Lines From "Swann's Way" That Could Easily Double As Lifestyle Inspiration

Previously in Proust: “So you agree? You were thinking of going outside today?”

There’s a marvelous little section of the Wikipedia biography for Céleste Albaret, Marcel Proust’s long-term housekeeper, nurse and companion, that veers into wild speculation about Proust’s diet, of all things:

“Permanently ill by this time, Proust ate little by the (middle-and upper class) standards of Paris at those times, and he hardly drank. A meal might consist of a little of the white meat from a chicken or a filet of sole, washed down, on rare occasions, with a little flute of Champagne or of Bordeaux, which would suffice. The only meal which he really revered was the coffee and croissants, which he consumed as his tea-time "breakfast". Sources speculate that a more varied diet might have buttressed his failing health more effectively^{[according to whom?]}.”

It’s very poignant, this! If only Proust had eaten more fiber, or red meat, he might still be alive today, working efficiently on book 987 of the Recherche. If one is willing to do a little selective editing there are plenty of relevant little tidbits of health advice to be found and transformed into an inspirational maximizing-productivity narrative:

On Sleep Hygiene

“For a long time I went to bed early.”

“When a man is asleep, he holds in a circle around him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, and the order of the universe.”

“Suppose that he gets drowsy in some even more abnormal position; sitting in an armchair, say, after dinner: then the world will fall topsy-turvy from its orbit.”

Sunlight therapy/Carnivore diet

“Those who advised her…that a sharp walk in the sun and a good red beefsteak would do her more good than all her medicine bottles and her bed.”