Literature - Richard Davenport-Hines

If you could invite any figure from history to a dinner party who would you most like to seat round the table? Proust, James Joyce, Picasso, Stravinksy, Diaghilev? This was not a fantasy scenario for a Mr and Mrs Sidney Schiff in 1922 but a real-life event, and the above roll-call was a sample from the actual guest-list, says Richard Davenport-Hines who will be talking from his latest book on the subject at tonight’s Monday Literary Club at Pelham house. “The party was held exactly six months before Proust dies”, he tells me, “hosted by two fanatical English admirers of Proust who desperately wanted the guests to say profound things to each other.” “In reality”, he continues, “Proust and Joyce spent all their time squabbling over whether the window should be left open or if one of them could smoke.” The dinner party was indicative of the regard with which Proust was held in society at the time, I’m told. “Even though his work was only just starting to be translated into English, Proust was immensely popular with London High Society. One of his volumes was a real must-have possession.” Were they actually reading him, then, or was it all about books on coffee tables? “At first I assumed it was just about the snob value, but actually they liked to identify who the main characters were based on”, he tells me. “After all, the books were full of Parisian gossip.”
As to what Proust would have thought about his biographer, Davenport-Hines proffers the theory, “He’d have thought me slow-witted and third-rate I’m sure.” ER