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Marcel Proust: A Biography
Painter exhausted all available resources to create this portrait not only of Proust and his work but also of turn-of-the-century France with its salons, its political tension, its poets and its painters. 24 photos.
768 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 7, 2008
For about 30 years I made bi-annual, direct assaults on Mt. Proust, you know, his monumental novel, "In Search of Lost Time." Over that span of yearsI never achieved the summit. I loved the language, as lush as any human being ever formulated, but I couldn't get beyond two or three hundred pages because I simply couldn't see the point. I came to feel, again and again, as his first English publisher felt, "Why does the man require 50 pages to tell us he turned over in bed?" What after all was the point of all this beauty?
So at long last I decided that I might try another path. (It appears that I'm educable after all.) I decided to read every biography of the Proust available to me in English, and I did - all seven or eight of them, one after the other without interruption. I won't say what I learned, but I will say that it was sufficient to lend an understanding of the purpose of Prousts's fiction, its function in his life. After reading the last of his biographies on my shelf, I picked up Proust's novel and read all 3000 pages one after another, with the highest pleasure and greatest profit that I have ever gained from a novel, a book entirely unsurpassed in the Western canon.
All that being said, I will be listing and commenting on those biographies here, and I begin with my least favorite of the lot, George Painter's pedantic and homophobic rant. Painter was one of those insufferably arrogant, priviledged men, a supreme example of the impenetrably obtuse, smug, self-satisified Englishman. His biography consists of a collection of (1) profiles of Proust's acquaintences who came to figure, singly or in combination, in his novel - an utterly vacuous enterprise, not to mention boring, and (2) snearing and condescending sketches of Proust, his person and personality, served up without the least recognition that Proust never did nor ever will require the approval of George Painter, at best a rather minor and entirely forgettable literary figure of the mid- to late- 20th century, in comparison with Prouse, a worm - before he became merely fodder for worms.
I was determined at the outset of my participation in goodreads that I would only list the books that I love, but for the sake of completeness I commented on Painter's book, which for reasons I can't fathom remains in print despite the appearance of three or four biographies that render his pathetic production entirely pointless - if it ever had a point, that is.
So at long last I decided that I might try another path. (It appears that I'm educable after all.) I decided to read every biography of the Proust available to me in English, and I did - all seven or eight of them, one after the other without interruption. I won't say what I learned, but I will say that it was sufficient to lend an understanding of the purpose of Prousts's fiction, its function in his life. After reading the last of his biographies on my shelf, I picked up Proust's novel and read all 3000 pages one after another, with the highest pleasure and greatest profit that I have ever gained from a novel, a book entirely unsurpassed in the Western canon.
All that being said, I will be listing and commenting on those biographies here, and I begin with my least favorite of the lot, George Painter's pedantic and homophobic rant. Painter was one of those insufferably arrogant, priviledged men, a supreme example of the impenetrably obtuse, smug, self-satisified Englishman. His biography consists of a collection of (1) profiles of Proust's acquaintences who came to figure, singly or in combination, in his novel - an utterly vacuous enterprise, not to mention boring, and (2) snearing and condescending sketches of Proust, his person and personality, served up without the least recognition that Proust never did nor ever will require the approval of George Painter, at best a rather minor and entirely forgettable literary figure of the mid- to late- 20th century, in comparison with Prouse, a worm - before he became merely fodder for worms.
I was determined at the outset of my participation in goodreads that I would only list the books that I love, but for the sake of completeness I commented on Painter's book, which for reasons I can't fathom remains in print despite the appearance of three or four biographies that render his pathetic production entirely pointless - if it ever had a point, that is.
February 26, 2017
George D. Painter - Marcel Proust - Feltrinelli/Saggi 1959 - Trad. Elena Vaccari Spagnoli e Vittorio Di Giuro
- Quella sera si trovava al loro tavolo un rumeno, il generale Iliesco: "Chi è quel tipo in smoking e cravattino bianco?" chiese, incuriosito, e quando lo seppe, dichiarò che aveva intenzione di leggere subito Du coté de chez Swann. "A che cosa somiglia?" chiese, e Morand rispose: "A niente, generale".
Se avete letto la "Recherche" e non ne siete più usciti. Se ogni libro futuro vi rimanda alla Recherche. Se spesso incontrate i personaggi del romanzo nella vostra città. Se amate Proust talmente tanto da voler sapere tutto, ma proprio tutto anche che tipo di calzini portava, allora questa biografia fa per voi. E' da leggersi esclusivamente dopo aver letto "À la recherche du temps perdu". Poi dopo, contattatemi, se ne parla insieme.
- Quella sera si trovava al loro tavolo un rumeno, il generale Iliesco: "Chi è quel tipo in smoking e cravattino bianco?" chiese, incuriosito, e quando lo seppe, dichiarò che aveva intenzione di leggere subito Du coté de chez Swann. "A che cosa somiglia?" chiese, e Morand rispose: "A niente, generale".
Se avete letto la "Recherche" e non ne siete più usciti. Se ogni libro futuro vi rimanda alla Recherche. Se spesso incontrate i personaggi del romanzo nella vostra città. Se amate Proust talmente tanto da voler sapere tutto, ma proprio tutto anche che tipo di calzini portava, allora questa biografia fa per voi. E' da leggersi esclusivamente dopo aver letto "À la recherche du temps perdu". Poi dopo, contattatemi, se ne parla insieme.
December 8, 2016
George Painter was the first non-French person who immediately realised the importance of Marcel Proust's work and hurried to get first hand testimony of those who knew him not long after he passed away. His own opinions occasionally cloud his objectivity, but it remains a critical document (and more credible that that of Proust's maid) of the world immediately surrounding and influencing Proust. It is highly readable. This first volume covers - if memory serves - up to the publication of the first volume or two of La Recherche.
July 30, 2010
I am reading this now as I reread In Search of Lost Time. I am fascinated with Paris at this time, perhaps that is carrying me over Painter's reputed lacks as a writer. I am really enjoying his writing and loving seeing the connection between his life and his work. Love Marcel!
June 25, 2021
La biografia estremamente elegante e dettagliata di un genio letterario. Il criterio cronologico è affiancato all'inserimento di digressioni e anticipazioni riguardo al materiale e alle circostanze reali che sono confluite nella Recherche e Painter chiarisce puntigliosamente la genesi composita, progressiva e stratificata dei personaggi del romanzo, spesso riferendo incontri, aneddoti, stralci di conversazione e riferimenti minuziosi e circostanziati presenti nella vastissima corrispondenza epistolare. È un'immancabile lettura per comprendere le sorgenti di uno dei capolavori della letteratura mondiale, che si nutre più direttamente di quanto sembri della vita dell'autore ma la trasfigura in modo troppo sostanziale per rendere possibile una piena penetrazione nel mondo interiore di questa personalità geniale. L'unica parziale pecca è un tentativo di spiegare le tendenze e i conflitti più profondi di Proust con il ricorso alla psicanalisi freudiana, che può apparire tendenziosa e antiquata al giorno d'oggi in alcune conclusioni, tuttavia il tentativo di dare interpretazioni psicologiche accurate riesce a dare una visione organica e acuta del Proust-uomo e si traduce in una rappresentazione garbata ma oggettiva e completa, senza giustificazioni deboli dettate da simpatia né prese di posizione troppo moralistiche, che permette l'emergere di una connessione sensibile ed efficace tra soggetto e oggetto della scrittura. Nella prima parte prevale la descrizione della vita vera e propria, nella seconda viene dato molto spazio all'imponente lavoro sul romanzo, di cui vengono chiariti i presupposti teorici, artistici e filosofici, lo sviluppo a partire dai primi progetti, le riflessioni embrionali che confluirono poi in esso e l'arricchimento continuo in fase redazionale; la scrittura risulta raramente appesantita da eccessi tecnici e il libro risulta molto leggibile e addirittura poetico e letterario grazie alla capacità di creare una forte coesione tra momenti successivi e di ricostruire l'atmosfera in cui si muoveva Proust. Nel complesso una biografia eccellente che lascia davvero il segno.
September 10, 2019
George Painter’s English biography stands out as one of the most thorough on the French author Marcel Proust. ‘In Search of Lost Time’ here is retold by Painter through the prism of Proust’s own life, tracing the journey from his bourgeois family upbringing to the salons of Madame Greffuhle and Comte de Montesquiou to the frantic final years of writing. This meticulous cataloguing of the society figures of nineteenth century Paris, reflects the biographers background as Deputy Curator at the British Museum and it in this connoisseurs manner, that he equates most of ‘In Search’ with real life sources.
But it is when this approach to Proust unravels, that it gives us the most interesting insights into the six volume masterpiece. For example the Dreyfus Affair features strongly in Proust’s narrative; its frequent discussion at society gatherings is used by Proust to reveal the character, tensions and conflicting loyalties of his protagonists. Painter reveals that whilst Proust himself was an ardent pro Dreyfusard, who played a key role in gathering petitioners, the Narrator of ‘In Search’ is more neutral. Against Painter’s own interpretation of Proust as writer, he shows how the author actually used the Dreyfus Affair to reveal and unfold each characters layers-rather than as transposition.
Ultimately, Painters notion that Proust’s life is his novel gives its readers a thorough grounding in the Parisian society figures who influenced ‘In Search.’ But the sole focus on chronology and the facts behind the fiction means any account of Proust’s writing craft is lost. We finish the biography with little sense of how Proust interpreted memory, signalling only to how Proust frantically wrote all six volumes in his final years.
But it is when this approach to Proust unravels, that it gives us the most interesting insights into the six volume masterpiece. For example the Dreyfus Affair features strongly in Proust’s narrative; its frequent discussion at society gatherings is used by Proust to reveal the character, tensions and conflicting loyalties of his protagonists. Painter reveals that whilst Proust himself was an ardent pro Dreyfusard, who played a key role in gathering petitioners, the Narrator of ‘In Search’ is more neutral. Against Painter’s own interpretation of Proust as writer, he shows how the author actually used the Dreyfus Affair to reveal and unfold each characters layers-rather than as transposition.
Ultimately, Painters notion that Proust’s life is his novel gives its readers a thorough grounding in the Parisian society figures who influenced ‘In Search.’ But the sole focus on chronology and the facts behind the fiction means any account of Proust’s writing craft is lost. We finish the biography with little sense of how Proust interpreted memory, signalling only to how Proust frantically wrote all six volumes in his final years.
October 26, 2020
An astonishingly thorough work after which you will read In Search of Lost Time in a new way. Painter details Proust's life and tracks the events, interests and people that make their way into his novels in idealised form. The way in which Proust utilises, transforms and transmits memory is illuminated by Painter's careful reading of him and exhaustive research.
How amazing that Proust's magnum opus (and fame) were the product of the very end of his life and were barely completed (though not manically revised in the later volumes).
That said, I was very glad to finish the book and get out of Proust's head. He was a strange bloke and the French had a curious attitude to 'inverts' (Proust's and Painter's term of choice). Oddly the fact this book was written prior to modern LGBT obsessions likely makes Painter's approach to how Proust and his milieu approached his sexuality to be more honestly reflective of the way it was rather than the way we would be told it was in a more modern biography.
There are many fascinating vignettes of denizens of Parisian society at the end of the Nineteenth Century and into the next. Certainly life was more swinging than in Victorian London. It was all very French.
(Very oddly Andre Maurois crops up near the end. I read his fantastic Fattypuffs and Thinifers to children from church over Zoom during lockdown. Small world!)
How amazing that Proust's magnum opus (and fame) were the product of the very end of his life and were barely completed (though not manically revised in the later volumes).
That said, I was very glad to finish the book and get out of Proust's head. He was a strange bloke and the French had a curious attitude to 'inverts' (Proust's and Painter's term of choice). Oddly the fact this book was written prior to modern LGBT obsessions likely makes Painter's approach to how Proust and his milieu approached his sexuality to be more honestly reflective of the way it was rather than the way we would be told it was in a more modern biography.
There are many fascinating vignettes of denizens of Parisian society at the end of the Nineteenth Century and into the next. Certainly life was more swinging than in Victorian London. It was all very French.
(Very oddly Andre Maurois crops up near the end. I read his fantastic Fattypuffs and Thinifers to children from church over Zoom during lockdown. Small world!)
February 7, 2024
One could see this book as insufferably old-fashioned, over elaborate and flowery. But, rather like Proust's own work, it grows on you, with manifold and emotionally complex call backs between the author's life and A La Recherche to make a beautiful three-dimensional and wise account.
Not for everyone, but I 'm very glad to have read it.
Not for everyone, but I 'm very glad to have read it.
April 14, 2020
As another reviewer has said this bio is arrogant sneery and homophobic, full of futile conjecture about the 'originals' of characters, despite the constant refrain of "we have no evidence; we can never really know; despite the many differences"
May 13, 2015
Unbelievably tedious. I read the first third of the 332 page Volume I and stopped. I read enough to gain some insight into Proust's early life and how this was integrated into his Remembrance of Things Past and the derivation of some of his characters, but there is no way I could force myself to go on.
I will however attempt to read at least Swann's Way.
I will however attempt to read at least Swann's Way.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews