famous debut. down Swann Road: “Longtemps, suis couché de bonne heure to me”. The same goes for the expression “Dance le Temps”it resulted in time saved.
Interesting details are also given about the genesis of the most famous chapter in Proustian literature: cakeits smell and taste is the trigger for the journey to the childhood memories of the hero-narrator of the first volume. As explained in the example, in the early manuscripts it means “stale bread”, not “a small bun”. Then “torrado bread” became “biscuit” and finally decided on “donut”. This made it the most iconic bun in 20th century literature.
Manuscripts, paintings and dresses of the period
Besides the large number of original manuscripts appearing on the plates, documents made public for the first timeWhat Soixante Quinze Feuillets, the first draft of the work. You can also see famous paintings quoted in Proust’s novels. Rouen Cathedral of the Claude Monethis satirical illustrations of the clothes of the time and the characters of one of the best-known episodes by the same author. time saved. The exhibition benefits from a collaboration on fashion history with some of France’s most prestigious museums, such as the Louvre, D’Orsay or Galliera Palace.
The exhibition is of interest both to the general public, who will discover a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, and to Proust scholars who will enjoy devouring its original texts and revisions. But sinners extreme fetishism of manuscripts. And a broader contextualization of a literary project that played a key role in the transition between nineteenth-century realism and avant-garde literature is missing.