Proustian
1
9.9
- adjective
- /ˈpruːst.i.ən/
- Literature
- Genette specifically shows how as-if statements sustain Proustian internal focalization (203).
Examples
-
That aftershave, it just made my whole childhood come back with a sudden Proustian rush.
-
Though the screenplay was apparently abandoned, the idea took shape as a lengthy, Proustian novel.
Blog text (27) -
The forces of life seemed to be winning in a suitably Proustian fashion.
Academic text (2000) -
I'm having a real Proustian flashback.
-
From a Proustian point of view, the analyst is someone with whom one might, with a bit of luck, through the transference, stumble on a bit of the past.
Academic text (1993) -
In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt provides a Proustian account of French salon society, which found exceptional Jews magnetic and the mass of Jews obnoxious.
Academic text (1999) -
On the one side are these colossal Proustian memory bullies who get 1,800 pages of recollection out of a mere cookie bite.
Blog text (7) -
Helen Dennis privileges Louise Erdrich because "her work at times seems closest to European novelistic preoccupations, in her almost Proustian obsession with memory" (4);
Academic text (2011) -
Yourcenar's text relates both to the tradition of Montaigne, in which self-knowledge is the indispensable key to self-acceptance, and to modern post-Freudian, post-Proustian psychological investigation of human nature.
Fiction book (1996) -
The smell of freshly baked bread triggered a Proustian memory of my grandmother's kitchen.
How Evocative
Surface Forms
Morphology
Proustian = Proust (transparent) = Proust + ian
Formed regularly from the proper name Proust + adjectival suffix '-ian', meaning 'relating to Proust'; the relation is morphologically clear.
Etymology
Proustian comes from the French writer Proust, who wrote a famous scene where the taste of a small cake called a 'madeleine' suddenly brought back his whole past. So something Proustian describes a sudden, very detailed memory or a style that explores memory and time.