Proust in Love

April 3, 2006
Marcel Proust—whose In Search of Lost Time
is, as much as anything, a study of love in all its polymorphously perverse forms—himself loved not wisely but all too well. As Carter (Marcel Proust: A Life
) shows, he alienated the objects of his affection with the same obsessive, possessive love he portrayed so effectively in Swann and the narrator of his great work. The one man with whom he had a passionately reciprocated relationship, composer Reynaldo Hahn, was alienated by Proust's dalliance with a very young Lucien Daudet and by Proust's imposing demands. And he too often loved men who couldn't return his affection, particularly his secretary, Alfred Agostinelli, who was heterosexual and finally fled his employer's suffocating love. Did Proust also love women? After weighing the evidence, Carter says it's impossible to know definitively; his professed love for certain women may have been to deflect charges that he was homosexual. Indeed, amazingly, when a journalist insinuated in print that Proust was involved with Daudet, the novelist challenged him to a duel to defend his honor (both emerged unscathed). Carter offers a warmly sympathetic portrait that skillfully links a study of Proust's philosophy of love to his own unhappy experiences of it—experiences that inspired him creatively; he saw love, in Carter's words, as a "superb folly," the wellspring of art. (May)

FYI:
This is a season for Proustiana. In June, Yale will also publish The Memoirs of Ernest A. Forssgren, Proust's Swedish Valet
($50 192p ISBN 0-300-11463-X). In May, Helen Marx Books is bringing out Letters of Marcel Proust
, a new translation of selected correspondence ($17.95 paper 544p ISBN 1-885586-45-0). And look for an upcoming review of Proust the Majestic
by Richard Davenport-Hines (Bloomsbury, June).

May 1, 2006
Proust's writings often included events and characters from his own life. To help contemporary readers better understand the richness of the writer's world, these two scholarly but accessible works accurately describe Proust's life and lifestyle. Although different in focus and approach, both authors use passages from Proust's work and other primary resources to make their arguments. Acclaimed Proust biographer Carter skillfully paints a picture of Proust's romantic history from his adolescence to his final years, discussing his relationships and the struggles he endured to hide his homosexuality. An appealing collection of photos complements the book.

Davenport-Hines ("The Pursuit of Oblivion") focuses on the final moments of Proust's life by using only one social event as his starting point: a grand dinner held at the Parisian Majestic Hotel in 1922, which included guests like James Joyce, Picasso, and Proust himself. Many fascinating passages, among them a description of Proust's enlightening conversation with Joyce, follow. Both books belong in French literature collections." -Erica Swenson Danowitz, Delaware Cty. Community Coll., Media, PA"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2006
In spite of the depth of his magnificent biography, " Marcel Proust" (2000), Carter had more to say about Proust's "amorous adventures-and misadventures" and so wrote " Proust in Love," a moving chronicle of the comic and tragic aspects of Proust's sexual escapades. "The dark side of passion both attracted and repulsed him," writes Carter as he insightfully considers Proust's fascination with androgyny and photographs, affairs with handsome waiters and chauffeurs, and some rather strange proclivities. Although Proust "never had a sexually fulfilling relationship with a companion whom he loved," he did discover profound truths about love's subjectivity and pain. Proust emerges from these well-wrought pages as a man of courage, defiance, curiosity, and moral and artistic conviction, and a writer who confronted anti-Semitism and prejudice against homosexuals with radical candor. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)