Morrison, Harrison, and Proust
Why is Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris the most visited cemetery in the world? And why must I be here now when I was already here in 1986? That’s what I was thinking as Walt and I spent a lovely afternoon in October 2023 strolling among the dead. I appreciated the macabre beauty of graveyards much more in my twenties when a visit felt more like a school field trip and less like a Sunday tour of open houses. No matter. I had to see Jim Morrison. Again. Of course.
There were no barricades in 1986, I remember that. Now, you stand behind a fence with all the other gawkers. I read that eighty percent of visitors to the “necropolis” are there to see Morrison. (Necropolis is what they call a fancy cemetery for important people.) I do not get it. I liked The Doors, and I loved their Strange Days album, every bit as much as a clueless ten-year-old girl listening to WLCY on a transistor radio in her bedroom can do.
But I loved George Harrison about 48, 000 times more. And I don’t even know where he’s buried. Or if he’s buried. I remember that I was buying Friday donuts for the construction crew working on my house when I heard the news on the radio. I pulled the car over and wept. George Harrison was my favorite Beatle. John too obvious, Paul too sweet, and George, just right. While My Guitar Gently Weeps, If I Needed Someone, and Here Comes the Sun – what’s not to adore? I can’t believe I’ve been twice to see Jim Morrison. It makes me feel like a tramp.
I bet we don’t say tramp now. Two-timing tramp. Can I say that?
As we traversed the necropolis, Walt and I were guided by a Rick Steves audio tour. Near the end, Steves told us that all the way back where we had started, Marcel Proust was buried. I’ve read the first nine pages of Remembrance of Things Past at least as many times. I’m fairly certain that’s as far as I’ll get. I thought of my two (perhaps three?) erudite friends and what I would say if ever they were to ask casually, over a nice Bordeaux with some age on it, “Have you read Proust?” I wanted the fun of telling them, “No, but I’ve read his gravestone.” And so, we doubled back to the Gambetta entry gates, near the columbarium, paying no respects along the way to countless great minds and hangers-on now in repose, just to see Proust’s grave and read what was written there.
What we found was a plain black slab engraved with gold lettering:
Marcel PROUST
1871-1922
After a seven volume, 3200-page novel, it seems he had said quite enough already.