Madeleine de Proust

Starting off with a little food for the soul..

Well here we are.

Welcome to my first ever weekly email! This is my attempt to keep in touch with amazing humans peppered across the planet.

I find myself at a crossroads in life and so I have decided to shake things up with something new and hopefully fun. I’ll be sharing some casual musings on random things, which brings me to today’s topic: a french comic I borrowed (sidenote: public libraries in Paris are AWESOME).

Chloé Cruchaudet is a French comic book illustrator, author and colorist. In 2022, she published Céleste: Bien sûr, monsieur Proust which follows the life of French author Marcel Proust through the eyes of his housekeeper/secretary. The art is quite beautiful with clean black inking disrupted by watercolor splashes, and the story itself reveals some interesting insights on the era and the author’s life. 5/5 would recommend, but take note that the prose style is not the easiest to follow.

If you study in the French education system, there’s no way you don’t encounter Proust. He pioneered a “stream of consciousness” style of prose which basically focuses on describing incidental, usually trivial memories, for his literary goals (note: VERY heavy in descriptions). In one of his novels, he famously relates how sipping a spoonful of team with madeleine crumbs invokes vivid memories of his childhood.

Fun fact: “Madeleine de Proust” is a French expression used to describe smells, sounds and tastes that bring back emotional memories from a long time ago.

I have been thinking about Proust recently because I am in the process of unboxing things that have been in storage for a long time. And as I unearth a very wide variety of objects (#packrat anyone?) and experience them through my senses, I am brought back to moments in time in various places. I reflect on the lovely memories and make peace with some difficult ones.

And I am reminded of how blessed I am to have you in my life.

Sending you good vibes for the week!

PS: Please hit the <Leave a Comment> button and let me know what you thought of this email, if you have a spare few seconds. I’d love to get your feedback on what was useful about it and what could be changed. Thanks 🙏 ❤️

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