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Marcel Proust
A great French writer of the Twentieth Century.
He wrote a famous chapter all about a sponge cake!
The great writer, Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, was born in Paris on 10 July 1871. H
Marcel spent long summer holidays in the village of Illiers where his father's family lived. It was this place that became the inspiration for the fictitious village that he called Combray in his future literary works.
Marcel Proust is most famous for a very long piece of writing called À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time.) It is a collection of seven volumes, consisting of thousands of pages. The author began to write it in 1909.
The famous sponge cake! The first volume is called Du côté de chez Swann and it is here that a most famous incident takes place. It is the incident of a little sponge cake in the shape of a 'shell' known as la madeleine.
So, why did Proust write about eating a little sponge cake?
In the story, his mother prepares him a cup of tea and une madeleine. It is something that he has not eaten for many years. He explains how, upon tasting the sponge cake with the tea, suddenly he remembers moments of his childhood when his aunt used to prepare the tea and sponge cake for him.
The author writes that, upon recognising the taste from all those years ago, his memories come flooding back and he is able to re-live moments as if he was a child in the company of his aunt again.
In other words, Marcel Proust examines how, upon tasting or smelling something, we can be transported back in time to a distant memory where the same taste or smell existed in our earlier lives. He demonstrates how it enables us to re-live that moment as if it was actually happening again, even when everything belonging to that distant memory no longer exists.
A quotation from his writing:
L'odeur et la saveur restent encore longtemps, comme des âmes.
Smell and taste linger on, like spirits.
Have YOU ever had the experience of a taste or a smell that takes you back in time?
He died in 1922, before the last three volumes of his work were complete. His brother, Robert, finished them and had them published.
Marcel Proust was laid to rest in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Famous French People
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