Mrs Firmiani’s Slippers

Proust, Balzac and their recurring characters

Abstract

Marcel Proust, considered one of the most original writers in the history of world literature, was at the same time deeply attached to literary tradition. His writing is characterised by a high degree of intertextuality, and reading (the relationship to literature) is also an important theme within his fictional world. It is perhaps not surprising, given this, that Proust was deeply involved in literary criticism at the time when he began to write his cycle In Search of Lost Time. Proust’s most important literary criticism, collected in the posthumous collection Against Sainte-Beuve, is closely linked to the genre of the pastiche, which for Proust is in fact a form of literary criticism, or at least a preparation for reflection on literature. The article focuses on Proust’s relationship to Balzac as manifested through two texts from the collection Against Sainte-Beuve (Sainte-Beuve and Balzac; Balzac of Monsieur de Guermantes) and the pastiche In a Balzac’s Novel. Proust’s main objective doesn’t seem to be to defend Balzac against Sainte-Beuve. In fact, Proust shares Sainte-Beuve’s opinion that Balzac’s writing is in bad taste, vulgar – with the important remark that it is probably in this vulgarity that Balzac’s strength lies. But it is clear from the pastiche, in which he does indeed imitate Balzac’s style, that Proust is more interested in Balzac’s narrative technique than in the style itself.