Letters to his neighbor

Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust's genius for illuminating pain is on spectacular display in this recently discovered trove of his correspondence, Letters to His Neighbor. Already suffering from noise within his cork-line walls, he was not ready for the fresh assault of a new upstairs neighbor, Dr. Williams, a dentist with a thriving practice directly overhead. Chiefly to Mme Williams, these ever-polite letters (often accompanied by flowers, compliments, books, or even pheasants) are frequently moving and leavened by subtle humor--Proust couches his pained frustration in gracious eloquence. In Lydia Davis's hands, the digressive brilliance of his sentences shines: "Don't speak of annoying neighbors, but of neighbors so charming(an association of words contradictory in principle since Montesquiou claims that most horrible of all are 1st neighbors 2nd the smell of post offices) that the leave the constant...