The Marcel Wave

A report on the Proust Boom

Socially speaking, the man of the moment in smart Manhattan is M. Marcel Proust. And who'da thunk it? The new Moncrieff-Kilmartin-Mayor translation of his great work runs a cool 3,500 pages, not exactly what you’d want the local bookshop to send over with the latest Ludlum thriller and the Vreeland memoir. Common sense would have argued that the sheer mass and complexity—let alone the wit and depth of observation—of “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu” would have prevented chic society from sinking its sharp little teeth into Proust’s novel and turning the faubourg Saint-Germain into a hospitality theme.

But then along came the movie Swann in Love, which reduces a critical segment of Proust’s epic to a sort of Brideshead Revisited en croute. As early as June, the Upper East Side mills were abuzz with gossip that our reigning hostesses were holding private screenings of the flick, followed by lavish dinners at which, to quote one attendee, “there was lots of velvet, and all these big candlesticks.”

Summer came and went, and then, perhaps on the assumption that the social literati needed another helping of madeleines and tea, Jeremy Irons, the star of Swann in Love, gave a by-invitation Proust reading at the Carlyle Hotel for the likes of Mike Nichols, Wallace Shawn, John Guare, and Whoopi Goldberg. It was then that we began to hear of Proustian evenings in the Village, nights of ferocious affectation with lots of exotic fruit and Botticelli over easy. And so it went, leaving us to wonder who else would be caught in the undertow of the Marcel Wave.

For advice on how to join in the fun of entertaining a la Proust, many would-be salonistes went straight to the source. In the flower department, Japanese chrysanthemums, white geraniums, sulfur roses, pink hydrangeas, and, of course, orchids are just some of the varieties that Marcel mentions. As for properly Proustian food, china, and the like, some instruction can be found in the novel’s final book, Le Temps Retrouve, in a passage concerning an elaborate dinner party at the home of the socialclimbing Verdurins. Here we are told of “an extraordinary cavalcade of plates. . .Yung Cheng plates with nasturtiumcoloured borders.. .Dresden plates daintier and of more graceful workmanship. .. Sevres plates meshed with the close guilloche of their white fluting.. . potatoes firm as Japanese ivory buttons and patina’d like those little ivory spoons with which Chinese women sprinkle water over their new-caught fish... a brill that is served not with the sticky paste prepared under the name of white sauce by so many chefs in great houses, but with a genuine white sauce, made with butter that costs five francs a pound . . .brought in on a wonderful Ching Hon dish.’’

Elegant as this sounds, it’s sublimely ironic that Proust, more than sixty years after his death, should be seized upon in the Hamptons and in Beverly Hills as a social cicerone by the very people he took such pains to satirize. Then again, perhaps it was just inevitable that “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu” should become this year’s state-of-theart how-to book.

The Authentic Faubourg Setting for $231,770

Terese Carpenter of Didier Aaron laid the table, using New York sources: K’ang Hsi charger ($28,000), a substitute for Proust’s Ching Hon platter, for serving brill, from Ralph M. Chait Galleries; Meissen (Dresden) plates for fish course ($5,600 the pair) from Antique Porcelain Company; and Venetian crystal glassware ($1,200 for seventy-four pieces) from J. & F. Van Brink. Lamerie silverware ($660 per place setting), silver saltcellars ($3,200 for set of four), silver pepper caster ($425), silver-and-ivory fish servers ($825 the pair), and silver-andmother-of-pearl fish eaters ($2,650 for set of twenty-four) are all from James Robinson. Pair of candelabra ($7,500), clock garniture ($5,000, with clock), and crystal vases ($5,000 and $7,000) may be purchased at Didier Aaron; table linens ($325) are from Cherchez; wine decanters ($350 and $375) are from Vito Giallo.

Mario Flowers Ltd. supplied the floral arrangement ($4,500): oldfashioned garden roses, carnations, dianthuses, traditional Cattleya labiata orchids, and Paphiopedilum orchids (in urn); Allamanda trumpet vines (on sideboard); carnations, roses, Queen Anne’s lace, dianthuses, and hibiscuses (in bouquet on table); and gardenias (on plates).

For the rest of the setting, Terese Carpenter located a carpet ($10,500) at Doris Leslie Blau. From Didier Aaron: Fernand de Launay painting, Portrait of a Lady ($38,000); mahogany screen, attributed to Canabas ($10,000); early-nineteenth-century tripodal table ($26,000); pair of Louis XVI gilt armchairs ($43,000); nineteenth-century terra-cotta urn ($5,000); brass adjustable neoclassical columnar lamp ($4,000); and pair of Louis XVI amaranth-and-parquetry tables with metal inlay ($22,000). The prices of the two paintings on the screen are not available; the centerpiece vase and taffeta drape with draw are absolutely priceless.

Mrcel Wave Dinner for $4,615+

For an eleven-course Proustian dinner party sure to put you in the mood of temps perdu, Glorious Food, in New York, suggests the following menu ($300 per person, ten-person minimum; two chefs and three butlers for the evening, $395 extra).

POTAGE (soup)

Hochepot aux legumes et aux quenelles (vegetable soup with fish balls)

RELEVE (start-up course)

Barbue garnie de cotelettes aux pommes nouvelles (brill, a.k.a. fish, and potatoes)

HORS-D’OEUVRE

Boudins d’anguilles a la creme (eel sausages in cream); olives farcies aux filets d’anchois (stuffed olives)

ENTREES

Supremes de perdreaux aux truffes (stuffed partridge breast); galantine de faisan truffee sur socle a la gelee (cold pheasant on aspic); or pate chaud d’ortolans aux champignons (hot chopped songbird)

SORBET GRANITE (sherbet)

ROTS (roasts)

Filets de chevreuil a la broche (deer kabob); hure de sang tier aux pistaches (boar’s head with pistachios)

SALADE ITALIENNE (Italian-style salad)

ENTREMETS DE LEGUMES (vegetables) Petits pois a la parisienne (peas); haricots verts nouveaux a langlaise (string beans)

ENTREMETS SUCRES (desserts)

Croutes aux ananas (pineapple tarts); bavarois d’orange (orange cream)

PIECES (extra sweets)

Corne d’abondance, mille-feuilles (pastries)

GLACE (ice cream)

Bombe panachee avec les bouchees au cafe (multi-flavored ice cream with coffee puffs)

VINS

The wine experts at Sherry-Lehmann, in Manhattan, suggest the following for each of the courses: Potage: Sercial Madeira 1910 (Welsh Brothers), $105 Releve: Montrachet 1982 (Bouchard Pere et Fils), $85 Entrees: Chateau Margaux 1979, $50 Rots: Richebourg 1979 (Domaine de la Romanee-Conti), $90 Entremets sucres, pieces, and glace: Perrier-Jouet’s Fleur de Champagne 1979, $40 to $60

After coffee, the cognac Quintessence, by Courmel, at $80, is de rigueur.