Humor in the works of Marcel Proust

Abstract

In a recent novel, "Water-Gypsies" by A. P. Herbert, one ofthe characters says, "She dug out of her trunks the writings ofa man called Proust, who could devote a whole book, it seemed, tothe flicker of an eyelid." This is fundamentally true.But how interesting and meaningful Proust can make that flicker! To begin any study of the works of Marcel Proust, it is ofinterest to delve a little into his manner of writing. He is anartist totally "different" from any other. You must never expectthe usual from Proust. Indeed, while he was writing his big work, "A La Recherche du Temps Perdu", in 1908, he wrote to a friend,Louis de Robert, that he was doing something different. The reading of the first volume only will bear out this statement.