Proust on the Beach

Abstract

What becomes visible when we consider À la recherche du temps perdu from the vantage point of the beach? This article contends that Proust's beach resort, Balbec, stages a reconfiguration of social ritual and corporeal style. Balbec is both an enormous casino and the ‘springboard’ for a loosely scripted, habit-disrupting social choreography. In contrast to both the aristocratic salons of Paris and the bourgeois family nucleus that characterizes Combray, Proust's beach is an improvisatory space. As such, it facilitates place-based, contingent (rather than congenital) forms of queer movement and desire.