ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an analysis of the photographic imagery that in La Recherche Proust practises a narrative of visual and emotional distance. The expansion of visual and emotional cavities between the observing self and the world of objects or other persons does not lead to a state of indifference, or a complete absence of feeling. These emotional cavities develop a pull that provokes affective responses in the observing self. They cause anxiety in the case of the grandmother or desire in the case of Albertine. The sensation of involuntary memory can trigger the experience of mutual emotional correspondence, of completion and affective cognition. Proust here stands in the Romantic tradition of what we have called a holistic notion of emotionality. However, it would be misleading to believe that he simply continues this tradition.
