Marcel Proust

Proust attended Mallarmé’s salons, and was connected with Bergson through family, though denied being influenced by his ideas about time and memory. Proust and Colette met as young writers, she finding his polite persistence overweening. Gide (a noted correspondent) had advised Gallimard against publishing him, then later completely changed his mind and ensured the work appeared; Cocteau, Mauriac and Fauré (whose music he admired) were other correspondents. Proust asked Jammes to pray for him. He shared a cab with Joyce, but they had never read each other’s work, and grumbled about their bodily ailments.