Marcel Proust [Hardcover]

Jean-Yves Tadie (Author), Euan Cameron (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 2000

Marcel Proust was arguably the greatest writer of the 20th century. This biography by the acknowledged world authority on Proust redefines the way we look at both the artist and the man. Jean-Yves Tadie has restricted himself to the biographical and historical record: he has avoided speculation, and has drawn a scrupulous line between the life and the work. Previous biographers have conflated the man with the masterpiece, and called upon the "narrator" of the novel to fill the lacunae in the life of his creator. Tadie has brought Proust alive by releasing him from his creation. In many respects the figure who moves through the pages of this new life is unfamiliar: Proust the classicist and admirer of Racine, the anti-decadent, the moralist. Above all, Proust the creator of the autonomous universe of "A la recherche" is revealed as a figure minutely affected by his upbringing and environment, a man in time rather than a solipsist in a cork-lined room. The author's approach is multi-faceted, and his narrative is a sequence of short essays and sections, each complete in itself. So that although this biography is nearly 1,000 pages long, its synoptic penetration, formal elegance and wit make it an exemplar of that essential Proustian resource: brevity.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

How to write the biography of a writer whose life's work was his life story? In the case of Marcel Proust, the task is complicated by the subject's own hostility to the genre; in his essay "Contre Sainte-Beuve," Proust argued that writers should be judged by their books and not by the facts of their life. Indeed, when it comes to Proust, one might well confuse the two. For the first half of his life, he traded witticisms in the salons of the belle époque; for the second he sat at home and wrote about it, going so far as to line the walls of his living room with cork in order to keep the outside world where it belonged. Eventually, all that exquisite isolation produced what is arguably the defining work of the 20th century, the loosely autobiographical, imposingly multivolumed Remembrance of Things Past. As a biographer, one can conflate the novel with the life, as Proust's first biographer, George Painter, did; or one can go the road of several recent studies, including that of William C. Carter, and emphasize instead Proust's psychology, including his "repressed" homosexuality and his complicated relationship with his Jewish ancestry. Alternately, one can address Proust as a creature of his time and his place, the product of fin-de-siècle France with all its prejudices and conventions and embroidered antimacassars.

In Marcel Proust: A Life, French critic Jean-Yves Tadie surveys these approaches from the lofty perspective of 40 years of Proust scholarship, and he chooses all--or perhaps none. For Tadie is concerned not with Proust the man but with Proust the novelist. "The true biography of a writer or an artist is that of his work," he proclaims, and goes on to present the development of Proust's life and his novel side by side, considering real-life people and events alongside the fictional representations they inspired. Thankfully, though impressively learned, Tadie is not what we would call an "academic" biographer: his prose is far too elegant and even witty for that, and he actually seems to be enjoying himself. (In cataloging the items sold by Proust's uncle's firm, for example, Tadie exclaims with contagious glee, "Is it not like reading a novel by Balzac, or the wedding announcement chapter in Albertine disparue?") Weighing in at a very Proustian 986 pages--it would make almost as good a murder weapon as Remembrance of Things Past--Tadie's work is a biography of mind-boggling thoroughness, and yet every detail strikes the reader as necessary. Suitably, this definitive work ends with a touching account of Proust's death, as the great writer dictates his masterwork until he is no longer capable of speech. Who could ask more of a biographer than Tadie's gentle and affectionate epitaph? "And we too address our respects to a man who suffered so much in order that his work should shine like the sun, now that it causes him no more harm." --Mary Park

From Publishers Weekly

"He lived in order to write, and his life... became his laboratory," notes Tadi , editor of the definitive Pl iade edition of Proust's magnum opus, A la recherche du temps perdu. Compared with William Carter's more conventional biography, published earlier this year (see Forecasts, Feb. 7), Tadi 's masterful literary biography, originally published in France in 1996, is more impressionistic at times but succeeds in more clearly mapping the "history of a mind." Tadi , a professor of literature at the Sorbonne, constructs a model of the novelist's intellectual progress and literary development. In the early pages, when portraying Proust as a rich, somewhat aimless young man shuttling between the worlds of letters and high society, the account is a bit static. But throughout, Tadi quite ably makes biographical detail relevant to his literary analysis. For example, after discussing the comparative failure of Proust's debut miscellany, Les plaisirs et les jours, and his failure to complete his first novel, Jean Santeuil, Tadi argues that Proust needed aesthetic recharging. With impressive erudition, he convincingly argues that the novelist received this energizing from his struggle to translate Ruskin's Bible of Amiens into French. Tadi contends that it was the decline of Proust's social life combined with a worsening asthmatic condition that led him to take up what would become his life's work. Tadi arguably knows Proust and his great work better than any previous biographer; his narrative skillfully meshes the creation of A la recherche with all the aspects of Proust's life that inspired and informed it. 16 pages of b&w photos, not seen by PW. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1052 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (August 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670876550
• ISBN-13: 978-0670876556
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.8 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,188,168 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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93 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent - but for everyone?, August 15, 2000

By 

"mike_montgomery" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marcel Proust (Hardcover)

Jean-Yves Tadie probably knows more about Proust than anyone in the world. His work is also controversial. Roger Shattuck actually called for a boycott of the Tadie-edited Pleiade edition of In Search of Lost Time because of the amount of detail and alternative material included (Shattuck's reasons can be found in his Proust's Way). There are currently three large scale biographies of Proust available in English, all titled Marcel Proust: George Painter's (1959 and 1965, still available in a one volume 446 page paperback 2nd edition from Amazon in the UK, and having a reputation for being one of the greatest biographies of the 20th century), William Carter's (2000, 946 pages), and Tadie's (1996, 986 pages). I mention the pages to emphasize the scale of these works.

Two years ago I started reading Proust again. This time I made the breakthrough and was hooked. I am now about two-thirds of the way back to the beginning, somewhere in the middle of Sodom and Gomorrah (volume 4 of 7 in the Modern Library edition). One of the things to know about reading Proust is that once you have been acclimated to the Narrator and his style, resuming the novel is like receiving a telephone call from an old friend. In a page or two it's just like old times.

Shortly, thereafter I read Edmund White's Penguin Life (1999). In his excellent bibliography, he calls Tadie's book the "best biography ever written of Proust". He also notes that at first he "seriously underestimated its worth, since it lacks narrative sweep and humor value and sometimes looks like random notes". I eagerly awaited the English translation.

Meanwhile I began reading Painter and when the Carter book came out started that too. Painter's book reads like a novel. It is beautifully written and funny, like Proust's novel itself. Tadie seems to hold it in disdain, but I intend to go back to it when I finish the rest of Proust. I read about 250 pages of Carter's book. It wasn't that bad but continually consulting the notes I noticed that a large number were references to Tadie. I stopped and decided to wait for the real thing.

I made the right decision. Tadie's book is the real thing. C'est magnifique! The amount of information is staggering, not only about Proust but also about France and the French. If you are going to read a large scale biography of Proust, this is the one. However, the question remains: Is it for everyone?

If you have begun reading Proust and have made your own breakthrough ( i.e. you have finished Swann's Way, a good part of Within A Budding Grove, and intend to keep going) then the answer is a resounding Yes. You have already shown that you can cope with massive detail. You are not intimidated by descriptions of things that you know nothing about (say Hawthorne bushes) but instead look forward to learning about them. This is the book for you, another universe to explore. Not the Narrator's but Proust's and also Tadie's. In the case of Proust , a biography written by a Frenchman seems to have additional advantages.

What if you are new to Proust and want to find out what all the excitement is about? This is not the place to start. First it assumes that you know a lot more than you probably do, both about Proust and his novel. It is true that Tadie's not strong on the narrative. There are also lots of names mentioned: from the novel, from Proust's life, from French culture. It can be hard to follow. Second is the translation. I think Tadie is generally a clear writer. The translation is often confusing. Third, Tadie assumes a certain amount of insider knowledge about French life that a non-native might not possess. Though there are occasional notes, there still remain gaps. Though I view this as an opportunity to learn, it does put some extra stress on a reader unfamiliar with the basics.

My advice? For an overview, if you want one, read Edmund White's short Penguin Life. This will orient you to Proust and his world. But above all begin reading Proust himself. One reviewer dismissed this biography by recommending the novel in place of the biography. Of course. Who would recommend reading a book about Shakespeare before Hamlet, or Joyce before Ulysses? And when you are hooked, which you will become with a little perseverance (trust me, Proust is unbelievably funny as well as profound), then return to Tadie's Marcel Proust and new doors will open for you. And you will find finally that In Search of Lost Time has become a companion for your lifetime.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Marcel Proust - An Intellectual Biography, April 12, 2001

By 

Garrett R. Glass (Oak Park, Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marcel Proust (Hardcover)

Having heard much about Marcel Proust and his role in 20th century literature, several years ago I began the odyssey of reading a standard English translation of "A la recherche". There is something unsettling about reading Proust for the first time: the extravagantly-long sentences, the concentration on emotion and aesthetic experience, the depth of perception he invests in his characters, and the extended attention he pays to their everyday conversations and experiences. He can frustrate easily, but if you are able to abandon your habits from reading typical American best sellers, and allow Proust's unique approach to literature to grab hold, the rewards are enormous. There are few if any novelists like him, and you wonder as you are enveloped more and more into his world, how much of Proust's real life intruded into the life of his characters.

Jean-Yves Tadie's biography "Marcel Proust - a Life" provides the answer. So much of Proust's personal experience, and that of his acquaintances in French high society, are to be found in "A la recherche" that you cannot fully understand Proust's work without understanding Proust's life. And an everyday biography chronicling where Proust went, what he did, and who he met, would not be sufficient. What is required is a biography which explains how Proust developed his philosophy; why the aesethic experience was so vital, and sometimes so overwhelming for him; what is was that drew him to associate with the French nobility; and most importantly, what role love played in his life. Proust, after all, is the 20th century's pre-eminent chronicler of love's passion, and its destruction through jealousy.

Tadie's biography satisfies these requirements, in a way that perhaps only a French author could do. The biography traces Proust's academic career and the philosophical influences which found their way into his novels. It is well-laced with selections from Proust's letters to his mother and father, as well as to those he loved and to his friends. It provides considerable information, and occasional speculation, on the connection to the people in Proust's life with the characters in his novels. So thoroughly immersed is Tadie in Proust's life and his writings, that his biography has occasional passages which read as if Proust wrote them himself.

It is surprising to learn how well-placed Proust was in the intellectual and artistic developments of turn-of-the-century France. He knew well, or at least met, most of the famous French authors, composers, actors, and critics, and certainly did not spend his time exclusively at high-society functions. Tadie's biography illuminates these links between Proust and such famous figures as Robert de Montesquiou, Gustave Moreau, James Whistler, Camille Saint-Saens, Stephane Mallarme, Daniel Halevy, Sarah Bernhardt, Jean Cocteau, and Gabriel Faure. Yet the biography is also filled with references to hundreds of individuals unfamiliar to American readers. Some reviewers have suggested that this is a weakness; that Tadie's biography is too detailed and Franco-centric to be of value to those who don't speak French or have a solid grounding in the France of Proust's time. But if this is true of Tadie's book, it is certainly true of Proust's novels. Proust's world is so all-encompassing, and his style is so poetic and distinctive, that he creates a desire in the reader to learn French just to savor his creativity in its original power, and to visit France to see first-hand the places which excited his extraordinary descriptions.

Tadie's biography satisfyingly entwines Proust's imaginary world with Proust's real existence. He understands Proust in a way few other biographers have. His biography will be the indispensible source for anyone wishing to travel behind the characters and experiences in "A la recherche", to the life of Proust himself.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a panorama almost as vast as Proust's!, October 7, 2005

By 

Daniel Ford (at danford dot net) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marcel Proust: A Life (Hardcover)

I concur with the reviewer who suggested that the newbie proceed as follows:

1) Read Edmund White's little Penguin biography so as to orient yourself. This will lessen the culture shock when you are first confronted with Swann's Way (or The Way by Swann's, as the English prefer).

2) Read Proust. This is actually my third perambulation, so I'm a bit unsure how much of the novel to recommend. Whatever you do, get a good start on it, sufficient that you know you will persevere.

3) Read Tadie. Much of what has mystified you in In Search of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past, whatever) will suddenly become clear. For example, how is it that young Marcel (most writers call him the Narrator) with his wheezing and his mother complex and his odd ideas about sexuality is welcomed in the highest reaches of Paris society? Well, why not, since Proust was! People loved him, men and women, rich and poor, nobility and servants. Knowing about Proust's life makes Marcel/Narrator a lot more credible. The same is true of other characters, such as Charles Swann. (Some of Proust's characters, including the Baron Charlus and the awful Madame Verdurin, are so good that their real-life equivalents are but pale imitations. They need no biography to limn them.)

Tadie is a vast undertaking--as of course is In Search of Lost Time. I became so interested in the biography that I have put aside the final volume, Finding Time Again, so as to concentrate on the biography.

A suggestion: skip the footnotes. I began doing so at about the halfway point of the biography, and I'm enjoying it more and following it better. Those constant interruptions (it's not unusual for the footnotes to occupy a quarter or a third of the page) made it difficult for me to follow the text. Maybe Tadie has to be read three times, like the novel itself!

It's a splendid work. I've read three Proust biographies, the third one (apart from Tadie's and White's) being Marcel Proust: A Biography, by Roger Hayman (out of print). It's a better read, but it pales as a biography and as an introduction to the novel.

-- Dan Ford at readingproust dot com