Abstract: Marcel Proust, in his comments on his work, emphasizes two main aspects of it: that the book is a construction—and a staging—of the unconscious. The Recherche, such as it is presented to the reader, only partially addresses that task. The plan for a future book that is announced by Le Temps retrouvé could do a better job of meeting that constraint, especially when it comes to following the principles of the work of the unconscious: Übersehen (a total and nevertheless defective viewpoint) and nachträglich (composition “after the fact”).
