Proust in Perspective: Visions and Revisions

by Armine Kotin Mortimer (Editor), Armine Kotin Mortimer (Editor)

Marcel Proust speaks to us today as a contemporary and a classic. His great novel resonates across languages and time, summing up the past, interpreting the present, and envisioning the future. For Proust in Perspective , scholars from France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Canada, and the United States have drawn on rich new editions of Proust's novel and correspondence to bring us fresh views of his work.
 
In nineteen original essays, a foreword by Jean–Yves Tadié, and an introduction by editors Armine Kotin Mortimer and Katherine Kolb, this volume guides readers through the dense weave of Proust's fiction and correspondence. The essays take us into the realm of Proustian language–-as quotation, metaphor, and memory–-and into art history and musical ideology, connecting the art of words with the words of art. They explore the interface of history and fiction, the mysteries of the text's evolution, and the dilemmas of its publication. They present the revelations of genetic criticism and the surprises of gender analysis.
 
Taken together, these essays conjure a multifaceted profile of Proust–-his work, life, character, and influence–-and of new directions in Proust scholarship today. With compelling rigor and infectious enthusiasm, Proust in Perspective conveys the magnitude of Proust's continuing appeal.
 

336 pages, Hardcover

First published August 7, 2002

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays regarding Proust and various aspects of translating him and understanding how his life and times influenced his work. As they have various authors and topics, the quality of each essay stands alone and some are better—or at least more interesting to me—than others. Overall, however, it's a good collection, albeit a bit overpriced as are many books from university presses and for small readerships of scholars. Considering that a work of this type is not published ever couple years, I would have liked it to have been longer and included even more essays. The fact Katherine Kolb, one of the greatest Proustian scholars ever, edited it though helps win it points and overall it's certainly worthwhile to the serious scholar/reader of Proust.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review published in L’Esprit créateur 44.2 (2004): 98-99.