''Proust and Signs'' (french: Marcel Proust et les signes) is a book by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, in which the author explores the system of signs within the work of the celebrated French novelist Marcel Proust. It was first published in 1964; its second edition (1972) added an eighth concluding chapter ("L'Image de la pensée" or "The Image of Thought"), and its third edition (1976) appended an entire second part ("La machine littéraire" or "The Literary Machine"). The book was translated into English by

Richard Howard Richard Joseph Howard (October 13, 1929 – March 31, 2022; adopted as Richard Joseph Orwitz) was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a graduate of Columbia University, w ...

. Deleuze looks at signs left by persons and events in Marcel Proust's '' In Search of Lost Time'', illustrating how memory interprets the signs creatively but inaccurately. The jealous lover, for example, cannot accurately decipher the deceptions of his beloved. Deleuze demonstrates how Proust's book, because of the multiplication of signs, becomes a literary machine, or rather three literary machines: of partial objects or impulses, of resources, and of forced moments. Deleuze understands Proust (or the narrator) as the "universal schizophrenic" whose signs weave a spider web by sending out threads to the paranoiac Charlus and the erotomaniac Albertine, all "

marionettes A marionette (; french: marionnette, ) is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed ...

of his own delirium" or "profiles of his own madness." These thematic links between signs, events and love are taken up elsewhere in Deleuze's work, most notably in his ''

Capitalism and Schizophrenia ''Capitalism and Schizophrenia'' (french: Capitalisme et Schizophrénie) is a two-volume theoretical work by the French authors Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, respectively a philosopher and a psychoanalyst. Its volumes are ''Anti-Oedipus'' ...

'' collaborations with

Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næs ...

References

Further reading