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Zombie Proust
“Marcel Proust passed away on the 18th of November. It was 1922. One day, I could no longer resist: I went in search of him.
“I prowled about, I visited the rooms where he had lived, I caught glimpses of abandoned châteaus and haunted places, I walked in his footsteps. I wanted to see what his eyes had seen. I looked at his photographs, I uncovered relics and little treasures. I tried to find out who he had been in life, what he had really been like. I interrogated those among the dead who could still reply: his friends, his confidants, those who had crossed paths with him.
“Who was he? The dandy who set out for salons as though on a foreign expedition? Or the invisible man who flinched from the light, the character in a thriller? The brilliant writer was concealing a doppelgänger, and I pursued him as though tracking down a missing relative.” — Jérôme Prieur
What is a writer’s life, and above all, what is left of it? This book is not a biography, but a quest; an expedition to unearth what remains of the author of Remembrance of Things Past. What was it like to be in his remarkable presence? What was it like to be inside his skin – especially during his final years of intense reclusive absorption in the writing of his great book?
Haunted places and abandoned sets, rare photographs, tinpot relics, half-erased fingerprints, flashes of light, piles of little memories serve as talismans through which Jérôme Prieur materialises the eponymous writer’s body and spirit in short, vivid chapters which resemble prose poems. Rich in detail, wry humour and quirky erudition, Zombie Proust brings back to life the invisible being, recalling his image as one summons a ghost.
“I prowled about, I visited the rooms where he had lived, I caught glimpses of abandoned châteaus and haunted places, I walked in his footsteps. I wanted to see what his eyes had seen. I looked at his photographs, I uncovered relics and little treasures. I tried to find out who he had been in life, what he had really been like. I interrogated those among the dead who could still reply: his friends, his confidants, those who had crossed paths with him.
“Who was he? The dandy who set out for salons as though on a foreign expedition? Or the invisible man who flinched from the light, the character in a thriller? The brilliant writer was concealing a doppelgänger, and I pursued him as though tracking down a missing relative.” — Jérôme Prieur
What is a writer’s life, and above all, what is left of it? This book is not a biography, but a quest; an expedition to unearth what remains of the author of Remembrance of Things Past. What was it like to be in his remarkable presence? What was it like to be inside his skin – especially during his final years of intense reclusive absorption in the writing of his great book?
Haunted places and abandoned sets, rare photographs, tinpot relics, half-erased fingerprints, flashes of light, piles of little memories serve as talismans through which Jérôme Prieur materialises the eponymous writer’s body and spirit in short, vivid chapters which resemble prose poems. Rich in detail, wry humour and quirky erudition, Zombie Proust brings back to life the invisible being, recalling his image as one summons a ghost.
- GenresNonfiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published October 3, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 19, 2025
‘We the living,’ Proust wrote, ‘we are all the dead who have not yet taken up our posts.'
[Comme nous ne sommes tous, nous les vivants, que des morts qui ne sont pas encore entrés en fonctions (from Journées de lecture)]
Zombie Proust (2025) is Nancy Kline's translation of Proust fantôme by Jérôme Prieur (originally published in 2001, with a revised edition in 2006) and published by the wonderful small Francophone press Les Fugitives.
The author's own introduction to the work (followed by the translation), which forms the book's blurb:
And he tells his story in a series of 72 vignettes, carefully researched both from the literary record and in person in Proust's Parisian former residences, although he gives particular and respectful prominence to the 'exceptional memoirs' of Proust's housekeeper and secretary Céleste Albaret.
It is telling that Prieur comments that Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb came days after Proust's death (18 November 1922 vs. 26 November 1922), as Prieur's own work is an literary evacation of treasures of Proust's life and work.
Under the pretext of viewing the body, it is the enigma of the character we wish to catch sight of. Impossible Open, Sesame! The transaction partakes of magic, of sorcery.
The secret is that of likeness. But likeness in the paradoxical sense defined by Jean Paulhan, in one of the texts he devotes to Cubist painting, an artistic revolution that occurred, incidentally, at exactly the same period when La Recherche was taking shape. Thus Paulhan stated that he did not believe in ghosts, all the while acknowledging that he was wrong. He added, It is a bad day for us when we are shown our profile in the play of mirrors, or hear our own voice in a recording, or read our old love letters, and in that moment we have an urge to scream. It is so obvious to us that we are anything but that.’
…
Baudelaire kept one single photograph from among all those that Félix Nadar took of him. A blurred shot, a shaky image. This anticipated Paulhan's view: namely, that we cannot see and recognize ourselves in any known physical form, not as portraits represent us, nor as cutaways, nor, of course, as skeletons. But only as ghosts.
And this an wonderfully affectionate portrait of the man, as much as the work - Prieur captures well how Proust's A La Recherhe is both universal yet oddly peculiar, as is the writer himself, with his rather (my view more than his) ridiculous foibles. And Prieur's work suggest perhaps that Proust as a person is defined by his writing, and whose dandyseque expeditons to salons were largely for researching his life's work: This peculiar being, this 'one of a kind' about whom all of us say to ourselves, when reading his work: 'That's me!' - his sole nourishment, his sole instrument, is language, subjects, verbs, objects, sentences, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, tenses, all that is unique to man, and nothing else.
Brilliantly done.
[Comme nous ne sommes tous, nous les vivants, que des morts qui ne sont pas encore entrés en fonctions (from Journées de lecture)]
Zombie Proust (2025) is Nancy Kline's translation of Proust fantôme by Jérôme Prieur (originally published in 2001, with a revised edition in 2006) and published by the wonderful small Francophone press Les Fugitives.
The author's own introduction to the work (followed by the translation), which forms the book's blurb:
«Marcel Proust a disparu un 18 novembre. C'était en 1922. Un jour, je n'ai pas pu faire autrement. Je suis parti à sa recherche.
J'ai rôdé, j'ai visité les chambres où il avait habité, j'ai aperçu des châteaux abandonnés et des lieux hantés, j'ai marché dans ses pas. J'ai voulu voir ce que ses yeux avaient vu. J'ai observé ses photos, j'ai découvert des reliques et des petits trésors, comme des météorites. J'ai cherché à savoir qui il avait été dans la vie, à quoi il ressemblait vraiment. J'ai interrogé les morts qui pouvaient encore répondre, ses amis, ses intimes, ceux qui l'avaient croisé.
Qui était-il ? Le dandy qui fréquentait les salons ainsi qu'on part en expédition, où l'homme invisible qui avait horreur de la lumière, le personnage de roman noir ? L'écrivain génial dissimulait un double. Je suis parti sur les traces de ce héros incroyable comme on cherche à retrouver un proche.»
“Marcel Proust passed away on the 18th of November. It was 1922. One day, I could no longer resist: I went in search of him.
I prowled about, I visited the rooms where he had lived, I caught glimpses of abandoned chateaus and haunted places, I walked in his footsteps. I wanted to see what his eyes had seen. I looked at his photographs, I uncovered relics and little treasures. I tried to find out who he had been in life, what he had really been like. I interrogated those among the dead who could still reply: his friends, his confidants, those who had crossed paths with him.
Who was he? The dandy who set out for salons as though on a foreign expedition? Or the invisible man who flinched from the light, the character in a thriller? The brilliant writer was concealing a döppelganger. I followed his traces as though tracking down a missing relative.”
And he tells his story in a series of 72 vignettes, carefully researched both from the literary record and in person in Proust's Parisian former residences, although he gives particular and respectful prominence to the 'exceptional memoirs' of Proust's housekeeper and secretary Céleste Albaret.
It is telling that Prieur comments that Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb came days after Proust's death (18 November 1922 vs. 26 November 1922), as Prieur's own work is an literary evacation of treasures of Proust's life and work.
Under the pretext of viewing the body, it is the enigma of the character we wish to catch sight of. Impossible Open, Sesame! The transaction partakes of magic, of sorcery.
The secret is that of likeness. But likeness in the paradoxical sense defined by Jean Paulhan, in one of the texts he devotes to Cubist painting, an artistic revolution that occurred, incidentally, at exactly the same period when La Recherche was taking shape. Thus Paulhan stated that he did not believe in ghosts, all the while acknowledging that he was wrong. He added, It is a bad day for us when we are shown our profile in the play of mirrors, or hear our own voice in a recording, or read our old love letters, and in that moment we have an urge to scream. It is so obvious to us that we are anything but that.’
…
Baudelaire kept one single photograph from among all those that Félix Nadar took of him. A blurred shot, a shaky image. This anticipated Paulhan's view: namely, that we cannot see and recognize ourselves in any known physical form, not as portraits represent us, nor as cutaways, nor, of course, as skeletons. But only as ghosts.
And this an wonderfully affectionate portrait of the man, as much as the work - Prieur captures well how Proust's A La Recherhe is both universal yet oddly peculiar, as is the writer himself, with his rather (my view more than his) ridiculous foibles. And Prieur's work suggest perhaps that Proust as a person is defined by his writing, and whose dandyseque expeditons to salons were largely for researching his life's work: This peculiar being, this 'one of a kind' about whom all of us say to ourselves, when reading his work: 'That's me!' - his sole nourishment, his sole instrument, is language, subjects, verbs, objects, sentences, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, tenses, all that is unique to man, and nothing else.
Brilliantly done.
December 3, 2025
Zombie Proust - eller Proust fantôme på fransk - er en ganske frydefuld og morbid dans med Proust… manden, myten… vampyren.
Den minder lidt om Donald Barthelmes version af Eugenie Grandet, der kondenserer romanen og går fjolle-amok på Balzacs fjerde-væg-realisme… men som stadig respekterer og hylder en essens, en vilje.
Jérôme Prieur kan sin Baudrillard og skriver sig intelligent ind i det punkt, hvor Prousts vampyriske begær efter at tømme ægte levende modeller og gøre dem til dukker på siderne overlapper læserens begær efter Proust…
Den minder lidt om Donald Barthelmes version af Eugenie Grandet, der kondenserer romanen og går fjolle-amok på Balzacs fjerde-væg-realisme… men som stadig respekterer og hylder en essens, en vilje.
Jérôme Prieur kan sin Baudrillard og skriver sig intelligent ind i det punkt, hvor Prousts vampyriske begær efter at tømme ægte levende modeller og gøre dem til dukker på siderne overlapper læserens begær efter Proust…
December 27, 2025
pretty good
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews