We are reproducing here information by Nicolas Ragonneau published on the site https://proustonomics.com . For the record, https://decolonialisme.fr/longtemps-je-mai-couche-e-de-bonne-heure-mais-aussi-de-bons-heurts-car-il-faut-respecter-la-parite-en-langue/
In June, Claude Tremblay published the first gender-neutral version of the Research in Quebec, in his post-binary publishing house, Intersexions. An enterprise that promises to be highly controversial. Disclaimer: At the request of Claude Tremblay, I am using the first name iel to designate her/him, because she/he defines herself/himself as a non-binary person.In the middle of a video conference from Montreal, Claude Tremblay lifts the sleeve of his T-shirt and reveals a slightly purplish blue Marcel Proust. The tattoo, quite precise, reproduces the writer's face as it appears in one of the famous photos of the session with Otto Wegener, with the difference that a rose has been added to the base of his neck. “I wanted to get this tattoo right after I finished the Research. It was in the summer of 2020, shortly after the lockdown. Moments in a life that we don't forget. »From the ENS to MontrealI met Claude Tremblay (they changed Marie-Claude to Claude in 2018, because it is more epicene and closer to their atheism) at the study day "Proust and the (bad) gender" organized by Anne Simon and Zhao Yangjie at the École Normale Supérieure on February 2. They came to talk to me after the round table that closed this event to tell me that they liked my site and that they appreciated that I practiced what they call "a gender reassignment" in my book Proustonomics, one hundred years with Marcel ProustThe first incipit that I had disguised was "For a long time, I went to bed early", and it was signed Marcelle Proust. Iel was less impressed with the quote from Tomi Ungerer that I placed at the start of the book: "Vinteuil's daughter is the spitting image of her father", and we will see why a little later. "I am currently finishing the first inclusive version of the Research, are you interested? " he asks me at the ENS. Of course I am, and we exchange email addresses, promising to contact each other when he returns to Montreal. "A publications laboratory gender fluid »« Jean-Yves Tadié said that everyone has their own Proust, so why not a Proust who would be the herald of the post-binary revolution, when he was the herald of the gay and Jewish minorities of the Belle Époque? Of course, he did not assume like Gide, but Gide cannot be included in our Pantheon, because his pedophilia is not acceptable. Claude has been an activist for years in various collectives and has participated in federal work in favor of inclusion and gender equality in Canada, particularly on the issue of non-binary community designation, which resulted in the acronym 2SLGBTQI+, now 2SLGBTQIRTP+. "I created the publishing house Intersexions, which aims to be a laboratory for publications and reflections gender fluid. In this respect, it seemed interesting to me to inaugurate the catalog with a revisited great classic. This great classic is therefore In search of lost time, but what are the differences between its edition and current or past editions? "This is the text of the Research from the public domain, the one that was published by the NRF from 1913 to 1927, which served as a working basis. We worked on the epicene, on the bi potentialities of the characters. All the bisexual characters in the book receive the pronoun iel. This is true of Odette, Albertine, but it is also the case for Saint-Loup and Charlus. We resolve this question of the sexuality of the characters, where the standardized heterosexuality of the turn of the century forces them to live in hiding. As for Marcel, author-narrator, his epicene first name (at least phonetically) invites us to degender him. This is the reason why Marcel becomes Marcel·le and the narrator becomes narrator·rice. » When I interrupt him to point out that he also seems to have a particular fondness for Vinteuil's daughter and her friend, he responds immediately: "By spitting on Vinteuil's portrait, Miss Vinteuil and her friend prefigure the anti-patriarchal struggles of the 21st centurye century”. Non-binary typos and QUNITo announce the color (necessarily rainbow) Claude sent me the seven covers of his edition before the interview. “Inclusive writing at the midpoint is only one step. I moved on to the next level by using gender-neutral typographies, those from the typothèque Bye Bye Binary. It is a collective carrying the post-binary typographic revolution, which has brought together a gang of French-speaking graphic designers since 2017. I have chosen two fonts for my edition. For the cover titles and for my logo, I chose Adelphe, an incredible font created by Eugenie Bidaut which comes in three flavors: to make it short, you can use it with the midpoint, with diacritics below, or with fancy ligatures and special characters. To be continued at @amsterdam_ed With #Tofinallywithpassion ! pic.twitter.com/gursZgJJBQ — WhoAPeurDuFéminisme (@PeurFeminisme) March 24, 2023 So we fixed all that in our edition. I won't give away all the surprises, but our narrator is rejuvenated and greatly regenerated. All the violence of the text, which you love so much, is defused." When I point out to them that this work must have been Dantesque, and that potentially they could have called on Artificial Intelligence to transform the text, they have this response: "You couldn't be more right. With several friends, we are working on a gender-neutral version of Chat GPT, Les Chattes GPT, which should allow us to tackle other classics of world literature and facilitate this work without getting bogged down in the flowers of the carpet." I ask him what fate he has reserved for the episode where the Narrator, in Albertine disparue, brings little girls to his house to comfort him, which triggers a hearty burst of laughter from Claude: "Did you really think we were going to let this go? In my version, the narrator brings in poodles and cavalier king charles that they take on their lap. But you want to know too much, believe me, we're going to replay the film in a hell of a way! ÇIt will be fun." They don't really appreciate that I imagine for a second that this revision could resemble animal abuse. Claude Tremblay's radical enterprise will be available in Europe during the summer. Swiss and Belgian distributors-broadcasters have already expressed their interest. In France, Claude is in advanced discussions with Interforum, the distribution structure of Editis, owned by Vincent Bolloré, to make the book available in all good bookstores. "We'll see if Mr. Bolloré is ready to support us, if he brings his actions into line with his declarations, he who boasted before the French Senate last year of having the pronoun iel in his digital edition of Le Robert, or of owning the leftist publishing house La Découverte." |