Marcel Proust documented his existence so lavishly--albeit in fictional form--that many of his biographers have functioned as little more than code-breakers, doggedly translating art back into life. It's a great pleasure, then, to welcome Edmund White's slender, superbly artful account. A novelist himself (as well as a biographer of Jean Genet), White beautifully evokes "the France of heavy, tasteless furniture, of engraved portraits of Prince Eugene, of clocks kept under a glass bell on the mantelpiece, of overstuffed chairs covered with antimacassars and of brass beds warmed by hot-water bottles." And he's no less canny at summoning up Proust's personality, in all its neurotic, contradictory glory.

Of course, Proust's life can't truly be separated from his art. Every biography of him is bound to operate in the shadow of Remembrance of Things Past, and White has some shrewd things to say about that mammoth work, whose style he describes as "an ether in which all the characters revolve like well-regulated heavenly bodies." Yet the focus remains on Proust and on his unlikely transformation from momma's boy to social climber to world-class genius. Like his subject, White often proceeds by anecdote. His book is packed with telling, hilarious little nuggets, which find Proust being snubbed by that "powdered, perfumed, puffy Irish giant" Oscar Wilde or luring back his lover Alfred Agostinelli by buying him an airplane.

At the same time, White conveys the considerable pain that Proust endured as an invalid, an artist, and (more to the point) a closeted homosexual. No doubt these factors shaped his rather hopeless take on human affections, which impoverished his life even as they enriched his writing. "Proust may be telling us that love is a chimera," White writes, "a projection of rich fantasies onto an indifferent, certainly mysterious surface, but nevertheless these fantasies are undeniably beautiful, intimations of paradise--the artificial paradise of art." In White's view, this recognition makes his subject not only a supreme poet of impermanence but the greatest novelist of the century. Here, of course, it's possible to quibble. But the world would be an emptier place indeed without Proust's mighty masterpiece--and readers curious about its brilliant, bedridden creator should start with White's witty and exquisite portrait. --James Marcus


From Publishers Weekly
In this quietly brilliant contribution to the Penguin Lives series (see review of Crazy Horse, p. 58), White has resuscitated the art of biographical appreciation?a form favored by the first generation of writers who could be considered to exemplify a gay sensibility (Walter Pater, Henry James, Edmund Gosse)?and brought it out of the closet. He follows Proust's evolution from social-climbing dilettante to dedicated artist, placing him in the social milieus of high-society Paris and turn-of-the-century arts and letters. As in his acclaimed full-length biography of Jean Genet, White uses the life of his subject to examine the modern history of homosexuality, and he does so with the same combination of earthiness and worldliness that has marked his essays and autobiographical fiction since the 1970s. By now Proust is perhaps the least mysterious of writers, blessed with several good biographies and many excellent studies (helpfully noted in White's bibliography); but while White claims that his work owes "everything" to the most recent of Proust's biographers, Jean-Yves Tadie, no one can match White's sensibility or his sympathy for the subject. His criticisms of Proust's work are consistently trenchant and insightful, and he brings to Proust's life the earned, respectful familiarity of a distinguished acolyte. Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life marked a revival of popular interest in Remembrance of Things Past; White's small marvel of economy and organization should supersede de Botton's book as a handy introduction to one of the century's greatest novelists. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
White's portrait of Marcel Proust (1871-1922) heralds the debut (along with Larry McMurtry's Crazy Horse, LJ 11/15/98) of Penguin's new series of biographies edited by James Atlas. White, author of Genet: A Biography (LJ 1/94), attributes the recent fascination with Proust to the current popularity of the memoir. Proust, White says, is the master of all memoirists; one who, in Remembrance of Things Past, is able to capture the richness of the past through language, characterization, and the realization that "memories come flooding back to us in their full, sensuous force only when triggered involuntarily by tastes or smells or other sensations over which we have no control." Although he achieved fame in his lifetime and was considered a great wit in Parisian literary circles, Proust struggled continuously with his homosexuality and poor health. White's simple and elegantly written biography weaves literary criticism with respectful insight, and will appeal to general readers as well as scholars. Highly recommended.?Diane G. Premo, Rochester P.L., NYCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Peter Ackroyd
White has a novelist's eye for the telling detail or the remarkable phrase...


From AudioFile
Seasoned narrator Barbara Rosenblat mars her reading of this biography by making a fetish of her pronunciation of French names. Before each one, she pauses slightly as if to get a running leap at it, pounces on the name theatrically, then pauses slightly. Because MARCEL PROUST naturally contains many French names, such showiness is a regular annoyance. Listeners who can overlook this misplaced drama from an otherwise excellent reader will find the deftly distilled biography a valuable prelude to REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, Proust's seven-volume masterpiece. T.F. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


Book Description
Marcel Proust, now enjoying a major renaissance, has at last found a biographer who himself once produced the "finest French novel written in English" (The Nation). For Edmund White--author of an award-winning biography of Jean Genet and of the classic gay novel A Boy's Own Story, and known for his own haunting evocation of times past--this portrait is the exquisite expression of a lifetime spent contemplating Proust. Proust teaches us to truly savor the master's delicate perfection of style and his strange, charismatic personality--not just the recluse obsessively rewriting his one massive work through the night, but the yearning, lonely boy; the dazzling wit and darling of Parisian salons; the seeker of fame; and the unhappy closeted homosexual whom this book is the first to explore openly. From the frothiest gossip to the deepest angst, here is a gem to be treasured not only by literati and students, but by anyone looking for an introduction to an enduring genius.


Download Description
In White's superb biography, Proust is shown in all his fascinating eccentricity--as the yearning, lonely boy, the dazzling wit, darling of Parisian salons, the seeker of fame, and the unhappy homosexual grappling with his sexual identity.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Edmund White Takes on Proust

Proust is best remembered for his epic that begins with Swann's Way and continues through thousands of pages, considered by many to be the masterpiece of the 20th century. Proust began to publish his work in the late teens of this century, and by the early 1920s, he was dead. But in a brief span of years following the publication of the entire opus, Proust's name became synonymous with literary genius. Many people know the story about how Marcel Proust dipped a cookie — a madeleine — into a steaming cup and, suddenly, the past came back to him, remembered through this experience. Edmund White, in a short but sharp biography, has now detailed the rest of the story.

What White manages to do with this makes for fascinating reading. Because of his understanding of gay personae, he's able to delve into the shadowy half-truths that surround Proust and his creation. Born in 1871, Proust came into the world through an upper-middle-class doctor's household. His mother was from a wealthy background, and as Marcel grew, the two of them were rarely apart. Her love of literature was passed to her son, and White adds that when she died, her last words were a quote from La Fontaine. Proust's father was from less prestigious origins and had intended to be a priest before he entered the medical profession. Proust's younger brother became his protector from the slings and arrows of misfortunes, and it was his brother who, after Proust's death, ensured that Marcel's other writings were published.

Proust grew into a sickly, asthmatic young manwhoroutinely cancelled meetings with friends and could barely go outside in spring for his difficulties breathing. From his dependence on his mother to his neediness with his lovers, White writes, Proust managed to "drive away all his lovers (in his fiction as in his life) through his unreasonable demands...."

And lovers he had, some who were sexual partners, others whom Proust adored and loved with a passion that was not necessarily physical. Of one of them, who had died in an airplane accident, he wrote: "I truly loved Alfred. It's not enough to say I loved him, I adored him. And I don't know why I write that in the past tense since I still love him."

As Edmund White simply and beautifully details Proust's life, his coterie of friends and celebrities of the early 20th century, his loves, and his literature, Marcel Proust comes alive as an entertaining and literate biography of one of the greatest writers ever to have lived. This should not be missed.

—Douglas Clegg Douglas Clegg is the author of numerous novels, including The Halloween Man and Bad Karma, written under his pseudonym, Andrew Harper. His recent Bram Stoker-nominated short story, "I Am Infinite, I Contain Multitudes," can be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Volume 11.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Marcel Proust, now enjoying a major renaissance, has at last found a biographer who himself once produced the "finest French novel written in English" (The Nation). For Edmund White -- author of an award-winning biography of Jean Genet and of the classic gay novel A Boy's Own Story, and known for his own haunting evocation of times past -- this portrait is the exquisite expression of a lifetime spent contemplating Proust. Proust teaches us to truly savor the master's delicate perfection of style and his strange, charismatic personality -- not just the recluse obsessively rewriting his one massive work through the night, but the yearning, lonely boy; the dazzling wit and darling of Parisian salons; the seeker of fame; and the unhappy closeted homosexual whom this book is the first to explore openly. From the frothiest gossip to the deepest angst, here is a gem to be treasured not only by literati and students, but by anyone looking for an introduction to an enduring genius.

SYNOPSIS

Penguin Viking has recently offered the first two volumes of a new series of biographies, Penguin Lives, books whose slim size belies the depth of insight offered therein. The authors and subjects in the series are thoughtfully paired; the inaugural releases offer western author Larry McMurtry's account of the brief life of Crazy Horse, and acclaimed gay author Edmund White's overview of the life and career of gay literary icon Marcel Proust.

FROM THE CRITICS

Book Magazine

...White provides a concise and entertaining biographical sketch. He captures Proust's genius and eccentricity in a brisk, evocative tour of the author's world and mind.

Library Journal

White's portrait of Marcel Proust (1871-1922) heralds the debut (along with Larry McMurtry's Crazy Horse, LJ 11/15/98) of Penguin's new series of biographies edited by James Atlas. White, author of Genet: A Biography (LJ 1/94), attributes the recent fascination with Proust to the current popularity of the memoir. Proust, White says, is the master of all memoirists; one who, in Remembrance of Things Past, is able to capture the richness of the past through language, characterization, and the realization that "memories come flooding back to us in their full, sensuous force only when triggered involuntarily by tastes or smells or other sensations over which we have no control." Although he achieved fame in his lifetime and was considered a great wit in Parisian literary circles, Proust struggled continuously with his homosexuality and poor health. White's simple and elegantly written biography weaves literary criticism with respectful insight, and will appeal to general readers as well as scholars. Highly recommended.--Diane G. Premo, Rochester P.L., NY

AudioFile - Theresa Forsman

Seasoned narrator Barbara Rosenblat mars her reading of this biography by making a fetish of her pronunciation of French names. Before each one, she pauses slightly as if to get a running leap at it, pounces on the name theatrically, then pauses slightly. Because MARCEL PROUST naturally contains many French names, such showiness is a regular annoyance. Listeners who can overlook this misplaced drama from an otherwise excellent reader will find the deftly distilled biography a valuable prelude to REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, Proust's seven-volume masterpiece. T.F. ￯﾿ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine

Peter Ackroyd