COMO CITAR:
Costa, Duarte Bérnard da. «Cynthia Gamble, Voix Entrelacées de Proust et de Ruskin». Forma de Vida, 2022. https://doi.org/10.51427/ptl.fdv.2022.0019 .
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51427/ptl.fdv.2022.0019
Duarte Bénard da Costa
(Versão em português / Portuguese translation)
The title of this academic work renders its content clear. An augmented rendering in French of Cynthia Gamble’s English published works between 2000 and 2016, Voix entrelacées de Proust et de Ruskin (2021) is mainly in line with her previous work on John Ruskin and Marcel Proust, Proust as Interpreter of Ruskin: The Seven Lamps of Translation (2002). Here, Gamble presents us with a thorough analysis of the interconnections between John Ruskin and Marcel Proust, a subject on which she has proven to be an authority. The interweaving relations of both authors exist in several aspects of their life and of their work, especially Proust’s, who, according to Gamble, is the ‘spiritual heir of Ruskin’ (2021: 10). This book deals with questions that pervade some of Gamble’s academic work, such as the authorship of Proust’s translations of Ruskin and the influences Ruskin had on Proust.
Gamble’s book is structured in three parts, with some satellite elements. After an illuminating introduction, there is a section where the author gives her account of some Proust related people and memories. It elucidates the reader on the author’s relation with Proust and Proust studies, suggesting that as she was so influenced by previous scholars, so too could Proust have been influenced by Ruskin. This work begins as a memories book, introducing us from the start to its extraordinary human tone. Gamble brings us closer as readers to a community of writers (such as Proust himself), friends (his circle of acquaintances), and academics who focused on Proust’s oeuvre. There is «Part I: Localizations», a threefold chapter dedicated to places, people and artworks in which Proust found some sort of contact with Ruskin. Namely, Amiens and Chartres, Paris and M. Bing, the Sistine Chapel and Sandro Botticelli’s Sephora. Part two focuses on translation issues and how Proust’s process of translation deepened Ruskin’s influence on him. This is an excellently woven analysis of his translation process, starting with Proust’s English education, passing through his first contacts with Ruskin and finishing with a genetic reading of his translation manuscripts. The third part of this book is certain to be found useful by Proust scholars looking for sources to work on since it provides three original elements without exactly looking into them. These are «Le cahier René Gimpel» and the description of Jean Victor Gimpel’s London salon; Sybil de Souza’s writing on Proust and Ruskin; and Sybil de Souza’s fourteen letters to the author, Cynthia Gamble.
The overarching thesis is that John Ruskin has a profound influence in Marcel Proust’s life and work. In a sentence: ‘the main voice speaking to Proust was that of Ruskin, a voice which does not cease to speak until well after the death of the English philosopher.’ (Gamble, 2021: 324, my translation). The first part ascertains that a) because Ruskin and Proust’s writings and lifeways intercept in many ways, b) thus Ruskin had a profound influence on the way Proust deals with places, people and works of art; c) this influence is also patent in the way Proust writes. The second part argues that several people had a seminal role in introducing and stimulating Proust to read Ruskin and that they also had a preponderant role in aiding Proust with his translation project. Gamble adopts a historiographic methodology when trying to assert the reasons why Proust translates Ruskin: she looks at letters (Reynaldo Hahn’s correspondence with Proust), reports (the Princesse Polignac’s account of a soirée with him), and historical evidence such as young Proust’s school reports. After all, one of this work’s claims is that Proust’s translation was, in fact, done by more than one translator, namely by Proust, Mme. Proust and Marie Nordlinger (later Nordlinger-Riefstahl).
In this work there is a general feeling of human closeness with Marcel Proust’s reality. Cynthia Gamble creates a referential chain that leads us to Proust. Sybil de Souza, who was the first person ever to write a literary doctoral thesis about Marcel Proust, met Marie Nordlinger-Riefstahl, who was Proust’s friend and who helped him translating Ruskin. Through the transcription of de Souza’s letters to Cynthia Gamble, we are brought together with someone who was in close contact with one of Proust’s friends. In parallel, Gamble dedicates a section to René Gimpel, who delivered a lecture on Proust in 1926 and was Proust’s friend and correspondent. This is followed by a section on Gimpel’s son, Jean Victor Gimpel, whose London salon Cynthia Gamble frequented. Therefore, here we find a double account of how the author has contacted, although indirectly, with Marcel Proust himself, either via the Gimpels or via de Souza and Nordlinger-Riefstahl.
Proust’s influence is patent also on this academic book, since both Proust and Cynthia Gamble seem to share excitement in meeting someone who has met a person who interests them (in Proust’s case, remember Mme. de Villeparisis, who awes Marcel because she has met many a writer, such as Balzac, or M. de Saint-Loup, who has an added charm to Marcel because he has met – and is related to – Mme. de Guermantes).
Overall, the thoughtful prose of Voix Entrelacées de Proust et de Ruskin presents us with a key work for those who wish to further their knowledge on Ruskin-Proust scholarship or on how an author’s life may have an impact on an author’s literary works.
REFERÊNCIA:
Gamble, Cynthia. Voix entrelacées de Proust et de Ruskin. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2021.