In 1913, Proust had a reputation as s dilettante and a snob. When he sent the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past to publishers (in longhand), it was turned down everywhere. André Gide, who was advising an important magazine, found a few minor syntactical errors in a novel full of melancholy reminiscences and philosophical digressions, he voted against publication. Proust then paid to have Swann's Way published. In 1914, Gide wrote a letter to Proust, expressing his great shame and deep remorse. Swann's Way is slow, meandering and entirely backward looking. It's a portrait of upper class French society from the perspective of a parvenu.