SOURCE: Rosengarten, Frank. “Problems of Structure, Unity and Aesthetic Philosophy.” In The Writings of the Young Marcel Proust (1885-1900): An Ideological Critique, pp. 101-17. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.

In the following essay, Rosengarten addresses the issue of whether the fiction and sketches in Pleasures and Regrets can be viewed as a “structured, unified whole rather than a mere patchwork of miscellaneous pieces.”

Much of the critical debate about [Les plaisirs et les jours] has centered around the question of whether it can be considered a structured, unified whole rather than a mere patchwork of miscellaneous pieces. This is an important question inasmuch as the way a writer organizes and arranges the material of a fictional work often reflects the point of view from which s/he has embarked on the task of writing.

Proust always paid careful attention to how the parts of his writings related to the...