Classic Reviews: Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way (1913)

An epistolary symposium devoted to “The World’s Worst Book” appeared in the Winter 1941 issue. The following Proustian riposte, or “riproust,” came from Channing Pollock.

There are so many Worst Books that I am at a loss where to begin replying to your letter [Books Abroad editor Roy Temple House’s letter of July 2, 1940]. However, as the most over-rated of modern authors, I nominate Marcel Proust. The long-winded, complicated prose and prosiness of Swann’s Way, or Proust’s way, leaves me even colder than Gertrude Stein’s or James Joyce’s “adulteries of art that strike mine eyes, but not my heart.” I might paraphrase Ben Jonson, and sing:

Give me a book, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace.

All this, of course, establishes me as a contemptible low-brow, but, daring that, the worst books, ancient and modern, seem to me to be those most loudly acclaimed by pedants and professional critics. Great works are discovered by the crowd, and have been from the days of Homer and Shakespeare to those of Kipling and Richard Llewelyn [sic]. There is a strange affinity of Laurel Wreaths for Stuffed Shirts—but overalls wear better.