The famous scene that Céleste Albaret describes in her memoirs ‘Monsieur Proust31‘ in which he proudly reports to her that he has written the word ‘FIN’ and that he is now ready to die, is impossible to date but takes place sometime between 1916 and 1919 but certainly before 192232 as Céleste incorrectly writes. It is a certainty that Proust finished the final form of the Recherche in 1916 but not yet the final volume of the work. He still needs to rework, refine, add and reshuffle but he is reasonably confident that his work is sufficiently finished to be published as his letter of 22 May 1919 to his publisher Gaston Gallimard shows:
‘Dear Friend,
Otherwise, I’ve left all my numbered notebooks for you to take and I’m counting on you to make the complete publication.33’
With this, Proust indicates that the ground plans, basic materials and scaffolding for his great cathedral are sufficiently ready to commence finishing and that, if necessary, someone else can do it34. The catastrophe of the First World War prevents further publications but gives Marcel the space and time to keep working on his own ‘Sagrada Familia’ in extremely meticulously detailed lacework. Like Antonio Gaudi, Marcel will not live long enough to see his cathedral ISOLT finished and published.
In 1919, ‘Within a Budding Grove’ won him the prestigious Prix Goncourt. Le Petit Marcel blossoms into Le Grand Proust. His name and fame are skyrocketing stratospherically. Le tout Paris wants his attention, to meet him, to be with him. He retreats to his cave, wanting to continue working as undisturbed as possible. Increasingly ill and weak, he knows his days are numbered while there is still so much work waiting.
The last few years weigh heavily. His illness, his addiction and his general weakening (cachexia) increasingly echo the horror from Brissaud ‘s book35 .
The question of whether things might have turned out differently had Proust dealt with his illness in a different way can, of course, never be answered. His resistance to Doctor Sollier’s method of cognitive influence during his brief admission in 1906 may have to do with the fact that Marcel is, on the one hand, convinced of the hopelessness of his asthmatic problems and, on the other hand, he is also quite aware that his way of life is counterproductive to his symptoms. He realizes that he can no longer function without stramonium, stimulants and hypnotics, but he is unwilling or unable to change this. He has tried a few times on his own to phase out these drugs or replace them with other products, but his asthma then seems to double in severity. He will never know the real effect on his asthma of stopping, reducing or replacing those substances but in his experience, they are causally linked, namely stop using substances equals severe and prolonged flare-ups. Moreover, Marcel realizes -as most addicts realize somewhere- that he is addicted but he does not believe that he can change it and so he judges (or more sharply, deludes himself) that it is not too big a problem after all.
This vicious circle degenerated into a vortex. In the last years of his life, this vortex dominates his existence. And yet he always keeps his head above water because he can keep writing and polishing the Recherche. For instance, on the night before his death, he dictates another addition to the scene describing Bergotte’s death.
The journey from 1913 to 18 November 1922, when Le Grand Proust disappears into eternity and the Recherche becomes a world heritage, is a veritable odyssey, full of adventures, dangers, periods of illness, endlessly patient and courageously persevering labors, editing and deleting in order to then write even more, cross-referencing throughout the 3,200 pages, alternating the now familiar long sentences with staccato phrases, following up narrative beauty with philosophical reflections, punctuating sadness with comic passages, and so on and so forth.
As of Nov. 18, 1922, the Reader may finish Proust’s masterpiece for himself because the ISOLT is an invitation to create beauty and art experience in an endless circle36 in which different aspects, different viewpoints and layered angles, interpretations and accompanying feelings emerge each time.
I weave nothing at all but my shroud, and so slowly, so painfully.37
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