Lorenza Foschini

Garden of Monsters

Sobretudo de Proust - A História de Uma Obsessão Literária

Eren Yücesan Cendey

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Proust'un paltosu

A paixão de um homem por livros raros e manuscritos literários é o fio condutor de Sobretudo de Proust, de Lorenza Foschini. A autora retrata um personagem real, o francês Jacques Guérin, magnata dos perfumes que era obcecado pelo trabalho do escritor Marcel Proust. Em 1929, o acaso coloca Jacques Guérin em contato com a família de Proust: ao passar mal durante o verão, ele é operado pelo cirurgião Robert, irmão do escritor. Fã de Proust desde os 20 anos, Jacques se encanta ao visitar o médico e descobrir, intactas, a escrivaninha e a estante que pertenceram ao escritor, bem como diversos cadernos manuscritos que trazem a obra completa de seu antigo dono. Após a morte de Robert, o colecionador compra os dois móveis, que mais tarde doaria ao Museu Carnavalet. Com a morte do médico, Marthe Dubois-Amiot, sua viúva, é obrigada a deixar o apartamento onde moravam. Para se livrar do que achava inútil, ela manda queimar uma série de cadernos e papéis que pertenceram a Marcel Proust. Tanto ela quanto Robert achavam que certos textos do parente famoso, bem como sua homossexualidade e o desprezo pela respeitabilidade burguesa, eram motivo de vergonha para a família. Por isso, destruíram boa parte do material deixado pelo escritor antes de morrer. Felizmente, Guérin conseguiu salvar algumas coisas, entre cadernos, objetos pessoais e o famoso sobretudo que acompanhou Proust durante seus últimos anos. Graças a Jacques Guérin, parte da memória de Marcel Proust foi preservada. Fotos, cartas, desenhos, bilhetes, rascunhos e versões de obras como Em busca do tempo perdido chegaram ao século XXI e podem ser admirados por quem lhes dá valor.

História de uma obsessão literária

Sobretudo de Proust

"Jacques GuErin was a prominent businessman at the head of his family's successful perfume company, but his real passion was for rare books and literary manuscripts. From the time he was a young man, he frequented the antiquarian bookshops of Paris in search of lost, forgotten treasures. The ultimate prize? Anything from the hands of Marcel Proust."

"GuErin identified with Proust more deeply than with any other writer, and when illness brought him by chance under the care of Marcel's brother, Dr. Robert Proust, he saw it as a remarkable opportunity. Shamed by Marcel's extravagant writings, embarrassed by his homosexuality, and offended by his disregard for bourgeois respectability, his family had begun to deliberately destroy and sell their inheritance of his notebooks, letters, manuscripts, furni-ture, and personal effects. Horrified by the destruction, and consumed with desire, GuErin ingratiated himself with Marcel's heirs, placating them with cash and kindness in exchange for the writer's priceless, rare material remains. After years of relentless persuasion, GuErin was at last rewarded with a highly personal prize, one he had never dreamed of possessing, a relic he treasured to the end of his long life: Proust's overcoat."--Book jacket.

Proust's overcoat

“A rare and wonderfully written book of literary detection that is heartbreaking as well as thrilling.” —Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient In the tradition of Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman comes Proust’s Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini—the charming, endlessly intriguing story of a collector’s obsessive search for the personal effects of legendary author Marcel Proust. This fascinating true story introduces readers to a truly delightful character—Jacques Guérin, owner of a perfume company in France—and enthralls them with his relentless lifelong pursuit of all things Proustian, even the author’s most mundane possessions.

The True Story of One Man's Passion for All Things Proust

Proust's Overcoat

The story of the overcoat began with a chance meeting - between an obsessive book collector, Jacques Gurin, and his physician, Dr Robert Proust, brother of the late writer. Gurin immediately glimpsed the possibility of acquiring the novelist's personal effects, but it would be decades before he finally came to possess the relic he had most coveted: Proust's moth-eaten otter-lined overcoat...

Lorenza Foschini

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