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Marcel Proust: A Life (Paperback)

~ (Author) "THE FIRST DAYS OF SEPTEMBER 1870 were among the most calamitous in French history..." (more)
Key Phrases: soixante lettres, madeleine scene, les lys, Mme Straus, Marcel Proust, Budding Grove (more...)

4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Hardcover Available from these sellers. Published March 31, 2000	Hardcover	--	$39.50	$4.64
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When the newly famous Marcel Proust (1871-1922) consented to an interview after winning the prestigious Prix Goncourt toward the end of his life, he modestly claimed he had spent the previous 15 years "entirely in bed." It was, of course, during this time that he began his quasi-autobiographic masterpiece, A la recherche du temps perdu. While Proust mythologized his life more than his writing, University of Alabama French professor Carter (The Proustian Quest), in the longest biography yet of the novelist, methodically takes account of both. Proust's voluminous social diary, his numerous friendships and his close relationship with his mother all inspired his great novel, as recounted here, but Carter also argues that Proust's earlier writings, often viewed as dilettantish, in fact led him progressively to write his masterpiece by virtue of the discipline they imposed. Carter comprehensively examines these early projects, from the abandoned novel, Jean Santeuil, and some pseudonymous society columns to Proust's idiosyncratic critique of the great 19th-century literary critic Sainte-Beuve. Excavating biographic details out of such material as untranslated memoirs and recently collected letters, Carter meticulously, often mundanely, accounts for the daily affairs of this social butterfly-turned-hypochondriac and shut-in. Proust's romances and infatuations, his political action during the Dreyfus affair, and his literary runs-ins with Anatole France and Andr? Gide, as well as larger issues such as his homosexuality, all receive lengthy treatment. Yet despite the impressive Proustian detail that Carter amasses, the biography still only skims the depths that flow from the author's life into his timeless novel. Illus. not seen by PW. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Carter braves the ascent of one of the highest peaks in world literature, retracing the lifetime of Marcel Proust, from the formative lessons he received as a child at his sensitive mother's knee to his lofty final achievement in publishing, The Search for Lost Time (generally known in the English-speaking world as Remembrance of Things Past). Newly available correspondence and memoirs provide revealing details of Proust's complicated Parisian social life, his intimacies with male lovers, his disputes with critics and other writers. These same sources also clarify the great difficulties (poor health, editorial skepticism) Proust surmounted in publishing his masterpiece. But it is in limning the erratic and surprisingly slow development of Proust's creative powers that Carter best demonstrates his own considerable gift. He deftly reveals how Proust's artistic talents--finally at full strength in his multivolume Remembranceenabled him to fathom the mysteries of memory, revealing not only how memory recalls the past but how in rare and luminous moments it transforms that past into living meaning. The serious readers attracted to Proust's brilliant novel will thank Carter for illuminating the life that produced it. Bryce Christensen --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

Paperback: 1024 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press (March 1, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0300094000
ISBN-13: 978-0300094008
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 2 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds

Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #457,224 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#69 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods > Modernism

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
THE FIRST DAYS OF SEPTEMBER 1870 were among the most calamitous in French history. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
soixante lettres, madeleine scene, les lys, obsessive jealousy, libre des sciences politiques, society pieces

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mme Straus, Marcel Proust, Budding Grove, Mme Catusse, Mme Soutzo, Anatole France, Mme Lemaire, Anna de Noailles, Mme Proust, Robert Dreyfus, Robert de Flers, Mme Arman, Prix Goncourt, Sarah Bernhardt, Marie Nordlinger, Robert de Billy, Madeleine Lemaire, Fernand Gregh, Louis de Robert, Paul Morand, Robert Proust, Antoine Bibesco, Jacques Bizet, Reynaldo Hahn, Alphonse Daudet

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Citations (learn more)

14 books cite this book:

The Sense of an Interior: Four Rooms and the Writers that Shaped Them by Diana Fuss in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
The Cambridge Companion to Proust (Cambridge Companions to Literature) by Richard Bales in Front Matter, and Back Matter
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust in Back Matter
Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X by Deborah Davis in Back Matter
Strapless by Deborah Davis in Back Matter

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Proust in the Power of Photography by Brassai

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	10% buy Marcel Proust: A Life (Penguin Lives) 4.2 out of 5 stars (15) $11.20
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	6% buy Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time 4.1 out of 5 stars (11) $12.21

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews

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4.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aa readable and sensitive biography, May 4, 2000

By	Richard S. Sullivan (Santa Fe, New Mexico) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

This is a dangerous book. If you have not read In Search of Lost Time in all of its infamous 3000 pages and you pick up this book, beware. Chances are, like me, you will find yourself juggling this great biography, Vol 1. of the Search, and Roger Shattuck's Proust's "Way, A guide to In Search of Lost Time" all at the same time.

Carter's biography is the first comprehensive one in 40 years and is based on much new information not available in the Painter volumes of the late 50's and early 60's. I ordered this biography and it immediately got me hooked. Proust, in all his eccentricity (sometimes hilarious) comes off as a real and likeable person. He is certainly a different person than the one living in his corked lined room writing page after page describing the wallpaper in his room that Dr. Kaufman taught us about in my 1958 high school World Literature class.

At 800 pages, it at first appears to be a daunting read. What could be more boring than the life of an aristocratic French mama's boy never to earn more than a few Francs on his own until way past 30 years. It is hardly boring. Proust was an exceedingly complex person. (Aren't we all?) Proust was plagued by asthma that his doctors kept assuring him was psychosomatic in origin, and in some wisdom, he knew to be otherwise. Living at home totally supported by his mother and father, he lead an extravagant lifestyle, often leaving what amounted to $200.00 tips to the carriage driver. It was a salon society and Proust was a member of perhaps dozens. We tour the various salons and their status climbing members and hosts. In Carter's thorough biography we get to see the society of Proust in much the same way as he saw it.

Letters and more letters! This was the time and place of letter writers but, whew! Proust would write as many as three letters a day to his mother while living in the same house. Letters to friends, lovers, enemies. Gads, it hardly seems like there was time for anything else.

Some times the story of Proust becomes surreal. It appears that being a critic in this time in France was almost a death defying act. Trash a play or book and you were likely to be challenged to a duel. Well a sort of a duel, as by this time the duel was important but nobody was aiming to kill. Proust had his manhood challenged by a critic. Proust challenged the critic to a duel and it was accepted. The time and place was 9:00 am in a woods outside of Paris. Proust instructed his seconds to rearrange the time to 3:00 pm in the afternoon as 9:00 am was not a time when decent persons were up and about. Proust's bullet strucked the ground inches from his opponent indicating he was shooting to kill. Quite a dangerous mama's boy.

Carter handles Proust's sexuality in a refreshing and matter of fact way. Neither making him into a homosexual hero as some have done with Wilde -- though Wilde can take the blame for much of that himself -- nor treating him as some sort of sexual misfit. Sexuality permeated Proust's life and it often had no gender associated with it, he was often smitten with the women surrounding him as much as the men. Carter can be commended for his sensitive portrayal of this essential part of Proust's life.

If Proust is your interest, or if fin de siecle France is, this is a not to miss book. At 800 pages it is quite and investment in time -- it's a bargain in dollar per word! -- but if this era is your interest, it is well worth the investment.

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47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Finest Yet, March 22, 2000

By A Customer

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

William C. Carter's new biography of Marcel Proust is the finest yet. With a strong narrative line and a profound and sensitive understanding of the writer and his work, it carries us along like a great novel. Drawing on resources unavailable to George Painter (whose biography was for years the standard reference), Carter is able to fill in the gaps with entries from Proust's letters and those he received from friends and editors. Marcel Proust was almost certainly the pivotal literary figure between two centuries, a writer of great courage and humor, and it is to Carter's credit that now, as we stand on the edge of yet another century, Proust is seen to be as relevant to our age as he was to his own. This, certainly, will become the standard life of this very important writer.

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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life of a Brilliant Novelist, September 19, 2001

By	David A. Caplan "dave659" (Greenwich, CT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

Having read George Painter's two-volume biography of Proust many years ago, I might be unfair in comparing it to Carter's new biography, but my impression is that Carter has vastly outdone Painter. He has managed to write a very detailed, yet quite readable and engrossing biography of Proust. I think that conflating Proust and the narrator of "A la recherche..." has tended to diminish the author's genius, as if he had merely written a fascinating autobiography. Carter confirms Proust as a novelist, not a memoirist. Certainly, he helps the reader understand who may have inspired Proust's characters, but makes clear that Proust's imagination was the main engine behind the world he created. Some readers might be disappointed that there isn't more literary analysis of "La Recherche" in this biography, but Carter is adept at presenting passages from the novel that are representative of its genius and beauty. I'd also like to mention that the book is physically attractive, with a handsome typeface, and that there are very few typos and grammatical errors.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A Proustification
Carter captures the essence of Proust. This is a "must" read for anyone who is truly serious about "little Marcel." Fascinating! Read more

Published on November 16, 2001 by Doug R. Berdie

4.0 out of 5 stars A Complex Life Simply Told
William Carter claims in the preface to this biography that his goal is "to understand, as well as one reasonably can, how Marcel Proust, generally considered by his peers a... Read more

Published on April 2, 2001 by Mark K. Jensen

4.0 out of 5 stars Remembrance of Ellmann's James Joyce
Carter's Proust is as solid, readable, and absorbing as Ellmann's Joyce. While devouring Carter's text and endnotes too, I refer to maps and travel guides and continue to reread... Read more

Published on May 14, 2000 by Al Magary

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