Marcel Proust : kinesic styles and consciousness as interaction

In À la recherche du temps perdu [In Search of Lost Time], Marcel Proust develops notions of consciousness and unconsciousness that cannot be divorced from a tangible and continuously impactful social and sensorimotor environment. Within the world of La Recherche, consciousness and unconsciousness dynamically occur when one gestures, stumbles, smiles, bows or fails to bow. The present article connects this fact with the notion of kinesic style relative to three levels of analysis: 1) the artist’s kinesic style, considered in Jean Cocteau’s striking account of Proust’s laughter when the latter was reading his work to friends; 2) the kinesic style of La Recherche discussed in relation to Saint-Simon’s Mémoires and his portrayal of the Mortemarts, which inspired Proust’s portrayal of the Guermantes; and 3) the kinesic style of such characters in La Recherche as Saint-Loup and more generally the Guermantes clan, with a focus on the style of their gait and handshake and on the remarkable sense of humor that permeates Proust’s narrativization of their kinesic habitus.