Proust: The Search (Jewish Lives), by Benjamin Taylor
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Proust: The Search (Jewish Lives), by Benjamin Taylor
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“Taylor’s endeavor is not to explain the life by the novel or the novel by the life but to show how different events, different emotional upheavals, fired Proust’s imagination and, albeit sometimes completely transformed, appeared in his work. The result is a very subtle, thought-provoking book.”—Anka Muhlstein, author of Balzac’s Omelette and Monsieur Proust’s Library Marcel Proust came into his own as a novelist comparatively late in life, yet only Shakespeare, Balzac, Dickens, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky were his equals when it came to creating characters as memorably human. As biographer Benjamin Taylor suggests, Proust was a literary lightweight before writing his multivolume masterwork In Search of Lost Time, but following a series of momentous historical and personal events, he became—against all expectations—one of the greatest writers of his, and indeed any, era. This insightful, beautifully written biography examines Proust’s artistic struggles—the “search” of the subtitle—and stunning metamorphosis in the context of his times. Taylor provides an in-depth study of the author’s life while exploring how Proust’s personal correspondence and published works were greatly informed by his mother’s Judaism, his homosexuality, and such dramatic events as the Dreyfus Affair and, above all, World War I. As Taylor writes in his prologue, “Proust’s Search is the most encyclopedic of novels, encompassing the essentials of human nature. . . . His account, running from the early years of the Third Republic to the aftermath of World War I, becomes the inclusive story of all lives, a colossal mimesis. To read the entire Search is to find oneself transfigured and victorious at journey’s end, at home in time and in eternity too.”
Proust: The Search (Jewish Lives), by Benjamin Taylor- Amazon Sales Rank: #233209 in Books
- Brand: Yale University Press
- Published on: 2015-10-27
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.20" h x .80" w x 6.10" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 224 pages
Review “Those who found reading Proust too grand an undertaking over the years because of distractions and deficiencies of their own, might well rush to reconsider after confronting this dazzlingly elegant biography.”—Philip Roth (Philip Roth)“Taylor’s endeavor is not to explain the life by the novel or the novel by the life but to show how different events, different emotional upheavals, fired Proust’s imagination and, albeit sometimes completely transformed, appeared in his work. The result is a very subtle, thought-provoking book.”—Anka Muhlstein, author of Balzac’s Omelette and Monsieur Proust’s Library (Anka Muhlstein)"A sensitive study of literature's favorite neurasthenic . . . Readers of Proust will be fascinated to find clues as to who his characters were in real life, and they should be moved to appreciation by Taylor's assessment of Proust's accomplishment . . . A densely packed and rewarding book."—Kirkus Reviews (Kirkus Reviews)"An important contribution to the study of this complex individual . . . A riveting summary of the rampant anti-Semitism found in late 19th-century France . . . . Excellent analysis of the Dreyfus affair and how it split French society . . . . A noteworthy biography of a great writer."—Library Journal (Library Journal)“Taylor expertly deconstructs where the similarities between Proust's fictional self and real-life self begin and end . . . . A deep analysis of Proust's masterpiece and a biography of Proust the man, Taylor proves, are one and the same.”—Shelf Awareness (Shelf Awareness)“Deeply researched, and immensely well considered, Benjamin Taylor’s own search is an outstanding addition to Proust studies.”—Robert McCrum, The Observer (Robert McCrum The Observer 2015-11-21)“This engaging book, invitingly elegant to handle with it’s beautiful deckle-edged pages, should encourage those who have quailed at the thought of Proust’s colossus to have another go.”—John Carey, Sunday Times (John Carey Sunday Times 2015-11-22)"Benjamin Taylor’s Proust: The Search is a marvel of brief biography, reanimating the hapless, almost Chaplinesque figure who by all logic should never have accomplished what he did. With a kind of worldly tenderness, Taylor shows Proust’s work accruing amid personal pratfalls, French anti-Semitism and the catastrophe of World War I."—Thomas Mallon, New York Times Book Review (Thomas Mallon New York Times Book Review)
About the Author Benjamin Taylor is a founding member of the Graduate Writing Program faculty at the New School and the author or editor of six previous books, including The Book of Getting Even and Saul Bellow: Letters.
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Most helpful customer reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful. Brief Life By Charlus There are Prousts and Prousts. Depending upon who is doing the asking, different writers create their own: the snob, the social climber, the neurasthenic, the aesthete, the consummate artist who forsook the world for his Great Work. There are massive Prousts (Tadie, Carter, Painter) and brief Prousts (White, and now Taylor). And while Taylor doesn't neglect the gay Proust (the focus of White's bio), he now gives us the Jewish Proust.Which would probably have surprised Monsieur P as, though his mother was Jewish and that technically makes him a Jew, neither his father nor his upbringing was. Nor did he identify as Jewish. Taylor acknowledges this but still foregrounds all the connections with Judaism, particularly the Dreyfus Affair as can be guessed. As this biography is part of Yale's Jewish Lives series, one wonders if it got lost somewhere on the way to the publishers and came out a wrong door.But if you overlook that elephant in the room, this is a very solid, entertaining, well-written and enlightening addition to the groaning shelf of books on Proust (should you wish to read about his overcoat or his library, they have volumes of their own). Compiled heavily from secondary sources, it is perfectly suitable for the general reader. And his selections of quotes and references are apt and often revealing.The problem with all Proust biographies is that the cast of characters is vast. Proust knew so many aristocrats, artists, friends and relations that to recall which Duchess is which can be very difficult. This is especially apparent in this brief work as the names fly by so fast. A Who's Who would have been appreciated (although an Index including names is supplied).Ultimately Taylor does what any good biographer does, which is to sketch a portrait of the artist behind the masterpiece, but he is still unable to solve the mystery of how a man composed of such unpromising material would come to write the single greatest work of twentieth century literature.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful. Smart and Savvy By Constant Reader Benjamin Taylor's smart, savvy biography of Proust is a revelation on many levels. Okay, I knew that Albertine was really Albert, and that the famous madeleine and cup of tea led to the memories, but I really didn't know much more.I had no idea that the tortured author, asthmatic, hypochondriac, etc., pursued young boys since he'd been a young boy, restricting himself as he grew older to poor youths, such as the backup wait staff in the fancy restaurants he patronized, and paying them lavishly for their sexual service. (My heart went out to the boys.)I had no idea that the recurring characters in "The Search for Lost Time" (this title has replaced "Remembrance of Things Past," as it used to be known in English) were built on as many as eight people each, and that many of those who found telling shards of themselves in print were horrified, having pegged Marcel as a dilettante social climber who would never amount to much.I'm someone who read "Swann's Way" for a college course and meant to go further but didn't. Now I believe I'm ready to tackle the whole thing.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A concise look at Proust's life as a writer By Kirk McElhearn There have been many biographies of Marcel Proust, some nearly as long as his masterful novel In Search of Lost Time (aka Remembrance of Things Past). William Carter’s Marcel Proust: A Life is the best comprehensive biography in English, and, in French, there are several, including a recently published volume, Marcel Proust: Une vie á s’écrire, by Jérôme Picon. (Do avoid the tedious biography by Jean-Yves Tadié, both in French and in its abridged English version.)But if you want to learn about Proust, you may not want to read a biography that is 600 or 1,000 pages long. Benjamin Taylor’s Proust, The Search focuses on how Proust became a writer, and how he wrote his great work. Instead of going into a lot of detail, Taylor looks at the parts of Proust’s life that were integrated into his fiction. He doesn’t ignore the first forty years of Proust’s life, before he started writing La recherche, but he gives enough background information to provide context for Proust’s search, and how he finally found himself as a writer.This brief book – 168 smallish pages of text, and another thirty of back matter – is part of a series called Jewish Lives. As such, Taylor does pay attention to Proust’s Jewishness (his mother was Jewish), but this isn’t a book about Proust as a Jew. He wasn’t much of a Jew, in fact, since he didn’t practice any religion, but he was aware of his heritage, particularly during the turmoil of the Dreyfus affair, which heightened anti-semitism in France.Taylor is both a good storyteller and an insightful critic of Proust’s work. He doesn’t attempt to analyze the fiction, but he does make some salient comments about Proust’s intentions and themes. This is the book to read if you want to know a little bit about Proust’s life, but not get bogged down in minutia. After all, if you’re reading Proust, you probably want to spend time reading his words, not the words of others about him.I should point out that this slim book is a tad expensive at a retail price of $25; it’s small in size, with fairly large margins, and should probably have been a bit cheaper. And the Kindle edition is currently priced at 16 cents less than the hardcover, so if you’re an ebook reader, you should probably look elsewhere. While price shouldn’t be the main consideration when buying a book, one shouldn’t ignore it either.This is an interesting book for those who want to learn about Proust, or who are embarking on reading his fiction. If you’re looking for a detailed biography, this isn’t for you, but if you want to learn the main elements of Proust’s life and how it fits with his writing, this book will provide everything you need to know.
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