Noel’s Reviews > The Captive / The Fugitive > Status Update

have never created more than a single work, or rather have never done more than refract through various media an identical beauty which they bring into the world. “If it were not so late, my sweet,” I said to her, “I would show you this quality in all the writers whose works you read while I’m asleep, I would show you the same identity as in Vinteuil. These key-phrases, which you are beginning to recognise as I do, my little Albertine, the same in the sonata, in the septet, in the other works, would be, say for instance in Barbey d’Aurevilly, a hidden reality revealed by a physical sign, the physiological blush of the Bewitched, of Aimée de Spens, of old Clotte, the hand in the Rideau cramoisi, the old manners and customs, the old words, the ancient and peculiar trades behind which there is the Past, the oral history compiled by the peasants of the region, the noble Norman cities redolent of England and charming as a Scottish village, the cause of curses against which one can do nothing, la Vellini, the Shepherd, a similar sensation of anxiety in a passage, whether it be the wife seeking her husband in Une vieille maîtresse, or the husband in l’Ensorcele scouring the plain and the Bewitched herself coming out from Mass.

This is an extremely curious passage from Proust which seems to contradict his entire aesthetic philosophy. Anyway, 40 pages left of The Captive! Today or tomorrow 🙏🏿

Ah, never mind me. I thought he was saying that every artist reveals the same world, but actually he’s saying that an artist reveals the same world over and over again, with which I would certainly agree (I find the first idea horribly unpleasant, to be honest).