French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Benhaïm, Panim. Visages de Proust
Novel and Narrative Prose

André Benhaïm
Panim. Visages de Proust
Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2006.

"An entire cluster of faces juxtaposed across different planes and never seen all at once..." This is how Marcel Proust conceives of the "human face." It sounds like Hebrew. One can almost hear "panim," the word for the face, which literally means "faces." Always in the plural. Visions by turns terrifying and wondrous: the face makes Proust's work resonate in all its strangeness.

André Benhaïm's study situates Marcel Proust's masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu, within a unique linguistic and philosophical framework. By invoking the Hebrew word panim—a term that inherently denotes plurality—Benhaïm illuminates Proust's modernist fascination with the instability of human identity. Rather than viewing the face as a static, unified surface, Proust treats it as a shifting collage of expressions. This linguistic connection offers a fresh lens through which to view Proustian characterization, revealing how the multiplicity of the face reflects deeper themes of memory, time, and perception.

This book is particularly valuable for scholars of French modernism, comparative literature, and Proustian studies. It addresses fundamental questions about how literary portraits function and how the human body is represented in twentieth-century fiction. By analyzing the terrifying and wondrous aspects of these shifting visages, Benhaïm helps readers understand the unsettling strangeness that lies beneath the elegant surface of Proust's prose. Students and researchers interested in the intersection of literature, religion, and philosophy will find this work an insightful guide to the visual and psychological complexity of À la recherche du temps perdu.