{"product_id":"pleasures-and-days-david-petault-9798345114988","title":"Pleasures and Days: A New Translation","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMarcel Proust published \u003ci\u003ePleasures and Days\u003c\/i\u003e in 1896 at twenty-five, his first book-a luxury edition with illustrations by Madeleine Lemaire, musical pieces by Reynaldo Hahn, preface by Anatole France. Expensive, beautifully produced, it sold poorly and received harsh reviews. Jean Lorrain mocked its preciosity; the commercial failure wounded Proust deeply.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeventeen years would pass before \u003ci\u003eSwann's Way\u003c\/i\u003e began appearing. That gap reveals how radically Proust transformed. \u003ci\u003ePleasures and Days\u003c\/i\u003e is recognizably by the same sensibility-attention to psychological nuance, fascination with society's rituals, melancholy about time's passage-but the execution belongs to entirely different aesthetic.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe collection contains short stories, character portraits, prose poems, fragments that resist categorization. Several anticipate mature Proust's concerns: \"The Death of Baldassare Silvande\" examines an aesthete who realizes too late his cultivation of refined sensibility prevented authentic living. \"The End of Jealousy\" explores obsessive jealousy continuing after a mistress's death-directly forecasting Swann's torment over Odette. \"Regrets, Reveries the Color of Time\" contains meditations on memory and lost moments anticipating the madeleine episode.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet calling this \"early Proust\" risks overstating achievement. The prose is often precious, overrefined to affectation. Where mature Proust's sentences achieve architectural complexity mirroring the mind's movements, these frequently sprawl without equivalent payoff. The psychological analysis, sophisticated for twenty-five, lacks the depth he'd achieve. The stories feel like exercises in established genres-society tale, decadent fable-rather than innovations.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe book reflects fin-de-siècle literary culture: symbolism, decadence, art for art's sake. Proust absorbed these completely, producing prose dense with metaphor, elaborate with qualification, concerned with atmosphere over action. The settings shift between Paris salons and country estates, always filtered through aesthetic consciousness finding significance in gestures, music, flower arrangements.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis was Proust before the transformation-wealthy aesthete in society, not yet the reclusive artist who'd revolutionize the novel. The collection belongs to 1890s aestheticism's last flowering before modernism's ruptures, capturing specific moment that would soon seem dated.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWorth reading? For Proust devotees, essential-it shows him finding his themes if not yet his voice. For those interested in fin-de-siècle French aestheticism, valuable document. For casual readers seeking Proust introduction, \u003ci\u003eSwann's Way\u003c\/i\u003e makes more sense despite its length.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis isn't miniature \u003ci\u003eIn Search of Lost Time\u003c\/i\u003e. It's different work, different aesthetic tradition, revealing writer still finding his way. Yet it contains interest both biographical (showing development) and literary (fin-de-siècle prose at its most refined, occasionally achieving genuine accomplishment despite preciosity).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHonest assessment: accomplished but limited early work from which Proust would eventually create something unprecedented in European fiction.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e David Petault,Marcel Proust\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798345114988\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/01\/2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 290\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.86lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.65d","brand":"David Petault","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48217837043967,"sku":"9798345114988","price":13.69,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_dea635d3-75ce-48e8-9990-cc9fca5acb9e.jpg?v=1771999765","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/pleasures-and-days-david-petault-9798345114988","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}