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

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If your home were on fire, what would you take?

The photo albums? That's so 1999. In 2010, you'd just grab a bag of memory chips and DVDs.

Jewelry? Sure. But if it weighs less than twenty pounds, you can take something else.

Like a favorite possession.

For Marcel Proust, this was not a difficult question. Take the notebooks in which you've been writing your book --- well, have Celeste Albaret take them --- and walk out. Favorite possession? Wearing it. Always.

Marcel Proust lived in his double-breasted, fur-lined, dark gray wool coat. When he went to the Ritz for dinner, he wore it at the table. At home, in bed, it was his blanket. Indeed, it is so linked to Proust that, if you picture him, you see the hair parted in the middle, the moustache, the sunken and mournful eyes --- and the overcoat that made him look like a renegade penguin.

What happened to that coat?

If you have time for 144 pages, an amazing story awaits you.

It's not really about the coat.

The real subject of "Proust's Overcoat" is about what happens to precious possessions when their owners die. (You may recall another book on this theme, this one about a collection of netsuke: The Hare with Amber Eyes.) For starters, this book is about how we value what we value and how that deepens --- or not --- over time. At the most exalted level, it's about an idea Proust endorsed: Objects hold something of the souls of the people who loved them.

Lorenza Foschini --- a Proust devotee who is, of all things, an anchorwoman on RAI, the state-owned Italian radio and television network --- believed, from the beginning, that Proust's "ultimate relic" was "evocative of the physical form of the writer." So when she interviewed costume designer Piero Tosi in 2006...but let her tell it:

"I was shooting a television documentary in which the great costume designer of Visconti told everything about his life. When we had finished it was evening and while the TV technicians were dismantling the set, I couldn't resist asking him what all fans of Proust were wondering: Why did Luchino Visconti renounce the dream of his life, namely making a film of Récherche? Tosi started to tell me about when the project became feasible thanks to the funding from the large American majors and he had the job of going to Paris to look for Proustian characters and places. He knew the aristocratic descendants of those who had inspired Proust's characters but the meetings had been disappointing. Someone told him about the person who could help him....Tosi went to meet him and remained so fascinated by what this gentlemen told him about Proust, and amazed by what he showed him (the coat), that he never forgot it, not even after 30 years! But unfortunately he could not remember his name. The next day he found his business card, which he had always kept and which had his name on it: Jacques Guérin."

Jacques Guérin (1902-2000) was a Parisian of wealth and taste. He inherited a perfume company and ran it well. But his real work was collecting --- especially anything owned by Marcel Proust.

Now we get into the question: destiny or coincidence? Guérin's doctor in a serious illness was Robert Proust, Marcel's brother. In 1935, soon after Robert's death, his widow moved out of their apartment, leaving behind Marcel's desk and bookcase. Fortuitously, Guérin heard about this furniture and bought it.

There was much more than furniture to be collected. Robert Proust's widow hated Marcel's homosexuality, and, after her husband's death, she took her revenge, discarding letters, notebooks and other personal material. Guérin, who was also gay, saw himself as her opposite --- as the protector of Marcel's legacy. And he set about saving as much as he could.

Eccentric cast of characters? Guaranteed. Brisk storytelling? Absolutely. Great gift for anyone who loves France, Proust or collecting? Yes --- and, also, a keeper.

In reading about Guerin's obsessive nature over the personal items that once belonged to Marcel Proust, I became thrilled each time Guerin discovered something new. I'm not a collector and have never put much stock into material goods, but I can now see what other people must see when they look at some inanimate objects. Lorenza Foschini wrote about Guerin's search in such a way that had me rooting along for him to find the next thing and the next and the next. Guerin was so enamored by Proust that the ending to the book, the end of his quest, was beautiful and very fitting for someone of his nature. The story is so easy to fall into that I read it quickly and effortlessly. I couldn't believe the things that people would destroy out of dislike for an individual and it saddens me to realize that there may be many wonderful stories out there that have been lost or simply forgotten about over time. I'm hoping there are others like Guerin out there that keep searching for the hidden treasures and bring them to light for the rest of us.

This is a delightful little bonus for anyone who can not get enough information about Marcel Proust.
It is an easy read, has interesting photographs and fascinating biographical tid bits.

Foschini has fashioned this exquisite extended essay about the famous French perfume magnate and bibliophile Jacques Guerin, a friend of Satie, Genet, and Cocteau, and collector of rare books and manuscripts.

A professional visit with Dr. Robert Proust (Marcel's younger brother) leads to a treasure trove of papers, notebooks, furniture and clothing; but not immediately, and not without some duplicity. It is said that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Dr. Proust's widow felt betrayed by her philandering husband and disgusted by his degenerate homosexual brother-in-law. With little forethought as to the lucrative aspects of the Proust canon, she bitterly ordered the great novelist's papers burned. Though much was lost, much was saved by a savvy antiques dealer and friend of Guerin.

I sat enthralled, reading this slim volume in a single sitting (unheard for me). This is a fascinating slice of gay history - the openly gay Guerin preserving for posterity the works of the great Proust. I heartily recommend it.

Great short book, and well translated by painter and writer Eric Karpeles.
The book is the description of the obsession of a highly literate entrepreneur, Jacques Guérin (1902-2000), the son of an amazing, non-conformist woman-entrepreneur Jeanne-Louise Guérin, who after separating from her husband in 1900 (a daring move at the time) became a very successful business woman. She raised capital from Theophile Bader (co-founder of the Galeries Lafayette) to revive and turn around a famous brand name in the perfumery industry, the Parfums d'Orsay, named after one of the most famous dandies of the romantic area, Alfred d'Orsay (1801-1852), and produced some of the Art Deco perfumery blockbusters, such as Le Dandy. She bought out all the investors in 1936 and appointed her son Jacques, who had studied chemistry, as the general manager. His passion for literature and avant-garde artists were a driving force, and even led him to create Divine in 1947, inspired by a drag queen in Jean Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers (incidentally, I doubt that the ladies who bought the fragrance ever read the story).
Guérin was an insatiable collector with an acute sense of what was worth collecting and had a passion of all things Proust. He has been exposed to the Proust family when he fell ill: Marcel Proust's brother, Robert Proust, a doctor, like their father, Adrian Proust, has been called to his bedside because of an appendicitis for which he was operated. A few weeks later, to thank the famous surgeon, Guérin paid a visit to Robert Proust's and got a peek at a place that had turned as a Marcel Proust's sanctuary. The brothers were not that close, but Robert had kept most of his brother's belongings after his death in 1922. Family honor obliging.
When Robert Proust died in 1935, his widow Marthe Dubois-Amiot, who had harbored a ruthless hatred for anything Proust, was determined to destroy by fire all Proust memorabilia; however, overwhelmed by the immensity of the task, she ended up asking a Mr. Werner to send piles of paper to an antique bookshop rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, across from Hermès, and find buyers for pieces of furniture she abhorred - such as Proust's bed from the age of 16 until his death. Guérin chanced by this place - that he had never noticed before ' a few minutes later and bought invaluable manuscripts, letters and photographs, putting pressure on the capricious Mr. Werner to know if there was more to buy, the latter seeming to somewhat sadistically enjoy his power over the brilliant amateur.
Lorenza Foschini's book reads like a thriller-reportage, and it is amazing to find out how the most famous overcoat in French literature and Proust's shield against both sun and rain ended up resisting the wrath of a sister-in-law, the waters of the Marne river, and the appetite of moths.
It all started when Lorenza interviewed Visconti's famous costume designer Piero Tosi for a television program. He had met dozens of people who had been in one way or the other associated directly or indirectly with Proust as Visconti had had the impossible project of creating a film adaptation of In Search of Lost Time. But the story of this overcoat could definitely be the subject of an interesting camp movie.

Guerin, the successful man with a nose for more than just the perfume he makes at his factory, seeks to find Marcel Proust's things (you can't imagine the things! The brass bed he rested and wrote in, his brushes, candleabras, rugs, his pigskin cane, Legion of Honor medal, and of course the overcoat of the title) and protect them as treasures.

This book is something of a treasure, with its photographs, drawings, paintings and letters related to the Prousts (mostly Marcel and his brother Robert). The relationship between the two brothers is studied and I really enjoyed the images that were drawn (not just in the photos - the language in the book is very vivid and engrossing) of Marcel Proust. I especially related to Marcel, who wore a ridiculous number of layers of clothing to his brother's wedding. A cousin commented that Marcel "looked like Lazarus resurrected from the dead." Of course Marcel's illness is not in the least amusing, but the way his personality reveals itself despite his illness is interesting. I found his belief that inantimate objects hold imprisoned souls, objected to martyrdom and that these imprisoned souls call out to a person walking by, fascinating.

Guerin holds his treasures close to his heart in privacy until he is 90, when he begins to share. I found both the story of Guerin and his life spent seeking Proust treasures, as well as the nuggets about the Prousts and their story, to be very well done.

In Proust's Overcoat: The True Story of One Man's Passion for All Things Proust by Lorenza Foschini, Marcel Proust's life unfolds through the true story of Jacques Guerin's life-long, obsessive search for "all things Proustian."

This is a delightful, odd little book that transported me to early 20th Century Paris as Guerin hunts through old apartments and secondhand stores for Proust's things. Foschini parallels the story of Guerin, a wealthy bibliophile, with that of Proust's, illuminating the famous author through the significance of his personal effects - his books, his cane, bedroom furniture, old manuscripts, his ratty overcoat. What Guerin is driven to salvage, often neglected, abandoned, or forgotten possessions, reflects Proust's neglect by his own family, who was ashamed of his homosexuality.

Foschini also weaves elements from Proust's works and old photographs to render a compact (144 pages) but uniquely intimate portrait of the legendary author.

"Looking at them all, affectionately arranged as in their previous incarnation, he felt that each of these items possessed a palpable inner life. Guerin had the impression that these objects were hovering in a space beyond time. He considered himself an agent of destiny on a mission he had never agreed to undertake; he was convinced that the impulse to preserve these precious talismans must have come from some potent force of will within him. Mysteriously, all of these objects had somehow made their way to him and he to them."

I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of this book. What a treat. A charming and beautifully written story of a man whose obsession with literature resembles...well, mine. A true detective story of a man's quest to recover pieces of the literary past. I don't see how anyone who ever loved Proust could help but love this book. And if you haven't read Proust yet, perhaps this will be the impetus that finally sets you on that richly rewarding path. I highly recommend this to all lovers of books, literature, and well-told tales. William Bernhardt ([...])

I am an amateur lover of Proust and there is so much more into which I need to be initiated before I can offer solemn opinions. Yet, this slim volume, so meticulously reseached and illustrated, awoke new hungers for Proust and renewed interest in his life and art. I found the story of the overcoat and the many significant MSS which came to light compelling. I sensed the passion not only of Jacques Guerin, the focus of the Search for the Lost Coat, but the passion of the author, Lorenza Foschini. The bibliography was helpful (and would be more so had some of the references been more explicit: e.g. which essay by Walter Benjamin was she quoting? But the sheer mass of delightful detail and photographs filled an evening with wonder. This was a book for one sitting.

I was reminded of collectors with passions silmilar to M Guerin's which centered on provenance and association. In particular, there is the 19th century English bibliophile Frederick Locker-Lampson, who collected books and certain kinds of ephemera in a manner similar to M Guerin. Walter Benjamin's famous essay about the unpacking of his library is a short bit of 20th century writing which sets sparks darting about in my imagination also. These collectors add to the history of literature and its understanding beyond the text. It is often the books, Mss and objects themselves, objects that both reveal and add to the texts, that are bearers of memory and which can awaken new appetites and desires. There are times when a Kindle cannot kindle a fire in the heart. I hope this volume will awaken new readers to Proust and help all readers to know the significance of their libraries and collections.

Also, I hope this work is the occasion for more research and publishing regarding Proust. Imagine a volume reproducing the MSS pages and important references of Ms Foschini's research. Imagine a scratch-and-sniff card of perfume from the company once owned by M Guerin. Imagine.

Thank you Lorenze Foschini and translator Eric Karpeles, for a glorious read and for awakening my spirit.