The second achievement, at the opening of Sodome et Gomorrhe, is the psychological picture of the type-pederast. An unpromising subject, according to British notions! Proust evolves from it beauty, and a heartrending pathos. Nobody with any perception of tragedy can read these wonderful pages and afterwards regard the pervert as he had regarded the pervert before reading them. I reckon them as the high-water of Proust.
Speaking generally, Proust’s work declined steadily from Swann. A l’Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs was a fearful fall, and as volume followed volume the pearls were strung more and more sparsely on the serpentine string. That Proust was a genius is not to be doubted; and I agree that he made some original discoveries in the by-ways of psychological fiction. But that he was a supreme genius, as many critics both French and English would have us believe, I cannot admit.
ARNOLD BENNETT.
THE END
Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Mr. Birrell, whose essay, though first printed in The Dial, was written for inclusion in this volume, has kindly consented to my substituting for the original text my own versions of this and the following quotations from A l’Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs and Du Côté de chez Swann respectively.—C.K.S.M.
[2] See, however, my foot-note on [page 106] and Pastiches et Mélanges, pp. 91-99.—C.K.S.M.
[3] Reprinted from The Times of Wednesday, November 29, 1922. The Times had been almost alone among English newspapers in giving “publicity” to the death of Marcel Proust in its issue of Monday, November 20.—C.K.S.M.