Proust and Parricide: Literary, Biographical, and Forensic-Psychiatric Explorations

Several years ago I bought a used copy of what was then called Remembrance of Things Past (1981). Based primarily on knowledge of Proust's reputation, I had decided that my literary education could no longer exclude this work, published between 1913 and 1927, regardless of its length. A couple of years passed while the black-bound, boxed volumes patiently waited on a library shelf. Then, in the spring semester of 1999, there was an opportunity to read the original version, A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (1987), in a graduate course on Proust and his work at the University of Kansas taught by Professor Ted Johnson. I jumped into Proust with blissful ignorance.

As part of our introductory material we studied Proust's Pastiches et mélanges (1919). Although it was not on our syllabus, as a psychiatrist who does forensic work I was drawn to an article in the volume entitled “Filial Sentiments of a Parricide” (1907). As happened some years earlier when a footnote about the death of a child plaintiff in a United States Supreme Court case attracted my attention and eventually resulted in a publication