Proustian Temptation: Narrative, Sexual, and Readerly Transgressions in la Recherche - Project MUSE

Proustian Temptation: Narrative, Sexual, and Readerly
   Transgressions in la Recherche

   Adeline Soldin

   MLN, Volume 133, Number 4, September 2018 (French Issue) , pp. 809-830
   (Article)

   Published by Johns Hopkins University Press
   DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mln.2018.0055

       For additional information about this article
       https://muse.jhu.edu/article/707616

Access provided at 23 Mar 2020 21:38 GMT with no institutional affiliation

Proustian Temptation: Narrative,
Sexual, and Readerly Transgressions
           in la Recherche
                                        ❦

                             Adeline Soldin

                We are constantly tempted to confuse the
                two; it is as if Proust were trying to make us
                forget the differences between Marcel and
                himself. (Bersani 187)

                [It is] as though Proust were lightheartedly
                reminding us how great the temptation
                will always be to read the fiction as
                autobiography. (Landy, “Proust” 110)

Scholars have shown unrelenting interest in Marcel Proust’s biography
and have taken numerous approaches to studying his life and how it
informs his writing. In the years and decades following the publica-
tion of A la Recherche du temps perdu1 many readers not only viewed it
as a roman à clef, but went so far as to deem it an autobiography and
equate Proust, the author, with his narrator.2 In more recent decades,
scholars have adopted various perspectives on this issue: some demand
a clear distinction between author and narrator; others recognize a

  1
   From here on, I will refer to Proust’s novel as la Recherche.
  2
   Many erroneously attribute aspects of Proust’s life to his hero-narrator (George
Painter, Brian Rogers, Gaëtan Picon, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Justin O’Brien), while
others view them as one and the same (David Ellison, Richard Rorty, Richard Ches-
sick, Leo Spitzer).

        MLN 133 (2018): 809–830 © 2018 by Johns Hopkins University Press

810                              ADELINE SOLDIN

multitude of narrative selves with varying degrees of proximity to the
author; and still others perceive the “je” in Proust’s magnum opus as
representing a figural subject that lacks a concrete referent.3 Despite
these different approaches, most Proustian scholars would acknowl-
edge the overwhelming temptation to conflate Proust with his anony-
mous narrator. As indicated by the quotes above, Bersani and Landy
acknowledge this “great” temptation, while nonetheless maintaining
a clear differentiation between author and narrator. Undeniably,
theories for explaining Proust’s relationship to his narrator abound,
but investigations into the actual temptation to assimilate the two
do not. I am interested in studying how and why Proust tempts his
readers to overlook his own statements denying a direct assimilation
between him and his narrator, thereby leading them to transgress
critical convention that insists readers view characters of fiction as
fictional.4 Indeed, critics continue to fall victim to this temptation
and tend to conflate—even if unwittingly—Proust and his narrator,
particularly in the context of their sexual preferences.5 They resist the
idea that a gay man would write a novel about a first-person narrator
who is heterosexual and so assume that Proust’s narrator is actually,
secretly homosexual. This conflation of author and narrator, even if
only on one issue, represents a transgression on the reader’s part, or
a “readerly transgression.”6 Through an investigation of the enticing

   3
    Joshua Landy argues most vehemently to differentiate the two in “Proust, His Nar-
rator, and the Importance of the Distinction.” Marcel Muller famously enumerates
nine terms to account for the range of figures encompassed by the hero, the narrator,
and the author of la Recherche; whereas François Leriche contends that “[l]e moi est,
en somme, un produit intertextuel. Le Je apparaît comme une structure” (38). These
are just three of the most convincing demonstrations (of which there are many) asser-
ting how to interpret Proust’s narrator. Dorrit Cohn provides a thorough overview of
varying approaches to interpreting the genre of Proust’s text and therefore the role
of its narrator, without making a strong case for any one reading.
   4
    While Proust does sometimes use first-person pronouns when referring to his nar-
rator in his correspondence, as if speaking from his narrator’s perspective, he also
identifies him as “un monsieur qui raconte et qui dit: Je” and “mon héros” (Corr, 12:
92; Corr 19: 580). He also clearly states that the “ ‘personnage qui dit je” is not homo-
sexual (Corr, 20: 481)
   5
    Despite Proust’s assertion that there are no keys to his book, or rather there are
eight or ten for each character (Contre Sainte Beuve 564), Justin O’Brien, among oth-
ers, claims that Albertine, as a clé for Alfred Agostonelli, is actually a man, as are many
other women in the novel. Sedgwick, who recognizes this position as “illegitimate for
literary criticism,” nonetheless maintains that the idea that Albertine is actually a man
is “grafted onto the affordances of the text” and therefore asserts that the narrator-hero
writes from the perspective of a closeted homosexual (223).
   6
    I’m not using “readerly” (or lisible) in the passive sense that Barthes describes in
S/Z (10).

M LN                                 811

factors that might lead to readerly transgressions, I demonstrate not
only that these temptations often coincide with transgressions of
other kinds, namely narrative and sexual, but that both temptations
and transgressions contribute significantly to Proust’s literary project.
Seeing that “temptation” can refer to something that captivates as well
as tests, Proust’s temptation both lures and dares his readers to look
beyond inadequate notions of identity and sexuality. After a review
of the elements that comprise the Proustian temptation, we examine
auspicious moments where multiple participants transgress narrative,
sexual, and readerly convention.

The Proustian Temptation
Several aspects of Proust’s novel contribute to the creation of a power-
ful temptation to conflate the author and his narrator. To begin, the
first-person narrator is nameless. In a novel that studies the significance
of both people’s names and place names, it is remarkable, to put it
mildly, that the narrator has no definitive name. Equally important,
the novel interrogates the nature of identity throughout the text,
focusing heavily on the narrator’s life and legacy. On the very first
page of la Recherche, the narrator dreams he is the subject of the book
in his hand; but when he awakes, he cannot determine who he is until
he knows where he is. This self reflection continues throughout the
novel, leading the narrator to reveal considerable information about
his life including his traumas and tribulations, his hopes and dreams,
his fears and desires; yet he never divulges his first or last name. The
absence of any reliable name for the first-person narrator-hero has
certainly provoked much of the debate surrounding his resemblance
and proximity to the author. Many critics, including this one at times,
have chosen to call the narrator “Marcel” owing to certain suggestive
passages (which will be examined in depth below) that explicitly
associate the narrator with the author’s first name. These passages
provide a welcome excuse to avoid repeating “narrator” ad nauseam
and, more importantly, establish propinquity between Proust and his
narrator, without categorically equating the two. However, by calling
the narrator “Marcel,” readers are more likely to fall into the trap of
conflating him and his author. In short, critics have proposed myriad
theories for understanding and elucidating Proust’s relationship to
his narrator-hero, but whatever the approach, this glaring lacuna in
la Recherche invites the reader to fill in the blank as she sees fit, which

812                              ADELINE SOLDIN

brings us to the second factor leading readers into temptation: the
autobiographical aspects of Proust’s magnum opus.7
   It is no secret that Proust’s experiences, acquaintances, surround-
ings, and contemplations fueled his writing and inspired much of la
Recherche. Although he transformed his reality into fiction through the
writing process, these autobiographical intersections, combined with
the disposition of his anonymous first-person narrator, have enticed
readers not only to make many assumptions about the narrator, but
also to dig deep into Proust’s life looking for clues and keys to ques-
tions about the novel.8 Specifically, discrepancies between Proust’s life
and that of his narrator (specifically those concerning their sexuality
and religious affiliations) have confounded readers and left them
searching for explanations. Consequently, scholars have produced an
abundance of critical biographies and other works that examine la
Recherche in light of the author’s life and vice versa. Two new biogra-
phies have been published since 2013, and several other works focus
uniquely on Proust’s love life.9
   This plethora of biographical scholarship often fuels debates about
Proust’s and his narrator’s sexual preferences as well as their resem-
blance to each other. For example, in Catherine Perry’s 2017 review
of Benjamin Taylor’s 2015 biography, Proust: The Search, she notes
that, although Taylor claims to distinguish the life from the work,
and generally “stays faithful to his view of literary transmutation,” he
“seems tempted to place [the “good night kiss” episode] in Proust’s own
experience” (6–7; my italics). Moreover, Perry observes that Taylor
“does not hesitate to address well-documented aspects of the writer’s
intimate behavior, such as homosexuality (158), voyeurism, and par-
ticularly masturbation while watching famished rats tear each other
apart” (3). In other words, Proust’s most recent biographer continues
not only to conflate the author with his narrator on certain topics,
but also to dwell on the author’s erotic preferences.
   The question of sexuality is just one of the inconsistencies between
Proust and his first-person narrator,10 but it is without a doubt the

  7
   It addition to those approaches cited above, another common one is that of Balsamo,
Marchaisse and Genette (among others) who propose that the narrator-hero becomes
Proust at the end of the novel. There are certainly other, more distinct views on the topic.
  8
   Given the surplus of Proustian biographies, it should be manifestly clear that À la
Recherche du temps perdu is not an autobiography.
  9
   Taylor and Watt are the authors of the two most recent biographies. Bonnet, Carter,
and Rivers have all published works focusing on Proust’s love life.
  10
    It seems that Proust’s narrator does share a propensity for voyeurism and sadism
with his author, which does not mean they are one and the same, but reminds readers
of the importance of nuance.

M LN                                         813

topic that has provoked the most interest and scrutiny. One can catch
another glimmer of this attention in a 2014 review of Adam Watt’s
2013 biography of Proust. With regards to questions about the writer’s
perverse sexual tendencies (those evoked above by Taylor and Perry),
Watt writes in Marcel Proust: “[w]e will never know for sure how or
with whom Proust found his pleasure but such details are little more
than titillation for the prurient” (154). The H-France reviewer of this
biography, François Proulx, perceives Watt’s attitude towards Proust’s
sexuality as “reserved” and “reticent” and Proulx ultimately maintains
that “the specificity of the biographical Proust’s amorous and sexual
proclivities, as a male who pursued males in the particular cultural
context of turn-of-the-century France, nevertheless deserves careful
scholarly attention.” Undoubtedly, Proulx is not suggesting we should
assume the narrator’s sexual preferences reflect those of the author,
but his firm belief in seeking knowledge about Proust’s erotic pen-
chants attests to many critics’ persistent fascination with such matters.
   Watt, on the contrary, seems to present himself as the moral com-
pass on questions about Proust’s sexuality, advising that his sexual
affairs are none of our business, to which this critic would respond
by asking: how is it that his eating, sleeping, social, and even writing
habits are any more our business than his erotic practices? The author
of Contre Sainte-Beuve certainly does not think any such issues should
influence one’s reception of a literary text. Conversely, if sex consti-
tutes an intimate and private act for many in this world, in the realm
of la Recherche, the Proustian narrator does not hesitate to expose the
romantic lives of his fellow characters to his captivated readers. It only
follows, then, that his readers would seek information about the nar-
rator’s sexual practices and preferences. Indeed, another contributing
factor to the Proustian temptation of fusing author and narrator lies
in the voyeuristic culture of la Recherche, a culture that invites inquiry
into the sexual lives of others.
   Proust’s own sexual habits aside, his narrator openly displays his
voyeuristic tendency throughout the novel, even if he does not call it
by its name.11 That is, the author writes about a variety of experiences
in which his narrator blatantly spies on others engaged in sexual acts,

  11
    Sedgwick’s concern about a “world (signalized by this novelistic world) structured
around the theatricization of a closet-figured-as-spectacle to preserve the privacy of
someone else’s closet-occluded-as-viewpoint” (242) speaks to the voyeuristic atmo-
sphere in Proust’s novel, yet overlooks the possibility that the narrator’s sexuality is in
fact expressed through his unrestrained voyeurism. See Soldin and Kelly for more on
voyeurism in la Recherche.

814                             ADELINE SOLDIN

not to mention numerous other passages in which he eavesdrops and
observes intently the intimate actions and exchanges of his fellow
characters.12 Proust’s narrator is nosy, to say the least. And, yet, just
as he refrains from directly stating his own name, he avoids articulat-
ing this scopophilic pleasure and identifying it as voyeurism. To be
sure, the narrator proves more vague and implicit when exposing his
own erotic predilections to the reader. He alludes only to onanistic
gratification and a few other instances when he achieves pleasure dur-
ing obscure and/or passive encounters with Gilberte and Albertine,
respectively.13 While it is clear that he forms serious attachments to
women throughout the text, causing him to become quite insecure
and jealous, his sexual preferences, like his name, remain nebulous.
This equivocality tempts readers to surmise in some cases and to
scrutinize others, coming close to being something like a voyeur of
Proust’s narrator and even of Proust himself.
   In sum, Proust’s narrator lacks an unambiguous name and a clearly
defined sexuality in a book that dissects the importance of a name,
includes many autobiographical elements, models voyeurism, and seeks
to learn about and discuss the intricacies of others’ sexualities. This
observation is not intended to suggest his name and sexuality should
be unequivocally identified, but rather to exhibit the extent of this
conundrum, wherein lies the temptation. Without a doubt, readers
find themselves easily tempted to turn to Proust’s life for answers,
following thus the beliefs of the nineteenth-century writer and liter-
ary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve. He believed readers should
not separate an author’s biography from his writing, but rather that
knowing one was crucial to understanding the other. Sainte-Beuve
continues to be studied today thanks in large part to Proust’s collection
of essays and musings entitled Contre Sainte-Beuve. This literally means
“Against Sainte-Beuve,” but it has also been translated into English
as “By way of Sainte-Beuve.” Here is Proust quoting Sainte-Beuve in
Contre Sainte-Beuve:
  Tant qu’on ne s’est pas adressé sur un auteur un certain nombre de
  questions et qu’on n’y a pas répondu, ne fût-ce que pour soi seul et tout

   12
     “Thus the early scene of onanism becomes a moment of readerly eavesdropping,
one we recognize only after having vicariously experienced Marcel’s own illicit listening.
In recalling the early incident, we realize that Proust has made himself our narrative
and epistemological entremetteur, who satisfies our desire to know, just as Jupien caters
to Charlus’s sexual needs” (Gaylin 163).
   13
     The best examples of his passive and/or obscure erotic experiences include the
following passages: 1: 12; 1: 485; 2: 661, 3: 580. When quoting from À la recherche du
temps perdu, I use Gallimard’s 1989 Pléiade edition.

M LN                                        815

  bas, on n’est pas sûr de le tenir tout entier, quand même ces questions
  sembleraient le plus étrangères à la nature de ses écrits: Que pensait-il de
  la religion? Comment était-il affecté du spectacle de la nature? Comment
  se comportait-il sur l’article femmes, argent? Était-il riche, pauvre; quel
  était son régime, sa manière de vivre journalière? Quel était son vice ou
  son faible? (221)

Sainte-Beuve, therefore, validates many readers of Proust in their
desires to know everything from his vices and his behavior around
women to his state of health, his wealth and his religion. These are
all questions with complicated answers for most people, and certainly
for Proust who disagreed with Sainte-Beuve’s philosophy. The author
of la Recherche proposes the idea that the self who creates remains hid-
den from others and even differs from the social self who interacts
with the outside world (Contre Sainte-Beuve 222–23). One might say
that he viewed writing as a personal and private experience, as many
view sex. What is more, Sainte-Beuve’s endeavors to learn about writ-
ers based on their contemporaries’ perceptions of them would have
provided misinformation according to Proust’s theory: information
about the wrong “persona.” Proustian critics should keep this in mind
when relying on his abundant correspondence to support arguments
concerning his literature, for the Proust who wrote letters to his fam-
ily, friends, and foes may not necessarily coincide entirely with the
Proust that wrote la Recherche. Indeed, Proust, like all humans and his
characters, changed, evolved, and even contradicted himself. Never-
theless, he advanced the notion of the multi-dimensional identity in
Contre Sainte-Beuve and la Recherche, and claims that if you would like to
know the author, that is the artist, as opposed to the social being, you
need look no further than the literary text itself (Contre Sainte-Beuve
222–24).14 Accordingly, it is by way of la Recherche that I will elucidate
the motivations and implications surrounding the temptation to mis-
take Proust’s narrator for himself.
   Proust’s belief, as revealed in Contre Sainte-Beuve and la Recherche,
that many different selves may occupy one person firmly establishes
both of these texts within modernist thought. The notion of the
fragmented self represents one of the most central motifs of the
modernist movement, alongside technical innovations such as narra-
tive disjuncture that mirror this thematic tendency. Likewise, many

  14
    The notion that multiple selves inhabit one individual pervades la Recherche, and is
suggested as early as the first pages when the sleeping narrator implies he has as many
selves as old bedrooms. We will soon discuss more examples here.

816                            ADELINE SOLDIN

modernist texts shatter conventional notions of gender and sexuality
through what Colleen Lamos calls “sexual and textual errancy.” She
claims that “the modernist impulse toward the transgression of literary
norms was engaged in various and conflicting ways with these changes
in gender and sexual definition” (16). Similarly, Jamie Hovey asserts
that “self-consciousness and sexually perverse subjectivities are central
to what we have come to recognize as the signature innovations that
characterize modernist styles” (6). Narrative and sexual infringements
of this nature permeate Proust’s la Recherche alongside profound reflec-
tions on identity and the self, making it a prime example of a queer
modernist text. On the one hand, it is therefore all the more curious
that readers of Proust often disregard his modernist philosophies that
attribute many selves to one subject and tend rather to merge author
and narrator into one fixed identity, with one fixed sexuality. On the
other, given the numerous factors that tempt readers to transgress
readerly protocol by confusing fiction and reality, the author seems
to be integrating readers into the transgressive culture of “deviant”
modernist literature (for example, through his voyeuristic culture).
These enticements should compel readers to reconsider conventional
notions of identity and sexuality by drawing attention to their com-
plexities. To advance this endeavor and gain a better understanding
of the implications of Proustian temptations, certain scenes from la
Recherche where transgressions of the narrative, sexual, and readerly
type all transpire require close examination.

Coincidental Transgressions
As indicated above, the narrator’s anonymity plays a critical role in
readers’ interpretations of la Recherche, and particularly so given the
narrator’s own great interest in the implications of a name. Although
this enchantment with names usually relates to a love interest (Gilberte
Swann), aristocratic lineage (le nom de Guermantes), or geography (Bal-
bec and other seaside villages), it can be traced back to the moment
when the narrator’s mother reads George Sand’s François le Champi
to him after the monumental bedtime drama: a passage imbued with
sexual innuendo and often described as the primal reading scene:15

  15
    To read more about the sexual and other implications of this literary primal scene,
see Christie McDonald; Adam Watt, Reading in Proust’s A la Recherche; and Emma Wilson.

M LN                                        817

  Et aux lacunes que cette distraction laissait dans le récit, s’ajoutait, quand
  c’était maman qui me lisait à haute voix, qu’elle passait toutes les scènes
  d’amour. Aussi tous les changements bizarres qui se produisent dans l’atti-
  tude respective de la meunière et de l’enfant et qui ne trouvent leur expli-
  cation que dans les progrès d’un amour naissant me paraissaient empreints
  d’un profond mystère dont je me figurais volontiers que la source devait
  être dans ce nom inconnu et si doux de “Champi ” qui mettait sur l’enfant
  qui le portait sans que je susse pourquoi, sa couleur vive, empourprée et
  charmante. (1: 41)

This passage describes a sensual reading and listening experience in
which the narrator’s mother omits romantic passages in the book,
causing the young boy to attribute the ensuing incomprehensibility
of the story to the eponymous character’s bizarre name. His mother’s
avoidance of vocalizing the amorous affair between François le Champi
and his adopted mother leaves room for her son, the young narrator,
to create his own understanding of this relationship. In other words,
his mother’s narrative transgression of excluding passionate scenes in
her rendition invites readerly transgressions on the young narrator’s
part, transgressions that pertain to both identity and sexuality. The
holes in the story symbolize the incompleteness of the characters’
identities, as well as the possibility for the young narrator to imagine
unique personas and sexualities that do not necessarily conform to
convention, or even taboo notions of sexuality, as portrayed in Sand’s
text. This moment also sparks an acute awareness of and fascination
with names for the young boy and prefigures the exploration of his
own identity and sexuality, as exhibited in subsequent amorous relation-
ships. What is more, the enigma evoked by François le Champi’s name
and his curious relationship with Madeleine epitomizes the power of
literature to stimulate imagination and creativity for the narrator by
using mystery as the instigator. To put it differently, names identify
and obscure the figure in question, thereby enticing the reader. This
is precisely what the adult narrator remembers and realizes when he
stumbles on a copy of François le champi in the prince de Guermantes’s
library at the end of the novel.16 Finally, this passage describing the
narrator’s and his mother’s unorthodox reading habits just might

  16
    “Tel, je venais de reconnaître combien s’accordait avec mes pensées actuelles la
douloureuse impression que j’avais éprouvée en lisant le titre d’un livre dans la biblio-
thèque du prince de Guermantes; titre qui m’avait donné l’idée que la littérature nous
offrait vraiment ce monde de mystère que je ne trouvais plus en elle. Et pourtant ce
n’était pas un livre bien extraordinaire, c’était François le champi” (4: 462).

818                       ADELINE SOLDIN

embolden Proust’s own critics to take their own readerly liberties, when
reading about the narrator’s uncertain name, identity, and sexuality.
   Soon after this primal reading scene, the author alludes to the
protagonist’s unspecified name in another subversive scene. It begins
when the young hero departs from his weekly routine and makes an
unexpected visit to his uncle Adolphe, an eccentric character whose
choice of companionship disappoints the rest of the family. Namely,
he enjoys socializing with actresses and courtesans—the two being
indistinguishable yet appealing to his young nephew, who is an amateur
of the theater. To the young boy’s great surprise, one of these actress-
courtesans is at his uncle’s home when he arrives: “Elle me regardait
en souriant, mon oncle lui dit: ‘Mon neveu’, sans lui dire mon nom
ni moi le sien” (1: 75). The narrator thus acknowledges this blatant
omission of proper names, but justifies it as an attempt to minimize
contact between his family and “ce genre de relations.” And, indeed it
does impede any direct discourse between the two guests. The young
narrator feels uneasy, as he is not sure whether to call her “madame”
or “mademoiselle”; and, although “la dame en rose,” presses Adolphe
for his nephew’s name, he avoids answering the question, leaving his
two visitors unable to address each other.
   Despite Adolphe’s efforts to avert any negative consequences, this
encounter triggers the end of his relationship with his family due to
the string of transgressions it entails. At first glance, the reader, like
the young narrator, knows little about the lady in pink and supposes
her to be an actress and/or courtesan as implied by the text. Her
affiliation with Adolphe, consequently, represents multiple violations
of social and moral codes. Once we learn that she is Odette, these
previous infringements remain given her history and the situation, but
an additional transgression of her matrimonial vows becomes prob-
able, although not certain given the fuzzy timelines in la Recherche.
Furthermore, the narrator succeeds in breaching the communication
barriers set by his uncle when he kisses the lady in pink’s hand to bid
her farewell, a gesture teetering between appropriate and inappro-
priate social decorum. Finally, the young boy fails to obey his uncle’s
wishes and keep this visit a secret from his parents. By transgressing
the prescribed narrative of silence, Proust’s hero exposes a pattern
of subversive behavior that leads to his uncle’s alienation from the
family. Overall, the author’s portrayal of transgressive conduct in this
scene interweaves issues of identity, sexuality, and narrative integrity.
   Readers have another occasion to interrogate the narrator’s ano-
nymity when his self-doubts play out counter to Gilberte Swann.

M LN                                       819

From the first moment he sees her and hears her name pronounced
in “Combray,” he is captivated by her presence and the ability of a
name to substantiate the person it designates. When describing the
first and second times someone calls Gilberte by her name in front of
the narrator, Proust uses similar language to depict the phenomenal
power of naming:
  Ainsi passa près de moi ce nom de Gilberte, donné comme un talisman qui
  me permettrait peut-être de retrouver un jour celle dont il venait de faire
  une personne et qui, l’instant d’avant, n’était qu’une image incertaine. Ainsi
  passa-t-il [ . . . ] imprégnant, irisant la zone d’air pur qu’il avait traverse—et
  qu’il isolait—du mystère de la vie de celle qu’il désignait pour les êtres
  heureux qui vivaient, qui voyageaient avec elle . . . ” (1: 140).
  Ce nom de Gilberte passa près de moi, évoquant d’autant plus l’existence
  de celle qu’il désignait qu’il ne la nommait pas seulement comme un absent
  dont on parle, mais l’interpellait (1: 387).

The name resembles an object that approaches the narrator to con-
jure the person it identifies. Not only does the narrator now view
Gilberte as a flesh and blood human being due to the act of hearing
her name pronounced, but he is also drawn to her perceived superi-
ority and mystery. At the same time that she is substantiated by this
official summoning, she remains unapproachable and unfamiliar, a
peculiar dynamic that excites the narrator. His imagination, aroused
by this unknown entity, infuses Gilberte’s name with charm and bliss
seemingly inaccessible to him, because barred by “des lois naturelles
impossibles à transgresser” (1: 141). Similar to his interpretation of
“François le champi,” the narrator perceives “Gilberte Swann” as a
name that intrigues and mystifies him at the same time as it designates
the person in question.
   Proust’s narrator becomes utterly infatuated with her first and
last name. In addition to “Gilberte,” he longs to hear the sound of
the name “Swann,” “devenu pour [lui] presque mythologique.” This
leads him to manipulate his family into saying it as a means of self-
seduction: “Toutes les séductions singulières que je mettais dans ce
nom de Swann, je les retrouvais en lui dès qu’ils le prononçaient”
(1: 143).17 “Swann,” which used to signal agony on evenings when
Charles Swann’s presence impeded his mother from kissing him good-

  17
    “Ce nom, devenu pour moi presque mythologique, de Swann . . . je languissais
du besoin de le leur entendre dire, je n’osais pas le prononcer moi-même” (1: 142).

820                           ADELINE SOLDIN

night, is now a source of pleasure for the young narrator.18 Insofar
as the name “Swann” (not “Mme Swann” or “Mlle Swann,” but just
“Swann”) cannot be disassociated from Charles Swann, nor can the
narrator’s attraction. In other words, this is not a heteronormative
desire, but a non-gendered, aural pleasure comparable to auditory-
tactile synesthesia or autonomous sensory meridian response. Both
of these phenomena involve soothing feelings evoked by hearing
particular sounds.19 Even if the name “Gilberte” sparks the allure
of the Swann family for Proust’s narrator, this obsession extends to
everything encompassed by the name “Swann.”20
   The narrator, however, manages to transgress the illusory “natural
laws” and gain access to the pleasures of knowing and interacting
with Gilberte and her family. She even calls him by his first name,
another experience redolent of sexual pleasure for the protagonist.
Indeed, Proust draws increased attention to the narrator’s missing
name during a sensual exchange between Gilberte and the narrator
in the final section of Swann’s Way, suitably entitled “Nom de Pays:
Le Nom” or “Place-Names: the Name.” After suggesting they call each
other by their Christian names, Gilberte continues to address the nar-
rator using the formal “vous” until he alerts her of her negligence.
She then makes a concerted effort to use his “petit nom” or nickname
in every sentence. With every articulation of his first name, Gilberte
strips him of all other social and patriarchal associations, laying bare
his flesh as an erotic instrument:
  Et me souvenant plus tard de ce que j’avais senti alors, j’y ai démêlé l’im-
  pression d’avoir été tenu un instant dans sa bouche, moi-même, nu, sans
  plus aucune des modalités sociales qui appartenaient aussi, soit à ses autres
  camarades, soit, quand elle disait mon nom de famille, à mes parents, et . . .
  ses lèvres . . . eurent l’air de me dépouiller, de me dévêtir, comme de sa
  peau un fruit dont on ne peut avaler que la pulpe, tandis que son regard,
  se mettant au même degré nouveau d’intimité que prenait sa parole,
  m’atteignait aussi plus directement, non sans témoigner la conscience,
  le plaisir et jusque la gratitude qu’il en avait, en se faisant accompagner
  d’un sourire. (1: 396)

  18
    “[Le nom de Swann] me causait un plaisir” (1: 142).
  19
    For more information about auditory tactile synesthesia, see Ro et al. For more
information about autonomous sensory meridian response, see Lloyd et al.
  20
    Adam Watt examines the significance of “The Sign of the Swan,” an English ho-
mophone of Swann. While ultimately recognizing its polyvalence, Watt underlines its
association with Albertine’s enigmatic sexual identity.

M LN                                          821

When Gilberte speaks his first or last name, she divests him of his social
and familial milieu and the orthodox behavior they command, bringing
him in intimate contact with her only, and specifically with her mouth.
By comparing the removal of his public and domestic conditioning
to the discarding of an inedible fruit rind in order to enjoy its pulp,
the author advocates eliminating superficial manners and categories
invented by society in order to access universal, bodily flesh. Literally,
the narrator claims she holds him in her mouth, insinuating a type of
queer sexual exchange wherein Gilberte consumes him. In fact, she
expresses more pleasure and satisfaction from this exchange than the
young hero does. Instead, the adult narrator enjoys reflecting on this
experience and acknowledges that he was unable to appreciate the
value of this newfound pleasure at that moment. The problem lies
in the fact that the self whom Gilberte named was not the self who
desired it, and therefore could not grasp the appeal of this experi-
ence.21 A posterior persona of this multifaceted first-person narrator
does however glean a retrospective pleasure from this memory.
  In addition to remaining passive in this scene, the narrator also
remains anonymous to the reader who is not privy to hearing Gil-
berte pronounce his name. Similar to the scenes above where names
designate characters at the same time as they obscure them, the nar-
rator loses his social and ancestral distinctions with the articulation of
his name, becoming nonspecific, non-gendered human flesh. If the
obscurity of François le Champi’s name correlates to his ambiguous
sensual relations in the narrator’s primal reading scene, then Gilberte’s
articulation of his name provides the narrator with an anonymous and
thus evasive gender. What is more, Proust persists in transgressing stan-
dard narrative codes when he draws attention to his main character’s
name, but choses precisely not to reveal it to the reader. In essence,
narrative and sexual transgressions intersect in this passage to arouse
Gilberte and eventually the narrator, while nonetheless highlighting
and preserving his anonymous identity.
  The reader is reminded of the narrator’s unknown name when
he finally and officially meets Albertine, for whom he feels the most
intense passion. After significant impatience and suspense, he ulti-

   21
     “Mais au moment même, je ne pouvais apprécier la valeur de ces plaisirs nouveaux.
Ils n’étaient pas donnés par la fillette que j’aimais, au moi qui l’aimait, mais par l’autre,
par celle avec qui je jouais, à cet autre moi qui ne possédait ni le souvenir de la vraie
Gilberte, ni le cœur indisponible qui seul aurait pu savoir le prix d’un bonheur, parce
que seul il l’avait désiré” (1: 396).

822                         ADELINE SOLDIN

mately meets her at an afternoon gathering given by their mutual
friend, Elstir. As in the case above, this presentation provided much
anticipated, yet delayed pleasure, appropriately characteristic of a
disjunctive narrative. The protagonist could not enjoy the introduc-
tion in the moment, but cherished it afterward when reflecting on
the experience in his hotel room:
  Il en est des plaisirs comme des photographies. Ce qu’on prend en présence
  de l’être aimé, n’est qu’un cliché négatif, on le développe plus tard, une
  fois chez soi, quand on a retrouvé à sa disposition cette chambre noire
  intérieure dont l’entrée est “condamnée” tant qu’on voit du monde. . . . Au
  moment où notre nom résonne dans la bouche du présentateur, surtout si
  celui-ci l’entoure comme fit Elstir de commentaires élogieux—ce moment
  sacramentel, analogue à celui où dans une féerie, le génie ordonne à une
  personne d’en être soudain une autre—, celle que nous avons désiré d’ap-
  procher s’évanouit, d’abord comment resterait-elle pareille à elle-même
  puisque—de par l’attention que l’inconnue est obligée de prêter à notre
  nom et de marquer à notre personne—dans les yeux hier situés à l’infini
  (et que nous croyions que les nôtres, errants, mal réglés, désespérés, diver-
  gents, ne parviendraient jamais à rencontrer) le regard conscient, la pensée
  inconnaissable que nous cherchions, viennent d’être miraculeusement et
  tout simplement remplacés par notre propre image peinte comme au fond
  d’un miroir qui sourirait? (2 : 227)

The narrator’s explanations for his numerous delays in pleasure evoke
Elizabeth Freeman’s theories of queer time developed in Time Binds.
Most notably, her concepts of temporal drag and erotohistoriography
apply here seeing that his attraction to Albertine requires posterior
reflection on the past, or an “erotics of historical consciousness” to
produce bodily gratification (Freeman 61–64, 105). More specifically,
he must access his interior darkroom, which is barred when interacting
with the outside world, to develop suitable images of the past. The
experience of pleasure for him, thus, demands internal contemplation
alongside retrospection.
   This deferred manifestation of desire stems in part from the fact
that the narrator’s attraction to Albertine falters when she is asked
to acknowledge him. The moment that Elstir introduces Albertine,
the fleeting and faraway look in her eye disappears as she is required
to focus her attention on the narrator, thereby reflecting him in
her gaze, and bringing the narrator face to face with familiarity,
even identity. The self-conscious act of staring at oneself in a mirror
clearly differs from the more voyeuristic attention with which he has
observed Albertine up until this exchange. For Proust’s narrator, his
obsession with names and the women they designate is rooted in the

M LN                                 823

very alluring, indecipherable mystery they represent. He is drawn to
the unknown, more than the known. This theory proves very telling
insofar as it elucidates the narrator’s hesitation for disclosing his name:
if he shares his name with the reader, she will no longer have the
thrill of pursuing and deciphering the enigma of his identity. Such a
revelation would quash the creative aims of Proust’s literary project
and disrupt his transgressive narrative.
   To demonstrate this idea, the narrator never actually recounts
his conversation with Albertine and Elstir during this “sacramental
moment” when meeting the former—the character who will occupy
substantial amounts of his attention for pages and volumes to come—
because that is not the story he wants to tell. The closest thing to a
description of this exchange appears in the first, sexually-charged
phrase cited above: “au moment où notre nom résonne dans la
bouche du présentateur—surtout si celui-ci l’entoure comme fit
Elstir de commentaires élogieux . . . ” The reader does not have the
pleasure of reading the name that vibrates in the painter’s mouth,
or even the flattering praise with which he envelops this name. In
yet another transgressive move, Proust shrouds this introduction in
homoerotic allusions before embarking on an idiosyncratic, digressive
overview of his relationship with Albertine, enumerating the various
identities she will project, and how he will metamorphose accordingly.
The Proustian narrator returns frequently to this topic, postulating at
the end of À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleur that each of them deserve
numerous names for their numerous selves: “Pour être exact, je devrais
donner un nom différent à chacun des moi qui dans la suite pensa à
Albertine; je devais plus encore donner un nom différent à chacune
de ces Albertine qui apparaissaient devant moi” (2: 299). Given this
philosophy, why give anyone a name at all if they are going to evolve
to this degree and therefore constantly evade identification?
   The narrator’s name continues to be elliptically evoked here and
there, but it is not until Sodome et Gomorrhe II that the author, once
again, draws considerable attention to the narrator’s anonymity. In this
episode—acutely analyzed by Michael Lucey in Never Say I: Sexuality and
the First Person in Colette, Gide, and Proust—the narrator finds himself
arriving at the Princess de Guermantes’s door just behind the Duke
de Châtellerault. At this point, the nosy narrator eschews traditional
first-person narration to inform his readers of the sexual and anony-
mous encounter between the Duke and the Princess’s doorman who
is presently tasked with announcing every guest that arrives (3: 38).
The narrator then divulges the unease the Duke experiences upon

824                             ADELINE SOLDIN

recognizing the doorman and realizing he is now obliged to expose
his identity to him, therefore putting him in a vulnerable position
vis-à-vis the doorman. The doorman, however, announces his name
without so much as flinching, intimating his intention of protecting
the Duke’s reputation. At the same time, the anonymous narrator is
fraught with his own fear about having the doorman announce his
name, as he is not sure if he was actually invited to this socially elite
event. Similarly to the Duke, the narrator’s concerns are put to rest after
the doorman announces his name and the Princess makes a gesture
to welcome him. Contrary, however, to the vocalization of the Duke’s
name, which we already know, but which Proust has the doorman
literally speak in the text, the narrator’s name is kept concealed from
the reader. As Lucey so finely articulates, this scene portrays multiple
parallels between the narrator’s situation and that of the Duke’s, and
therefore compares anxiety about one’s social identity to matters of
sexuality (241–46). Moreover, to make this connection all the more
poignant, Proust brazenly defies narrative practice in order to provide
the reader with information about the Duke and doorman’s liaison. He
does not even feign to explain why his first-person narrator knows all
of the details about a secret affair between two men, and the Duke’s
unspoken fears to boot. This is not the first or last time that Proust’s
narrator shares privileged information about other characters’ private
lives without citing his sources, but this instance is particularly auda-
cious as it concerns characters with whom he has minimal contact, if
any at all. Ostensibly, to convey this compelling and nuanced story of
sexual and social transgressions, certain narrative transgressions are
required to provide information about the Duke at the same time that
the author continues to obscure his narrator’s identity.
   In fact, the narrator remains completely anonymous until Albertine
vaguely attributes a name to him twice in La Prisonnière. After she
move into the narrator’s apartment, he details their new living rou-
tines including her habit of waking up to gaze into his eyes and say:
  “Mon” ou “Mon chéri” suivis l’un ou l’autre de mon nom de baptême, ce
  qui, en donnant au narrateur le même prénom qu’à l’auteur de ce livre,
  eût fait: “Mon Marcel,” “Mon chéri Marcel.” . . . Tout en me les disant elle
  faisait une petite moue qu’elle changeait d’elle-même en baiser. (3: 583)22

   22
     Furthermore, the editors of La Pléiade edition of la Recherche annotate this quote to
clarify that “Dans La Prisonnière, ces mentions du prénom de l’auteur, loin d’être des
vestiges d’un état antérieur du roman, sont des additions tardives. . . . . On voit bien
que cette démarche, chez Proust, est tout le contraire d’une suppression de l’autobio-
graphie, mais plutôt le désir de souligner à la fois la proximité et l’éloignement de
l’auteur du roman par rapport à son narrateur” (3 : 1718).

M LN                                        825

Here, Proust candidly invites the reader to associate the narrator with
him while he simultaneously and distinctly differentiates the two of
them. The narrator’s name, although apparently existent, has yet to
be revealed and this passage only proposes a possible name. This
demonstrable ambiguity positively associates the Proustian narrator
with modernist theories of a fragmented self that bears no coherent
identity or name. Likewise, the inclusion of the author’s name in the
diegesis represents yet another narrative transgression in the form of a
Genettian metalepsis at a moment when the narrator’s identity is called
into question, thus tempting, even authorizing readers to disregard
their own literary codes of conduct and merge author and narrator.23
   Selecting Albertine as the only person ever to call the narrator by
any first name at all further links issues of sexuality with his identity.
To begin with, Albertine represents the narrator’s clearest romantic
partner in la Recherche, and yet her sexuality persistently escapes the
narrator. Although he possesses extensive knowledge about many
other characters in the text, he knows the least about the person
with whom he is presumably the most intimate. In the same way the
reader interrogates the narrator’s identity the narrator continually
interrogates Albertine’s identity, with particular attention given to
her sexual history and preferences. Correspondingly, in the scene
just described, Albertine transforms this act of naming into an act of
kissing, not only sexualizing it, but linking it specifically to o/aural
pleasure. This is also true of the other scenes we have studied here
where his mother’s reading aloud and Gilberte’s, Elstir’s, and the
doorman’s enunciations of his name prove soothing, if not explicitly
pleasurable. The vocalization of his name is akin then to sexual excite-
ment, even though or because his name is not revealed to the reader.
   The narrator’s sexuality is therefore interwoven with his enigmatic
identity, and undeniably so. By the same token, the author’s narrative
liberties in these scenes open the door for the reader to take her own
readerly liberties in her analysis of the text. The Proustian narrator
is famous for his insistence on readers’ authority, asserting in the last
volume of the novel that “In reality, every reader, as he reads, is the
reader of himself.” This philosophy corresponds aptly to the young
narrator’s primal reading experience wherein the mystery surrounding
François le Champi’s name and love life stimulates his imagination
and allows for his unique interpretation of the text. The memory

 23
   For more on metalepsis, sexuality and Proust’s first person narrator, see Lucey.

826                        ADELINE SOLDIN

of this experience later revives his faith in literature at the prince
de Guermantes’s matinée. In light of these intersections of narrative
and sexual transgressions, it is not so shocking that readers violate
what some consider to be readerly etiquette by conflating author and
narrator. In contrast, an avid reader of Proust should recognize the
complexities of Proustian subjects who constantly evolve and therefore
comprise many selves, which the author explicitly stipulates. It would
be naïve and simplistic, then, to equate narrator and author in direct
and complete terms when each figure is composed of various personas.
To underline this final point, the second and final passage in which
Albertine refers to the narrator as Marcel deserves some attention:
  [ce vif mouvement de reconnaissance] fut plus grand encore quand un
  cycliste me porta un mot d’elle pour que je prisse patience et où il y avait
  de ces gentilles expression qui lui étaient familières : “Mon chéri et cher
  Marcel, j’arrive moins vite que ce cycliste dont je voudrais bien prendre la
  bécane pour être plus tôt près de vous. Comment pouvez-vous croire que
  je puisse être fâchée et que quelque chose puisse m’amuser autant d’être
  avec vous? Ce sera gentil de sortir tous les deux, ce serait encore gentil
  de ne jamais sortir que tous les deux. Quelles idées vous faites-vous donc?
  Quel Marcel! Quel Marcel! Toute à vous, ton Albertine.” (3: 663).

Addressing him in a message she has had delivered by a cyclist, she not
only refers to him as “my darling, dear Marcel,” but she also ends the
note by repeating an exclamation that could be translated as “What
a Marcel! What a Marcel!” The indefinite article here underlines the
unfixed and undetermined nature of the idea of “a” Marcel – whether
he is a narrator, an author, a character, or all of the above. Proust’s
refusal to disclose any definite first or last names for the narrator
attests to his unwillingness to assign them any permanent identity,
social class, sex, ethnicity, or any other category that might become
static with a name. Besides, if the exclamation points at the end of
the message were question marks, it would read “Which Marcel?” and
highlight the multiplicity of both the character and the author, and
anyone else named Marcel. This idea is supported by a remark from
the narrator in Le Temps retrouvé: “Car si les noms avaient perdu pour
moi de leur individualité, les mots me découvraient tout leur sens”
(4 : 510). He has learned by the end of the novel that proper names
are senseless, unlike literature that can actually impart meaning to life.
   To be sure, in addition to calling the narrator the author’s first name,
this message from Albertine contains another small, yet noteworthy
transgression in the form of one tiny word that carries significant
connotations. Throughout this kind and affectionate note, Albertine

M LN                                 827

addresses the narrator using the formal “vous” pronoun until she
closes with “ton Albertine.” Such a transition from “vous” to “tu” usu-
ally marks a change in a relationship, signaling increased intimacy.
This could come in the form of a simple agreement among friends to
switch to the informal pronoun, not too different from Gilberte’s and
the narrator’s decision to call each other by their Christian names. In
French literature, authors often acknowledge the development of a
sexual relationship between two characters by a shift from “vous” to
“tu” in their conversations. Finally, an unexpected use of the informal
pronoun in an antagonistic context could also communicate disdain
from the speaker towards their interlocutor. Yet, the bewildering place-
ment of this informal second-person pronoun at the end of a written
note, that otherwise uses the formal second-person pronoun, presum-
ably excludes a specific act that would have motivated any change
in the rapport between these two characters. For these reasons, the
nature of this transgression is somewhat unclear: is this a linguistic
transgression on the part of Albertine’s character, a narrative transgres-
sion on the part of the narrator or author, a sexual transgression by
both Albertine and the narrator, but which is surreptitiously signaled
to the reader, or even a passive-aggressive transgression by Albertine
directed at the narrator who has ruined her afternoon? What is clear,
however, is the mystery this “ton Albertine” provokes. In a passage
that should stand out for the use of a proper noun to designate the
narrator, Proust stealthily slips in this perplexing breach of linguistic,
narrative, intimate, and/or social etiquette, which once again leads
to more questions than answers.
   Through this study of the Proustian temptation and intersecting
transgressions in la Recherche, it is clear that the author uses his text
to examine the power and constraints associated with names while
exploring new conceptions of identity and sexuality. To the degree that
the author emphasizes the narrator’s anonymous identity in passages
that depict queer pleasure and unconventional narrative form, he
illustrates the potential of storytelling to inspire our imagination and
expand our horizons. These passages, similar to the young narrator’s
first reading of Francois le Champi, also teach us how to use discourse
to shape our own narratives about identity and sexuality rather than
relying on preexisting and limiting models. Borders and delineations
invite transgression. Proust was clearly tempted to stray from prede-
termined notions of identity, sexuality, and narrative, and the ensuing
temptation towards his readers to transgress readerly protocol should
incite us to examine and question all such modes of reading the world.

828                              ADELINE SOLDIN

Modernist literature has long been recognized for its innovative por-
trayals of identity and sexuality, as explained above. And, while many
readers embrace disjointed narratives about fragmented identities and
queer sexualities, many remain attached to the convention of naming
characters and categorizing their sexual preferences. It is time to look
beyond the restrictive control of identification and explore instead the
possibilities exposed by the lack of specification and nomination. The
mystery and uncertainty evoked by the imprecise should stimulate our
minds to stretch, to transgress imaginary boundaries, and conceive of
a more pluralistic and inclusive world.
Dickinson College

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