Madame Proust: A Biography [Hardcover]

Evelyne Bloch-Dano (Author), Alice Kaplan (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0226056422 | ISBN-13: 978-0226056425

Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time opens with one of the most famous scenes in literature, as young Marcel, unable to fall asleep, waits anxiously for his mother to come to his bedroom and kiss him good night. Proust's own mother is central to the meaning of his masterpiece, and she has always held a special role in literary history, both as a character and as a decisive influence on the great writer’s career. Without knowing much about her, we think of her as the quintessential writer's mother.

Now Evelyne Bloch-Dano’s touching biography acquaints Proust fans with the real Jeanne Weil Proust. Written with the imaginative force of a novel, but firmly grounded in Jeanne and Marcel Proust’s writings, Madame Proust skillfully captures the life and times of Proust’s mother, from her German-Jewish background and her marriage to a Catholic grocer’s son to her lifelong worries about her son’s sexuality, health problems, and talent. As well as offering intimate glimpses of the Prousts’ daily life, Madame Proust also uses the family as a way to explore the larger culture of fin-de-siècle France, including high society, spa culture, Jewish assimilation, and the Dreyfus affair. Throughout, Bloch-Dano offers sensitive readings of Proust’s work, drawing out the countless interconnections between his mother, his life, and his magnum opus.

Those coming to In Search of Lost Time for the first time will find in Madame Proust a delightful primer on Marcel Proust’s life and times. For those already steeped in the pleasures of Proust, this gem of a biography will give them a fresh understanding of the rich, fascinating background of the writer and his art.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Proust''s relationship with his mother, like much else to do with this greatest of all novelists, was exceptional. . . . .Bloch-Dano’s admirable biography paints a vivid portrait of a sensitive, cultured, sometimes sharp woman. . . . Bloch-Dano confidently charts the rituals of the Parisian haute bourgeoisie which Madame Proust, as the wife of an eminent professor of medicine, observed, along with her part in the genesis of one of the glories of world literature.”--Angus Trumble, Independent

(Angus Trumble Independent )

"It is one of the many merits of this admirable biography of Proust''s mother that it invites one to return to the novel with perhaps a fuller understanding of Proust''s heredity, hinterland, and upbringing. . . . This fascinating book is full of interesting social and cultural observation, of information about French Jewish life, the position of Jews in society and, of course, the Dreyfus case. But it is essentially a study of one of the most remarkable and fruitful of mother-son relationships. As such it is a book that every Proustian will want to read."—Allan Massie, Literary Review

(Allan Massie Literary Review )

“A vivid, if highly impressionistic, account of the life of Jeanne Weil Proust, a woman who outwardly lived the life of a typical Jewish bourgeoise of the Third Republic, but who succeeded in raising France’s unlikeliest literary giant. . . . Madame Proust tempts us to read the big book in a new way: as the most fulsome possible answer to a mother’s wish to know what occupied her son.”—Thomas Meaney, New York Sun

(Thomas Meaney New York Sun )

"Serious readers of Marcel Proust are aware of how close the writer was to his mother. Now, through Bloch-Dano''s touching biography of Jeanne Weil Proust, translated by National Book Award nominee Kaplan, his many fans can better understand that closeness. . . . Bloch-Dano''s splendid book offers great insight into this loving pair and illustrates Jeanne''s influence on her son as a writer. Highly recommended to those interested in Proust and 20th-century French literature."--Library Journal

(Library Journal )

"Meticulously researched, Madame Proust offers a socio-cultural portrait of French and Jewish culture and how each intersected in Proust''s lifetime. It not only explores Anti-Semitism, assimilation and naturalization of Jewish French Nationals, and the Dreyfus affair but also ably recreates the bourgeois milieu, familial and cultural context, and the physical layout of the Paris in which Marcel Proust lived. . . . Bloch-Dano''s biography offers a sensitive, delicate evocation of the relationship Proust would describe as his life''s ''only purpose, its only sweetness, its only love, its only consolation.'' Madame Proust is a well-conceived and insightful tribute to a woman who lived quietly and whose ambitions and hopes centered fixedly on her family''s well-being and her son''s fulfillment."—Bookslut.com

(Aysha Somasundaram Bookslut.com )

“Evelyne Bloch-Dano’s Madame Proust provides a wealth of new details about Marcel Proust’s formative years and illustrates, as never before, the importance of his Jewish heritage. She does so by concentrating on the most important love relationship in Proust’s life: the great affection he had for his mother. Carefully researched, richly documented, and skillfully translated by Alice Kaplan, this book deserves to be read by all who are interested in the life and works of Marcel Proust.”­—William C. Carter, author of Marcel Proust: A Life
(William C. Carter )

“Using previously unknown documents, Evelyne Bloch-Dano has made a first-rate contribution to our understanding of Marcel Proust’s mother, her Jewish ancestors and her family’s social environment. Highly recommended.”--Jean-Yves Tadié, author of Marcel Proust: A Life

(Jean-Yves Tadie )

“If the wealthy Weils hadn''t married off their daughter Jeanne to Dr. Adrien Proust in 1870, our sense of the past would be very different. Jeanne''s story, seen here—inevitably—through the scrim of her son’s immortal evocation of lost time, evokes the richly upholstered interiors of Paris in the late nineteenth century.”—Rachel Brownstein, author of Becoming a Heroine

(Rachel Brownstein )

"No one was more important in Marcel Proust''s life than his mother. . . . By focusing on the mother, French scholar Bloch-Dano brings into relief the family''s Jewish background, which the Prousts, like many French Jews at the time, downplayed in seeking assimilation into French society. . . . The limited number of sources available for the project . . . makes this book less an academic biography of Jeanne Proust and more a rich portrait of the bourgeois lifestyle in which Marcel Proust grew up."--Choice

(Choice )

"It is crucial to get the cultural and social facts of Proust''s Jewish background firmly in focus before making claims about how they might have affected his writing, and Evelyne Bloch-Dano''s carefully researched biography of Jeanne Weil Proust performs this task admirably."

(Robert Alter New Republic )

"A welcome resource for Proust''s many anglophile readers, and a useful companion to the several biographies of Proust."

(Tony O'Brien Metapsychology )

"Madame Proust shows how painstaking research of literary and cultural information, finally synthesized and carefully evaluated, can result in illumination. . . . The book is packed with information that ranges from detailed historical backgrounds of individuals or groups, through the general status of the Jewish population in France."

(Lynn Hoggard Southern Humanities Review )

About the Author

Evelyne Bloch-Dano is the author of many books, including a prize-winning biography of Emile Zola’s mother and, most recently, a novel, Le Biographe. Alice Kaplan is the author of, among other books, French Lessons, The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach, and The Interpreter.

 

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226056422
• ISBN-13: 978-0226056425
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,608,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than a biography: a social history, September 8, 2007

By 

Samia Serageldin (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Madame Proust: A Biography (Hardcover)

Madame Proust"; a Biography by Evelyne Bloch-Dano, translated by Alice Kaplan.

The title alone is significant: Marcel Proust never married, so his mother remains 'Madame Proust' with reference to the great novelist. But this is more than a biography of Jeanne Weil, the Jewish grande bourgeoise who had the good fortune to marry Dr. Adrien Proust and beget the author of "In Search of Lost Time". It is first and foremost the historical account of the rise of the French Jewish bourgeoisie over three generations in the nineteenth century. Napoleon Bonaparte was the first ruler in Europe to give Jews the right to citizenship on an equal footing with Christians, and Jews, mostly originating from Germany and Alsace, took full advantage of this enfranchisement, first to rise to the ranks of the middle class; then to demonstrate their patriotism by fighting in French wars; and finally, by converting to Catholicism or by marrying Catholics, to take the final step still necessary to gain full acceptance in French society.

Jeanne Proust, nee Weil, came from a family of Alsatian Jews who served as a model for this rapid advancement over three generations. When she married the brilliant physician Dr. Adrien Proust in the middle of the 19thC, she did not convert, but her two sons, Marcel and Robert, were raised Catholic. Religion seems not to have been an issue between the atheistic parents, typical of that class in that era. It took the Dreyfus affair to reveal a schism; Jeanne, and her son Marcel, by then in his twenties, were ardent Dreyfusards from the beginning, affirming his innocence, whereas Dr. Proust supported the judgment against Captain Dreyfus for treason until later evidence exonerated him.

But this biography, at heart a carefully researched social history, as the most interesting biographies are, is also a psychological study in mother-son attachment. Even in a century and an era where a grown son's attachment to his mother could be dismissed or even lauded as sentimentality and dutifulness, the hyperbolic passion and interdependence between Jeanne Proust and Marcel comes across as singular; of another order, say, from that of Gustave Flaubert and his mother a generation earlier.

Like that earlier couple, the Prousts' relationship was indissoluble but went through periods of recriminations, particularly over money, which the wealthy women controlled. Flaubert, like Proust the son of a renowned physician and a strong mother, never considered marriage, but Flaubert traveled around the world, was a notorious womanizer, enjoyed robust health and earned his living by his writing for much of his life.

Marcel Proust, on the other hand, was asthmatic, neurasthenic, and hypersensitive, and perhaps for those reasons always lived at home, never traveled far, and never earned his keep. Such energy as he had was devoted to socializing, and in this he was remarkably successful: whereas his father's professional brilliance and his mother's fortune allowed them to be regulars at the receptions of President Felix Faure, Marcel's circle extended into the high aristocracy. It was no hindrance, or perhaps may have helped, that he was homosexual.

Bloch-Dano traces the evolution of Jeanne and Adrien Proust's handling of their son's sexual proclivities, from optimistic denial to gentle dissuasion to loving tolerance, if never open embrace. But the author is careful not to overreach into psychological speculation, however tempting it may be to link Marcel's homosexuality to an unhealthy attachment to his mother.

In another area, Bloch-Dano is less careful not to indulge in speculation, often blurring the lines between Proust's real life and that of Jean Santeuil, the hero of his novel. Even the most autobiographical of novels is still fictional in part and it is never without risk to speculate on where fact and fiction part ways. The author herself seems aware of this when she points out a passage of the novel in which Santeuil speaks of his mother's hair, heartbreakingly white, when photographs taken of Jeanne Proust shortly before her death in her early fifties show her to have kept her dark, thick tresses intact.

But such minor caveats apart, this is a fascinating biography of the woman behind the genius of Marcel Proust, and into the bargain the social history of the rise of a Jewish bourgeoisie and a professional meritocracy in an era rich in opportunities and in literary talent: the middle of the 19thC and the early Belle Epoque.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Proustiana, July 12, 2008

By 

N. Bandler "feverish reader" (American Midwest) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Madame Proust: A Biography (Hardcover)

I don't know if there has been a revival of interest in Proust in the last few years or if I am just more aware of Proust-related items since I discovered him for myself.

In any case, there appears to be no end to the translations, biographies, photo collections, cookbooks, commentaries, movies, soundtracks--including a musical play--and even a graphic novel version of Proust's masterwork.

As a Proust fan I collect anything that seems interesting and this biography of his mother was not disappointing. It gives an extensive family history plus an overview of the times and is very readable in its English translation.

I am happy to add it to my collection.