We may add here a link to art and fiction via Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life, where he writes: “What can replace a clichéd explanation of our functioning is not an image of perversity but a broader conception of what is normal” (99). He then suggests this rejection of stock characters and phrases by Proust may explain why he liked impressionist paintings, where an effort was made to render scenes with a distinct authenticity.
