Satire, burlesque, slapstick, and humor in both writers. Proust absorbing Voltaire, Racine, and a touch of Rabelais, Roth drawing on Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen. How comedy in Proust hides but in Roth exposes. Proust deflates and demystifies social behavior. Roth satirizes it. Both skewer pretension and hypocrisy. Wordplay, as well as behavior, possess comic dimensions as in names: both Proust and Roth play with the implications of names, whether that of Charles Swann for Proust or the Seltzer King for Roth. Bloch (“block”) or Mlle Stermaria (“Stern Maria”) in Proust compete with Sushy Margulis and Smilesburger in Roth. And appearance is always a cause for satire: “Plastered with layers of powder, her faced had the appearance of stone” (Proust, The Guermantes Way). Roth is equally acerbic with his characters.