The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 16 August 2012
by Lorenza Foschini
It is common for people to value the artefacts of the people and places that they treasure. Souvenirs of a trip. Antiques from the grandparents. Photo albums. Love letters. In the case of famous people, these souvenirs obtain a kind of obsessive value for collectors, fans, speculators, libraries and museums. Marcel Proust, whose one greatest work is a multi-volume ode to memory (and, indeed, to fetishism), is certainly one of the best examples of this kind of obsession. The obsessive quality of his writing, and the obsessive quality of his life and death, make the objects he touched of particular value to collectors and lovers of his literature. Marcel Proust died ninety years ago, and some of his possessions are held in museums, others with private collectors. That anything at all remains of the things he wrote by hand or that occupied his infamous cork-lined bedroom, is largely due to the efforts of one man. Author and reporter Lorenza Foschini tells us about Jacques Guerin, owner of a large French perfume company, bibliophile and collector. Guerin was born in 1903, and was 19 when Proust died. He fell into collecting Proust's artefacts after he became a patient of Marcel's brother, Dr. Robert Proust. Holding one of Marcel's original manuscripts infected Guerin with the desire to possess these things and, after Robert's death, he voraciously tracked down what remained of Marcel's possessions. Robert Proust's wife Marthe, however, was alienated from the entire Proust family. Her marriage to Robert was arranged through a dalliance between the elder Dr. Adrien Proust and her mother, an affair that was echoed in Robert's own affairs. Meanwhile, Marcel Proust's homosexuality was considered a threat to the whole family's reputation, at least by Marthe. So, when Robert died, Marthe endeavored to destroy all that remained of what he had kept of Marcel's. She was halted only by sheer luck and her need for money. Eventually, Guerin would encounter a junk dealer who had come by most of Marcel Proust's remaining possessions. He scooped up what he could. Decades later, Proust's bedroom is reconstructed in a museum, libraries have his manuscripts, and collectors have fragments of letters, sketches and notes. This is a little book, charming and informative. The overcoat in question is the one Marcel wore to the point of it being a key element of his appearance to all who knew him. Its acquisition illustrates Guerin's drive. This is a small but key story in the preservation of this literary great. But, in the end, isn't it the writing itself that is his most valuable legacy? And yet we yearn to touch what he touched. To feel his presence in a bed he died in nearly a century ago. An interesting addition to the mass of Proustian literature.