Proust, a Fountain and Some Pink Marble

This article explores the extraordinary volatility in the literary materials out of which the object world of Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu is formed. It provides new insight into the transformatory effect that connects Proust’s quasi-ekphrastic descriptions of objects and his description of the ‘matière’ of his work. It is unique in its analysis of a passage in which an object that enters the world of the text as a 'real' fountain, mimetically described, is transformed into a fountain depicted in a painting that the text describes ekphrastically. It also provides fresh insight into the manner in which Proust, having filled the novel with descriptions of depicted and actual things, menaces the reader with the possibility that the virtual world is about to vanish, that the novel is a piece of marble or flesh, pink, compact and transparent—a real and tangible object.