He published his first book entitled, Les Plaisirs et les Jours in It was a collection of essays, short stories and poems. In , Proust began writing Jean Santeuil, abandoning it in The novel was never finished. After the unsuccessful attempt of writing a novel, Proust spent several years writing translations and annotating the works of the English art historian John Ruskin.
He also wrote a number of articles on Ruskin. In spite of its length and complexity, most readers find it readily accessible. In Search of Lost Time has not been kept alive by the academy.
The work is seldom taught in its entirety in university courses, but maintains its presence among us thanks to readers all over the world who return to it again and again. Over the years, I have received unsolicited testimony from many such readers who say that Proust changed their lives by giving them a new and richer way of looking at the world. Great texts are those that involve the reader to an extraordinary degree. We find ourselves placed at the center of the action.
In order to discover the truth about our experience and depict it in a novel, Proust brought to bear his extraordinary powers of observation and analysis. And how does In Search of Lost Time continue to speak to generation after generation in a voice that seems fresh and vigorous? Far from being the culminating opus of decadent literature, as some early critics believed, this novel constitutes one of the most dynamic texts ever written.
Its tremendous energy acts as a rejuvenating force. Here are a few of the outstanding features of this novel: It is arguably the best book ever written about perception. He was the first novelist to analyze and depict the full spectrum of human sexuality. There are even passages that might allow him to claim to be the founder of gender studies and a proponent of gay marriage. And his sense of humor allows him to create comic scenes that satirize the foibles and vanity of his characters, especially those of high society.
Proust so titillates my own desire for expression that I can hardly set out the sentence. Oh if I could write like that! I cry. Scarcely anyone so stimulates the nerves of language in me: it becomes an obsession.
His work revolves around the process of remembering: What do we remember, when do we remember, how do we remember? How do memories change? In his main work, A la Recherche du Temps Perdu In Search of Lost Time — seven volumes with a total of more than 4, pages — the author approaches memory by means of a fictional autobiography. A French national treasure by now, the work has become a synonym for "bulky reading," says Ulrike Sprenger, professor of Romance Literatures and General Literary Studies at Germany's University of Konstanz and the author of Proust ABC , a book first published in that has been added to and reprinted in the meantime.
Anyone who reads Proust is worthy of praise among the educated middle classes; at the same time, Proust's work is regarded as literature that is almost impossible to master. An impossible task; in the end, the prize goes to "the girl with the biggest tits.
Is Proust the epitome of unintelligible reading? Ulrike Sprenger told DW she recently read a comment on the coronavirus lockdown in the Guardian : "They can lock me down, but they can't make me read Proust. Proust never wanted to be stylized as a monument, she added. He wanted to create a guideline to discovering one's own life, to see how memory works, how to think about yourself. Marcel Proust was born in Paris in to Adrien Proust, a doctor and hygienist, and Jeanne Weil, a young woman from a Jewish banking family.
Young Marcel was a sickly child, suffering his first severe asthma attack at the age of nine. As a young adult, Proust entered Parisian society by visiting readings, discussions, and music in the so-called salons, exclusive meeting places for well-to-do and aristocratic citizens in the 19th century. In his main work, Proust makes observations on the atmosphere and the network of relationships in the salons. In Search of lost Time is outstanding in that it consistently stages human subjectivity.
In , the second volume was awarded the Prix Goncourt, France's highest literary award.
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