CELEBRATING THE 150th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF MARCEL PROUST Proust not only brought to the fore the beauty of centuries past but also set the scene for the era of modernism.
This genius could not have so gloriously entered the twentieth century had he not proudly stood on the shoulders of giants.
-- From the Conclusion Reading was so important to Marcel Proust that it sometimes seems he was unable to create a character without a book in hand.
Everybody in his work reads: servants and masters, children and parents, artists and physicians.
The more sophisticated among them find it natural to speak in quotations.
Proust made literary taste a means of defining personality and gave literature an actual role to play in his fiction.
In this wonderfully entertaining book, scholar and biographer Anka Muhlstein draws out these themes in Proust's work and life, thus providing not only a friendly introduction to the momentous In Search of Lost Time , but also allowing glimpses at some of the highlights and lost treasures of French literature.
About author(s): Anka Muhlstein is the author of biographies of Queen Victoria, James de Rothschild, and Cavelier de La Salle; studies on Catherine de Médicis, Marie de Médicis, and Anne of Austria; a double biography, Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart; and most recently, Balzac's Omelette and Monsieur Proust's Library (Other Press).
She won the Goncourt Prize for her biography of Astolphe de Custine, and has received two prizes from the Académie française.
She and her husband, Louis Begley, are the authors of Venice for Lovers.
They live in New York City.
| Reads | Servants and masters children and parents artists and physicians |
|---|---|
| About author(s) | Anka |
Other Press (ny) Monsieur proust's library: celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of marcel proust, paperback/anka muhlstein
