Which novel by Marcel Proust features a protagonist that is working on an essay ?
Literary historians and critics have ascertained that , apart from Ruskin , Proust 's chief literary influences included Saint - Simon , Montaigne , Stendhal , Flaubert , George Eliot , Fyodor Dostoyevsky , and Leo Tolstoy.1908 was an important year for Proust 's development as a writer .