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The Lemoine Affair
This is the first-ever translation into English of this startling tour-de-force by one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.
The Lemoine Affair was inspired by the real-life French scandal involving Henri Lemoine, who claimed he could manufacture diamonds from coal and convinced numerous people—including officers of the De Beers diamond mine company and Proust himself—to invest in the scheme. In a series of pastiches—imitations written in the style of other writers—Proust tells the story of the embarrassment rippling across high society Paris in the wake of the scandal, poking fun at himself (in one story, a character declares that Marcel Proust is so embarrassed he’s suicidal) while lampooning some of France’s greatest writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, and Saint-Simon.
Full of sophisticated wit and dazzling wordplay, and rife with allusions to his friend and fictional characters, many Proust scholars see the dead-on mimicry of The Lemoine Affair—written soon after Proust’s rejection of society life—as the work by which he honed his own unique, masterly voice.
The Art of The Novella Series
Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.
The Lemoine Affair was inspired by the real-life French scandal involving Henri Lemoine, who claimed he could manufacture diamonds from coal and convinced numerous people—including officers of the De Beers diamond mine company and Proust himself—to invest in the scheme. In a series of pastiches—imitations written in the style of other writers—Proust tells the story of the embarrassment rippling across high society Paris in the wake of the scandal, poking fun at himself (in one story, a character declares that Marcel Proust is so embarrassed he’s suicidal) while lampooning some of France’s greatest writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, and Saint-Simon.
Full of sophisticated wit and dazzling wordplay, and rife with allusions to his friend and fictional characters, many Proust scholars see the dead-on mimicry of The Lemoine Affair—written soon after Proust’s rejection of society life—as the work by which he honed his own unique, masterly voice.
The Art of The Novella Series
Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1919
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About the author
Marcel Proust
2,160 books7,550 followersMarcel Proust was a French novelist, best known for his 3000 page masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time), a pseudo-autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style.
Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51.
Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.
Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51.
Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
December 6, 2014
Hardly a novella, but thankfully finally translated into English as part of Melville House's The Art of the Novella series, The Lemoine Affair occupies a curious place in Proust's work.
Written over a period of four years (1904-1908) before Proust began to conceive and draft what would become his monumental A la recherche du temps perdu, The Lemoine Affair is a series of pastiches written in the styles of a variety of authors ranging from Balzac to Flaubert, from Sainte-Beuve to Saint-Simon. Proust said that the format of the pastiche allowed him to write in the style of authors in whose work he had recently immersed himself, largely in order to get their influence out of his system so that he could write in his own style, unfettered by even unconscious influence of the grand masters. (One wonders what Harold Bloom would make of this idea of "purging" the anxiety of influence, especially as these pastiches are relevant to the Recherche as Proust comes into his own style after writing them. There is even a scene in which Proust, in his pastiche of Edmond de Goncourt, "forgetting the gratitude he owed Zola, sent him flying ten steps backwards with a pair of blows, and knocked him flat on his back.")
What unites these pieces is the impact that Henri Lemoine had on Parisian high society after his diamond fraud caused many of Proust's milieu—and even Proust himself—to buy into the fraud and lose a considerable sum of money. As Proust writes in his preface:
Written over a period of four years (1904-1908) before Proust began to conceive and draft what would become his monumental A la recherche du temps perdu, The Lemoine Affair is a series of pastiches written in the styles of a variety of authors ranging from Balzac to Flaubert, from Sainte-Beuve to Saint-Simon. Proust said that the format of the pastiche allowed him to write in the style of authors in whose work he had recently immersed himself, largely in order to get their influence out of his system so that he could write in his own style, unfettered by even unconscious influence of the grand masters. (One wonders what Harold Bloom would make of this idea of "purging" the anxiety of influence, especially as these pastiches are relevant to the Recherche as Proust comes into his own style after writing them. There is even a scene in which Proust, in his pastiche of Edmond de Goncourt, "forgetting the gratitude he owed Zola, sent him flying ten steps backwards with a pair of blows, and knocked him flat on his back.")
What unites these pieces is the impact that Henri Lemoine had on Parisian high society after his diamond fraud caused many of Proust's milieu—and even Proust himself—to buy into the fraud and lose a considerable sum of money. As Proust writes in his preface:
This legal affair, which, although insignificant, enthralled public opinion at the time, was selected one evening by me, entirely by chance, as the common theme for a few short pieces in which I would set out to imitate the style of a certain number of writers.And imitate he does. We have crowded drawing room scenes that could be straight out of Balzac; we have a courtroom ringside seat to the Lemoine case that focuses on individualized and collective reactions à la Flaubert; an attack on Flaubert's piece by Sainte-Beuve (or, rather, Proust writing as Sainte-Beuve and attacking himself); we have a Micheletian account of the sociopolitical context of the Lemoine scandal which points the finger at high society and modern science; and, among many other pieces, we have Proust channeling Saint-Simon very generously, in the longest pastiche collected here—a pastiche that fits Proust's own style rather well, and which reads almost like a passage from The Guermantes Way. Proust's own style does come through in many of the other pieces, too, such as in the following passage:
But some, thinking of the wealth that could have come to them, felt ready to faint; for they would have placed it all at the feet of a woman by whom they had been scorned until now, who would have finally given them the secret of her kiss and the sweetness of her body.There are also some delightful metacommentaries here by which Proust inserts his own rejection of society—e.g., in speaking of how the elite would have spent the money the diamonds would have afforded them, Proust suggests that they "would have their bedrooms padded with cork that would deaden the sound of their neighbors", the role of gossip as a rumor of his own suicide over the Lemoine affair circulates in high society (a rumor that, in the fiction of these pastiches, eventually proves to be unfounded), and also a self-deprecating comment about his role as translator and literary figure more broadly:
An Englishman who lived at that time, John Ruskin, whom unfortunately we read now only in the pitifully insipid translation that Marcel Proust has bequeathed to us...The Lemoine Affair shows us Proust dealing with some of the major themes of the Recherche—especially how hypocritical and dangerous Parisian high society could be, poised as it was on the edge of extinction, as well as how greedy and vulture-like this world often was—and it shows Proust imitating his favorite authors with an obvious kind of glee and playfulness that makes the pastiches a comical look at a collective tragedy.
December 24, 2020
L'AFFAIRE LEMOINE
I. Dans un Roman de Balzac
II. L'«Affaire Lemoine», par Gustave Flaubert
III. Critique du roman de M. Gustave Flaubert sur
l'«Affaire Lemoine», par Sainte-Beuve, dans
son feuilleton du _Constitutionnel_
IV. Par Henri de Régnier
V. Dans le «Journal des Concourt»
VI. L'«Affaire Lemoine», par Michelet
VII. Dans un feuilleton dramatique de M. Emile Faguet
VIII. Par Ernest Renan
IX. Dans les Mémoires de Saint-Simon
I. Dans un Roman de Balzac
II. L'«Affaire Lemoine», par Gustave Flaubert
III. Critique du roman de M. Gustave Flaubert sur
l'«Affaire Lemoine», par Sainte-Beuve, dans
son feuilleton du _Constitutionnel_
IV. Par Henri de Régnier
V. Dans le «Journal des Concourt»
VI. L'«Affaire Lemoine», par Michelet
VII. Dans un feuilleton dramatique de M. Emile Faguet
VIII. Par Ernest Renan
IX. Dans les Mémoires de Saint-Simon
March 14, 2021
In trying to get myself ready for the bigger series In Search of Lost Time I wanted to prepare myself to understand Proust’s writing style.
An interesting story about a crisis in a diamond traders life. “Lemoine, having falsely claimed to have discovered the secret of making diamonds and having received, because of this claim, more than a million francs from the President of De Beers, Sir Julius Werner, who then brought action against him, was afterwards condemned on July 6, 1909 to six years in prison.”
The versions of many famous writers are imitated and collated in this novella.
An interesting story about a crisis in a diamond traders life. “Lemoine, having falsely claimed to have discovered the secret of making diamonds and having received, because of this claim, more than a million francs from the President of De Beers, Sir Julius Werner, who then brought action against him, was afterwards condemned on July 6, 1909 to six years in prison.”
The versions of many famous writers are imitated and collated in this novella.
October 25, 2012
I came upon this book by accident because I was interested in reading about the con-artist Henri Lemoine, who swindled the diamond company De Beers as well as the author of this book, Marcel Proust. You think this would be either a work of a journalist (Proust) commenting on the crime, or a sort of a true-crime narrative, but this is ...without a doubt Marcel Proust.
What we have here is Lemoine as a subject matter, but Proust choses to riff on the idea of this con-artist as literature written by Flaubert, Galzac, and Saint-Simon. So its a parody, but also a lit-crit book on the side. In other words it is very much of an eccentric little book by the master. Without a doubt a must for the Proust fanatic, and after all, this is the first English translation of this small, but interesting work of literature.
What we have here is Lemoine as a subject matter, but Proust choses to riff on the idea of this con-artist as literature written by Flaubert, Galzac, and Saint-Simon. So its a parody, but also a lit-crit book on the side. In other words it is very much of an eccentric little book by the master. Without a doubt a must for the Proust fanatic, and after all, this is the first English translation of this small, but interesting work of literature.
December 28, 2020
Free download available at Project Gutenberg
I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and Project Gutenberg will publish it.
TABLE DES MATIÈRES
PASTICHES
L'AFFAIRE LEMOINE
I. Dans un Roman de Balzac
II. L'«Affaire Lemoine», par Gustave Flaubert
III. Critique du roman de M. Gustave Flaubert sur
l'«Affaire Lemoine», par Sainte-Beuve, dans
son feuilleton du _Constitutionnel_
IV. Par Henri de Régnier
V. Dans le «Journal des Concourt»
VI. L'«Affaire Lemoine», par Michelet
VII. Dans un feuilleton dramatique de M. Emile Faguet
VIII. Par Ernest Renan
IX. Dans les Mémoires de Saint-Simon
MÉLANGES
EN MÉMOIRE DES ÉGLISES ASSASSINÉES
I. Les Églises sauvées. Les Clochers de Caen. La
Cathédrale de Lisieux.
Journées en Automobile
II. Journées de Pèlerinage.
Ruskin à Notre-Dame d'Amiens, à Rouen, etc.
III. John Ruskin
La Mort des Cathédrales
SENTIMENTS FILIAUX D'UN PARRICIDE
JOURNÉES DE LECTURE
I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and Project Gutenberg will publish it.
TABLE DES MATIÈRES
PASTICHES
L'AFFAIRE LEMOINE
I. Dans un Roman de Balzac
II. L'«Affaire Lemoine», par Gustave Flaubert
III. Critique du roman de M. Gustave Flaubert sur
l'«Affaire Lemoine», par Sainte-Beuve, dans
son feuilleton du _Constitutionnel_
IV. Par Henri de Régnier
V. Dans le «Journal des Concourt»
VI. L'«Affaire Lemoine», par Michelet
VII. Dans un feuilleton dramatique de M. Emile Faguet
VIII. Par Ernest Renan
IX. Dans les Mémoires de Saint-Simon
MÉLANGES
EN MÉMOIRE DES ÉGLISES ASSASSINÉES
I. Les Églises sauvées. Les Clochers de Caen. La
Cathédrale de Lisieux.
Journées en Automobile
II. Journées de Pèlerinage.
Ruskin à Notre-Dame d'Amiens, à Rouen, etc.
III. John Ruskin
La Mort des Cathédrales
SENTIMENTS FILIAUX D'UN PARRICIDE
JOURNÉES DE LECTURE
January 1, 2018
In order to escape the influence of other authors and to find his own style, Proust decided to write various parodies inspired by a real-life financial scam. He wrote in the style of Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Henri de Régnier, Edmond and/or Jules de Goncourt, Jules Michelet, Émile Faguet, Ernest Renan and Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon.
March 24, 2018
3,5
Ingenio y agudeza! Es lo que me viene a la mente para definir este libro. Marcel Proust se vale de su prodigiosa pluma para imitar el estilo de los grandes de la literatura francesa como: Balzac, Flaubert o Goncourt, sin dejar de lado la mordacidad crítica de Sainte-Beuve y el no menos intrigante Duque de Saint-Simon.
Como abordarían el escándalo Lemoine cada uno de estos escritores, esa es la finalidad de este libro. Personalmente lo logra con creces.
Ingenio y agudeza! Es lo que me viene a la mente para definir este libro. Marcel Proust se vale de su prodigiosa pluma para imitar el estilo de los grandes de la literatura francesa como: Balzac, Flaubert o Goncourt, sin dejar de lado la mordacidad crítica de Sainte-Beuve y el no menos intrigante Duque de Saint-Simon.
Como abordarían el escándalo Lemoine cada uno de estos escritores, esa es la finalidad de este libro. Personalmente lo logra con creces.
May 21, 2017
This book is ideal for the student of modern french literature. Then again that person would most likely prefer the original french.
Background: Marcel Proust was one of the many caught up in a then famous scandal known as the Lemoine Affair. A man named Henri Lemione had scammed M. Proust along with others, such as the officers of De Beers Diamond Co., with the claim that he could make diamonds. Proust lost money and M. Lemione, once exposed and convicted, disappeared.
From this experience, and its associated publicity, Proust got the idea to write this book. It is here published, for the first time in English as an edition of the Melville House series: The Art of the Novella. It is not a novella. The word to describe this work is "pastiche". According to the Free Dictionary: "A dramatic, literary, or musical piece openly imitating the previous works of other artists, often with satirical intent." This is exactly what the author had in mind, right down to the satirical intent.
In 94 pages we have 9 loosely connected 'takes' on aspects of this scandal written in comedic imitation of different writers. Each selection carries the name of the targeted writer. Some like Flaubert and Balzac may be well known enough for the more literate reader to enjoy. Others like literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, or Historian Jules Michelet may be well known to some scholars. At best I could enjoy the shots taken at a style of writing and had to take on faith that the arrows were on the mark.
A few words about the Novella books themselves I think the series is out of print and the used copies can be pricey , it was a great idea. Neither short nor long, the novella can provide the reader with a fine few hours and not clutter a bookshelf. I hope to find that books like these can still be found
Background: Marcel Proust was one of the many caught up in a then famous scandal known as the Lemoine Affair. A man named Henri Lemione had scammed M. Proust along with others, such as the officers of De Beers Diamond Co., with the claim that he could make diamonds. Proust lost money and M. Lemione, once exposed and convicted, disappeared.
From this experience, and its associated publicity, Proust got the idea to write this book. It is here published, for the first time in English as an edition of the Melville House series: The Art of the Novella. It is not a novella. The word to describe this work is "pastiche". According to the Free Dictionary: "A dramatic, literary, or musical piece openly imitating the previous works of other artists, often with satirical intent." This is exactly what the author had in mind, right down to the satirical intent.
In 94 pages we have 9 loosely connected 'takes' on aspects of this scandal written in comedic imitation of different writers. Each selection carries the name of the targeted writer. Some like Flaubert and Balzac may be well known enough for the more literate reader to enjoy. Others like literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, or Historian Jules Michelet may be well known to some scholars. At best I could enjoy the shots taken at a style of writing and had to take on faith that the arrows were on the mark.
A few words about the Novella books themselves I think the series is out of print and the used copies can be pricey , it was a great idea. Neither short nor long, the novella can provide the reader with a fine few hours and not clutter a bookshelf. I hope to find that books like these can still be found
March 15, 2017
Lo que pasa cuando te estafan, y no te queda otra que pasar el tiempo imitando magistralmente a tus pares. Definitivamente, un buen ejercicio de pastiche.
[4,5 estrellas]
[4,5 estrellas]
October 21, 2013
The real Lemoine Affair happened in 1905 before Proust became the literary giant known around the world today. Proust started the work that would become his name, in 1909. Proust was famous for sleeping all day in his cork-lined room and for writing all night. The Lemoine Affair, translated for the first time from French into English by Charlotte Mandell for Melville Press in 2008, is Proust perpetuating his own literary con. The brief piece – neither a short story nor a novella – had appeared in Le Figaro in 1908 before it was revised and reissued by Gallimard as Pastiches et mélanges in 1918.
Humor and brevity are not words one associates with Marcel Proust. He is remembered for his long philosophical and poetic sentences in his seven-volume novel, À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), or if you prefer the quote from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30, Remembrance of Things Past. In his novel, Proust devoted the first thirty pages to a man turning in bed, trying to fall asleep, and ends it making a pastry equal to Citizen Kane’s Rosebud.
In less than a hundred pages here Proust imitates, exaggerates and presents a patchwork parade of parodies. He gives us a tour de force of pastiches that teeter between outright mimicry and homage. We start with the realist style of Balzac. The reader is implicated for knowing Balzac’s style, characters, and social milieu that only Balzac could create and did create in his Human Comedy. The con is that we know it is Proust impersonating Balzac. Next up is the courtroom in all its Flaubertian naturalism, with a wink when we read about a woman with a stuffed parrot on her head. As the trial description progresses the reader journeys through the minds of numerous people in the courtroom, enjoying sensual pleasures and polar bears. Yes, polar bears.
Proust’s pastiche will go on and imitate the supercilious criticism of Sainte-Beuve; it will, through a parody of Symbolist poet Henri de Régnier, turn snot into a diamond; and the Goncourt Brothers will gossip that Proust had committed suicide, only to find out to their chagrin that he is alive. Before the reader closes the book, Proust provides pages from historian Jules Michelet, theatre critic Emile Faguet, philosopher Ernest Renan, and social gossip, Saint-Simon. Every chapter is a fake diamond from a literary master. Proust laughs at himself as he demonstrates his own mastery of numerous styles and genres.
But what is the point? Pastiche is imitation. Though he lampoons another writer’s style, Proust is never vicious. It is not satire with a social prescription. The con is that the reader is in on joke from the start, provided that the reader is conversant with the vocabulary and characters of the literary canon. A French reader would recognize Balzac’s use of exclamation points, the descriptive social setting, or know Flaubert’s free indirect discourse. For us, it would be like reading Henry James, Truman Capote, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, William Faulkner, and suddenly experiencing William Gibson and Tom Wolfe.
Is pastiche caricature or a form of plagiarism? Caricature implies reduction, a simplification, while plagiarism suggests theft. Pastiche is nuanced and an acknowledgement, a tip of the hat and a wink.
Humor and brevity are not words one associates with Marcel Proust. He is remembered for his long philosophical and poetic sentences in his seven-volume novel, À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), or if you prefer the quote from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30, Remembrance of Things Past. In his novel, Proust devoted the first thirty pages to a man turning in bed, trying to fall asleep, and ends it making a pastry equal to Citizen Kane’s Rosebud.
In less than a hundred pages here Proust imitates, exaggerates and presents a patchwork parade of parodies. He gives us a tour de force of pastiches that teeter between outright mimicry and homage. We start with the realist style of Balzac. The reader is implicated for knowing Balzac’s style, characters, and social milieu that only Balzac could create and did create in his Human Comedy. The con is that we know it is Proust impersonating Balzac. Next up is the courtroom in all its Flaubertian naturalism, with a wink when we read about a woman with a stuffed parrot on her head. As the trial description progresses the reader journeys through the minds of numerous people in the courtroom, enjoying sensual pleasures and polar bears. Yes, polar bears.
Proust’s pastiche will go on and imitate the supercilious criticism of Sainte-Beuve; it will, through a parody of Symbolist poet Henri de Régnier, turn snot into a diamond; and the Goncourt Brothers will gossip that Proust had committed suicide, only to find out to their chagrin that he is alive. Before the reader closes the book, Proust provides pages from historian Jules Michelet, theatre critic Emile Faguet, philosopher Ernest Renan, and social gossip, Saint-Simon. Every chapter is a fake diamond from a literary master. Proust laughs at himself as he demonstrates his own mastery of numerous styles and genres.
But what is the point? Pastiche is imitation. Though he lampoons another writer’s style, Proust is never vicious. It is not satire with a social prescription. The con is that the reader is in on joke from the start, provided that the reader is conversant with the vocabulary and characters of the literary canon. A French reader would recognize Balzac’s use of exclamation points, the descriptive social setting, or know Flaubert’s free indirect discourse. For us, it would be like reading Henry James, Truman Capote, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, William Faulkner, and suddenly experiencing William Gibson and Tom Wolfe.
Is pastiche caricature or a form of plagiarism? Caricature implies reduction, a simplification, while plagiarism suggests theft. Pastiche is nuanced and an acknowledgement, a tip of the hat and a wink.
January 7, 2012
A curious book for sure. I keep vascilating between 3 and 4 (as if it matters, of course!), as it is a weird book in the way that Proust, a legend, imitates other high literary priests of his age, which, i mean, i have not seen done anywhere before. i realize i'm taking a mixtape approach to describe these books tonight, but it's almost like a rapper taking beats from other rappers then trying to imitate their voice and flows and doing it so well that the reader is lost, at times to a point of spoil. Now, this is all with keeping in mind that I have yet to breach his actual works, however, this was a tough one to make sense of. the last story just kept going between beautiful and dread boredom like that of biblical lineage treatises, while some of the earlier stories got me to utter sounds aloud under his spell. unlike joyce, unfortunately, Proust ended on the weakest verse, in my opinion, and thus i am left giving it a solid 3. i am hopeful of making my way into rememberance later this year.
July 6, 2011
if you already love proust whole-heartedly like i do, you will want to read this novella of impersonations & you may find a lot to enjoy in it / however if you haven't read IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME, it would be a profound mistake to begin yr discovery of proust here / in other words hunker down & read the masterpiece
March 20, 2016
No es una historia en sí, son pequeños escritos en donde Proust imita la forma de narrar de diferentes escritores y periodistas. El nexo de unión es que todos tratan sobre el asunto Lemoine aunque sea de forma muy vaga. La verdad es que no me ha gustado nada.
February 20, 2009
proust makes fun of people but the problem is that we don't live in france 100 years ago so we don't know who they are.
March 5, 2010
It's incredibly well-written and, had I known what and whom Proust was satirizing, I imagine I'd have liked it a lot more.
March 17, 2019
Context is everything for this book. I don't think it would make any sense at all if you didn't 1) know that Proust was an excellent and enthusiastic imitator of other authors' writing styles and that this is a parody of sorts; 2) know who the imitated authors are, some of them obscure; and, 3) know a bit about the historical Lemoine affair. You could remedy much of that by spending some personal time with Wikipedia, but even so, this is definitely not a good introduction to Proust. It's more of an interest piece for tragic fans (i.e. me).
December 12, 2017
Please note that the byline is fake news; this is not a startling tour-de-force. I cannot think of one time, while reading these opaque pages, that I felt startled. In fact, I was more startled by the lint I found in my navel this morning; I need to stop looking, no good can come of that.
December 18, 2023
Claramente es para otro tipo de público. Malísima elección el querer empezar a familiarizarse con el estilo de Proust este libro.
September 10, 2017
Curiosidad. Proust imitando los estilos de varios escritores franceses. Conclusion: Saint-Simon era un coñazo.
January 11, 2017
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) foi um escritor françês, cuja obra prima é o colossal Em Busca do Tempo Perdido tendo como título original À la Recherche du Temps perdu . Uma obra de sete volumes escrita por Proust e alguns dos seus volumes foram publicados após a sua morte solitária, pois nesta altura da sua vida , vivia completamente isolado.
Esta personalidade assenta também num homem homosexual que pertencia há burguesia francesa. Que viveu com o problema da Asma desde criança e é considerado um dos maiores romancistas do século XX.
The Lemonine Affair (Pastiches et mélanges (1919) aparece num período em que Proust ainda socializava e frequentava os saloon da Mme Straus. O livro é escrito na forma da arte novella ou como está escrito no titulo original Pastiches.
O conteúdo do livro é o escândalo causado por Henri Lemoine, o homem que afirmou que conseguia produzir diamantes a partir do frio.
Na verdade é que ele conseguiu mesmo que pessoas investissem no seu projeto e um deles foi mesmo Marcel Proust.
O absurdo da situação é explorada por Proust nesse sentido. Escreve na forma literária de outros escritores franceses como Flaubert e Balzac. Até moca dele mesmo.
“Like a bouquet, they brought Lucien the news, presenting me with the denouement of the already
“sketched play, that their friend Marcel Proust had killed himself after the fall in diamond shares, a collapse that annihilated a part of his fortune. A curious person, Lucien assured us, that Marcel Proust, a being who lives entirely in the enthusiasm, in the pious adoration, of certain landscapes, certain books, a person for example who is completely enamored of the novels of Léon Daudet. A”
É uma leitura pequena mas extensa nas ideias. Percebe-se a capacidade de descrição de Proust. Talvez uma característica que se possa encontrar noutros livros do escritor. Outra é a particularidade de escrever sobre factos da sua vida pessoal.
Foi uma boa introdução ao autor, pois nunca tinha lido dele nada antes. Um dos pontos mais negativos do livro tem a ver com as personagens ou o desconhecimento que temos delas.
A maioria delas pessoas com peso activo na história francesa. Então, para quem não sabe nada da história de frança é muito complicado.
Por essa razão, antes de ler o livro, será aconselhável tentar saber mais da história do país do croissant.
Porém a capacidade de Proust encarnar outros escritores e brincar com isso é mesmo literatura absurda.
Esta personalidade assenta também num homem homosexual que pertencia há burguesia francesa. Que viveu com o problema da Asma desde criança e é considerado um dos maiores romancistas do século XX.
The Lemonine Affair (Pastiches et mélanges (1919) aparece num período em que Proust ainda socializava e frequentava os saloon da Mme Straus. O livro é escrito na forma da arte novella ou como está escrito no titulo original Pastiches.
O conteúdo do livro é o escândalo causado por Henri Lemoine, o homem que afirmou que conseguia produzir diamantes a partir do frio.
Na verdade é que ele conseguiu mesmo que pessoas investissem no seu projeto e um deles foi mesmo Marcel Proust.
O absurdo da situação é explorada por Proust nesse sentido. Escreve na forma literária de outros escritores franceses como Flaubert e Balzac. Até moca dele mesmo.
“Like a bouquet, they brought Lucien the news, presenting me with the denouement of the already
“sketched play, that their friend Marcel Proust had killed himself after the fall in diamond shares, a collapse that annihilated a part of his fortune. A curious person, Lucien assured us, that Marcel Proust, a being who lives entirely in the enthusiasm, in the pious adoration, of certain landscapes, certain books, a person for example who is completely enamored of the novels of Léon Daudet. A”
É uma leitura pequena mas extensa nas ideias. Percebe-se a capacidade de descrição de Proust. Talvez uma característica que se possa encontrar noutros livros do escritor. Outra é a particularidade de escrever sobre factos da sua vida pessoal.
Foi uma boa introdução ao autor, pois nunca tinha lido dele nada antes. Um dos pontos mais negativos do livro tem a ver com as personagens ou o desconhecimento que temos delas.
A maioria delas pessoas com peso activo na história francesa. Então, para quem não sabe nada da história de frança é muito complicado.
Por essa razão, antes de ler o livro, será aconselhável tentar saber mais da história do país do croissant.
Porém a capacidade de Proust encarnar outros escritores e brincar com isso é mesmo literatura absurda.
February 26, 2009
The conceit of style is ridiculed in this book more than anything else. The Mask of the Intellectual, is taken off for literature.
You can read or watch George Will to see a current practitioner; it sounds like he’s saying something; he looks like he knows what he’s talking about; but behind the noise, the elongated linguistics, nothing original, nothing of merit.
As for this novella: a rarity for literature.
You have one of the most noted stylists admitting most of what he said was…nothing that special. This by way of seeing himself in his contemporaries prose posturing, dressing up cliché with verve, putting out social comment with sarcasm instead of having the guts to go for it with sincerity.
And who thought self-loathing was only reserved for Americans!
You can read or watch George Will to see a current practitioner; it sounds like he’s saying something; he looks like he knows what he’s talking about; but behind the noise, the elongated linguistics, nothing original, nothing of merit.
As for this novella: a rarity for literature.
You have one of the most noted stylists admitting most of what he said was…nothing that special. This by way of seeing himself in his contemporaries prose posturing, dressing up cliché with verve, putting out social comment with sarcasm instead of having the guts to go for it with sincerity.
And who thought self-loathing was only reserved for Americans!
December 12, 2011
Humorous, sorta. Feel like maybe the translator got it wrong, or maybe it's just a lackluster book. I mean, not everyone always has stellar output. Feel like the imitations of the other authors was okay, but really believe that this may be the kind of book that's meant to be read only in the original. I mean, I guess I'm not entirely sure I trust this translator to not only translate accurately but also to replicate the styles of balzac, flaubert, etc as they are commonly translated in English. Seems like a ton of research, no translator's note to back it up. The cover is a pretty color, though.
June 25, 2023
Le pastiche est un genre littéraire ayant pour but d'imiter le style et la manière d'un écrivain. Cependant, le pastiche ne vise ni le plagiat ni la parodie ni la caricature, mais il tente de faire un hommage pour cet 'écrivain.
Voici ce que Proust écrit dans "Contre Sainte-Beuve" pour expliquer son goût pour le pastiche: «Dès que je lisais un auteur, je distinguais bien vite sous les paroles l’air de la chanson qui en chaque auteur est différent de ce qu’il est chez tous les autres et, tout en lisant, sans m’en rendre compte, je le chantonnais, je pressais les mots ou les ralentissais ou les interrompais tout à fait, comme on fait quand on chante où on attend souvent longtemps, selon la mesure de l’air, avant de dire la fin d’un mot. Je savais bien que si, n’ayant jamais pu travailler, je ne savais pas écrire, j’avais cette oreille plus fine et plus juste que bien d’autres, ce qui m’a permis de faire des pastiches, car chez les écrivains, quand on tient l’air, les paroles viennent bien vite».
C'est ainsi que dans "Pastiches et Mélanges", Proust cherche à imiter le style de plusieurs écrivains, notamment Balzac, Flaubert, Émile Faguet et d'autres.
Dans les récits rassemblés sous le titre de "Pastiches", et comme annonce Proust lui-même dans la première note de son ouvrage, ce n'est pas lui qui écrit, mais ce sont ces écrivains pastichés, non seulement selon leurs esprits, mais aussi selon le langage de leurs temps.
Ainsi, Proust assigne ces écrivains de leurs tombes et surpasse ainsi le temps et l'espace afin de parler de l'affaire Lemoine. Il s'agit, en effet, d'un fait-divers qui avait bouleversé la société française entre 1908 et 1909, et où un fripon du nom de Henri Lemoine avait prétendu détenir le secret de la fabrication du diamant et, à la suite d'expériences truquées, avait fini par recevoir la somme considérable d'un million-or de Sir. Julius Wernher, président de la De Beers. Sur plainte de Wernher, le coupable se vit interrogé en janvier 1908, puis jugé en juillet 1909 et condamné à six ans de prison.
Ainsi, les personnages qu'utilise Proust ici sont tous empruntés de la littérature de fiction. Rastignac, Diane de Maufrigneuse,... et d'autres, ont tous laissé les œuvres de leurs créateurs pour se livrer à jouer un rôle dans les pastiches de Proust.
Quant à la seconde partie "Mélanges", elle comprenne quatre sections.
"En mémoire des églises assassinées" réunit des textes consacrés aux destructions provoquées par la Première Guerre mondiale à Caen, Amiens et Rouen. D'autres pages, écrites en 1900, évoquent John Ruskin, dont Proust avait traduit La Bible d'Amiens.
À travers cette partie, Proust évoque des souvenirs solennelles de ses voyages, ainsi qu'il se lance dans une biographie spirituelle de John Ruskin et de l'influence du christianisme sur son âme, en se concentrant sur les rapports apportés à la contemplation et à l'étude des œuvres d'art grecques et chrétiennes.
Ainsi donc, l'écrivain anglais éprouve la présence d'une littérature chrétienne qui trouve ses racines dans les histoires fabuleuses de la Bible. Cependant, il ne cesse de répéter que l'artiste devait s'attacher à la pure imitation de la nature, sans rien rejeter, sans rien mépriser, sans rien choisir, tout en affirmant que "le calme est l'attribut de l'art le plus élevé".
Quant à "La mort des cathédrales", il s'agit, en effet, d'un article publié en 1904 au Figaro, et où Proust avait pour but de combattre l'un des articles de la loi de séparation entre l'Église et l'État.
À cet égard, Proust déclare: "Quand je parlai de la mort des Cathédrales, je craignis que la France fût transformée en une grève où de géantes conquesciselées sembleraient échouées, vidées de la vie qui les habita et n'apportant même plus à l'oreille qui se pencherait sur elles la vague rumeur d'autrefois, simples pièces demusée, glacées elles-mêmes. Dix ans ont passé, «la mort des Cathédrales», c'est la destruction de leurs pierres par les armées allemandes, non de leur esprit par une Chambre anticléricale qui ne fait plus qu'un avec nos évêques patriotes".
La troisième section "Sentiments filiaux d'un paracide" traite un fait-divers dramatique dont le héros était l'un des connaissances de Marcel Proust et le fils d'une amie de sa mère.
Ainci, en se rapportant à la mythologie et à la littérature, l'écrivain étaye l'explosion de folie qui frappa un jour Henri van Blarenberghe, un bourgeois parisien qui travaillait comme administrateur de la compagnie de l'Est. En conséquence, l'homme tira sur sa mère avec un pistolet avant de se suicider.
Le récit de Proust reste exceptionnel. Et j'ose même dire que c'est le meilleur dans l'oeuvre. En effet, l'écrivain avait relié, de manière fascinatrice, sa souffrance par raport la mort de ses parents, ses rencontres avec le meurtrier en plus des histoires fétiches de la littérature et de la mythologie. Tous cela dans le but d'analyser et montrer comment "un homme d'esprit éclairé, un fils tendre et pieux", a été jeté dans un horrible matricide.
Enfin, reste "Journées de lecture" qui est une nouvelle publication de la préface éponyme de la traduction de "Sésame et les lys" de Ruskin".
Ainsi, le nom de ce dernier semble remplir les pages de ce livre, de façon que Proust n'arrêtait de parler et évoquer sa passion envers lui tout. À cet égard, il se confesse "Il [Ruskin] m'apprendra, car lui aussi, en quelques parcelles du moins, n'est il pas la vérité? Il fera entrer mon esprit là où il n'avait pas accès, car il est la porte. Il me purifiera, car son inspiration est comme le lys de la vallée. Il m'enivrera et me vivifiera, car il est la vigne et la vie".
Voici ce que Proust écrit dans "Contre Sainte-Beuve" pour expliquer son goût pour le pastiche: «Dès que je lisais un auteur, je distinguais bien vite sous les paroles l’air de la chanson qui en chaque auteur est différent de ce qu’il est chez tous les autres et, tout en lisant, sans m’en rendre compte, je le chantonnais, je pressais les mots ou les ralentissais ou les interrompais tout à fait, comme on fait quand on chante où on attend souvent longtemps, selon la mesure de l’air, avant de dire la fin d’un mot. Je savais bien que si, n’ayant jamais pu travailler, je ne savais pas écrire, j’avais cette oreille plus fine et plus juste que bien d’autres, ce qui m’a permis de faire des pastiches, car chez les écrivains, quand on tient l’air, les paroles viennent bien vite».
C'est ainsi que dans "Pastiches et Mélanges", Proust cherche à imiter le style de plusieurs écrivains, notamment Balzac, Flaubert, Émile Faguet et d'autres.
Dans les récits rassemblés sous le titre de "Pastiches", et comme annonce Proust lui-même dans la première note de son ouvrage, ce n'est pas lui qui écrit, mais ce sont ces écrivains pastichés, non seulement selon leurs esprits, mais aussi selon le langage de leurs temps.
Ainsi, Proust assigne ces écrivains de leurs tombes et surpasse ainsi le temps et l'espace afin de parler de l'affaire Lemoine. Il s'agit, en effet, d'un fait-divers qui avait bouleversé la société française entre 1908 et 1909, et où un fripon du nom de Henri Lemoine avait prétendu détenir le secret de la fabrication du diamant et, à la suite d'expériences truquées, avait fini par recevoir la somme considérable d'un million-or de Sir. Julius Wernher, président de la De Beers. Sur plainte de Wernher, le coupable se vit interrogé en janvier 1908, puis jugé en juillet 1909 et condamné à six ans de prison.
Ainsi, les personnages qu'utilise Proust ici sont tous empruntés de la littérature de fiction. Rastignac, Diane de Maufrigneuse,... et d'autres, ont tous laissé les œuvres de leurs créateurs pour se livrer à jouer un rôle dans les pastiches de Proust.
Quant à la seconde partie "Mélanges", elle comprenne quatre sections.
"En mémoire des églises assassinées" réunit des textes consacrés aux destructions provoquées par la Première Guerre mondiale à Caen, Amiens et Rouen. D'autres pages, écrites en 1900, évoquent John Ruskin, dont Proust avait traduit La Bible d'Amiens.
À travers cette partie, Proust évoque des souvenirs solennelles de ses voyages, ainsi qu'il se lance dans une biographie spirituelle de John Ruskin et de l'influence du christianisme sur son âme, en se concentrant sur les rapports apportés à la contemplation et à l'étude des œuvres d'art grecques et chrétiennes.
Ainsi donc, l'écrivain anglais éprouve la présence d'une littérature chrétienne qui trouve ses racines dans les histoires fabuleuses de la Bible. Cependant, il ne cesse de répéter que l'artiste devait s'attacher à la pure imitation de la nature, sans rien rejeter, sans rien mépriser, sans rien choisir, tout en affirmant que "le calme est l'attribut de l'art le plus élevé".
Quant à "La mort des cathédrales", il s'agit, en effet, d'un article publié en 1904 au Figaro, et où Proust avait pour but de combattre l'un des articles de la loi de séparation entre l'Église et l'État.
À cet égard, Proust déclare: "Quand je parlai de la mort des Cathédrales, je craignis que la France fût transformée en une grève où de géantes conquesciselées sembleraient échouées, vidées de la vie qui les habita et n'apportant même plus à l'oreille qui se pencherait sur elles la vague rumeur d'autrefois, simples pièces demusée, glacées elles-mêmes. Dix ans ont passé, «la mort des Cathédrales», c'est la destruction de leurs pierres par les armées allemandes, non de leur esprit par une Chambre anticléricale qui ne fait plus qu'un avec nos évêques patriotes".
La troisième section "Sentiments filiaux d'un paracide" traite un fait-divers dramatique dont le héros était l'un des connaissances de Marcel Proust et le fils d'une amie de sa mère.
Ainci, en se rapportant à la mythologie et à la littérature, l'écrivain étaye l'explosion de folie qui frappa un jour Henri van Blarenberghe, un bourgeois parisien qui travaillait comme administrateur de la compagnie de l'Est. En conséquence, l'homme tira sur sa mère avec un pistolet avant de se suicider.
Le récit de Proust reste exceptionnel. Et j'ose même dire que c'est le meilleur dans l'oeuvre. En effet, l'écrivain avait relié, de manière fascinatrice, sa souffrance par raport la mort de ses parents, ses rencontres avec le meurtrier en plus des histoires fétiches de la littérature et de la mythologie. Tous cela dans le but d'analyser et montrer comment "un homme d'esprit éclairé, un fils tendre et pieux", a été jeté dans un horrible matricide.
Enfin, reste "Journées de lecture" qui est une nouvelle publication de la préface éponyme de la traduction de "Sésame et les lys" de Ruskin".
Ainsi, le nom de ce dernier semble remplir les pages de ce livre, de façon que Proust n'arrêtait de parler et évoquer sa passion envers lui tout. À cet égard, il se confesse "Il [Ruskin] m'apprendra, car lui aussi, en quelques parcelles du moins, n'est il pas la vérité? Il fera entrer mon esprit là où il n'avait pas accès, car il est la porte. Il me purifiera, car son inspiration est comme le lys de la vallée. Il m'enivrera et me vivifiera, car il est la vigne et la vie".
January 31, 2009
(sigh) getting through this tiny volume was a minor trial. this is atypical proust: shorts, surrounding a real-life scandal, each 'written' by a different person he's satirizing. all tiresome. parody does not age well. it can't help but remain trapped in the time it mocks, what with all of the minor places, events, & public figures that fill it.
but i kept reading because damn if there was a brilliant phrase or sentence hidden among all the courtly frigging chatter every page or two.. just often enough that i thought the frequency might increase.. alas.
but i kept reading because damn if there was a brilliant phrase or sentence hidden among all the courtly frigging chatter every page or two.. just often enough that i thought the frequency might increase.. alas.
July 2, 2016
Mi mayor error en lo que va de año. No es que esté mal escrito (aunque esté a años luz de las poco más de cien páginas que he leído de En busca del tiempo perdido), sino que es un ejercicio estilístico soporífero. Con esfuerzo, puedo ser capaz de apreciar los capítulos al estilo de Balzac o Flaubert, pero jamás podré sentir el menor interés por los amiguetes de Proust o los personajes de la alta sociedad francesa de la época. Demasiado endogámico para mi gusto.
February 19, 2008
This beautifully packaged series of classic novellas includes the works of Anton Chekhov, Colette, Henry James, Herman Melville, and Leo Tolstoy. These collectible editions are the first single-volume publications of these classic tales, offering a closer look at this underappreciated literary form and providing a fresh take on the world's most celebrated authors.
October 8, 2010
I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would. I knew going into this that I would not get most of Proust's references but decided to give it a shot anyway. I definitely enjoyed all the different perspectives and writing styles that added together give a seemingly more complete view of Lemoine's claim and the subsequent fallout and trial.
March 16, 2010
Intermittently hilarious, despite my almost-zero knowledge of the literary world of Proust's day.
The last section was mysterious to me (I couldn't figure out the joke, try as I might), but I did find myself using another section to talk about Tea Partiers with John later on.
The last section was mysterious to me (I couldn't figure out the joke, try as I might), but I did find myself using another section to talk about Tea Partiers with John later on.
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