I read Proust as a child, on the seaside, when I was in shape and when the sea wasn’t: and since I've taken vows. Now no one reads anymore, especially Proust, his mile-long sentences, thousands of pages written over two decades – should one read them in real time? Yet Proust, like Venice, is both ghost and life, without future and full of future. I’ve never felt better than in Venice, I’ve never felt better than with Proust, I’ve never felt better than in empty flats, ruins, theatres in ruins, on the seaside, here at the Bouffes du Nord Theatre. From Venice I shall return to Paris only to set up my camp bed and to recite Proust to you, and we’ll laugh together because, yes, Proust, just like life, is for a laugh.
Yves-Noël Genod