Marcel Proust (Penguin Lives)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent brief biography of Proust
Review: Although there is no shortage of books on Proust in English, and no shortage of enormously long biographies, there is a surprising lack of short biographies. Luckily, this excellent little volume by Edmund White fills a major need. While we have major long biographies like those of Painter, Tadie, and Carter, these may not be appropriate for someone wanting a brief overview. The trick with any biography of Proust is striking a balance between writing about Proust's life and Proust's art, not an easy task given the degree with which Proust based his work on events in his own life. It is virtually impossible to disentangle the two.

This is a short book (around 150 pages), but in that brief span, White is able to touch on all the major events of Proust's life, the key relationships of his life, the major themes of his work as an author, and the ways in which Proust's life became the basis for his work. If one is unfamiliar with Proust before picking up this book, one will gain a first rate overview of him before setting it down. One thing that tremendously enhances the value of the book is an excellent annotated biography that gives a great overview of work on Proust both in English and French.

White, who is a well known gay author, does a superb job writing about the myriad of contradictions in Proust's own work as a lightly closeted gay author. Although Proust's being gay is the worst kept secret of the century, Proust fought many duels over accusations that he was homosexual (or, an invert, as Proust would have put it). Proust was the first writer to write extensively about homosexuality, both male and female, but maintained a façade of heterosexuality to those who did not know him well.

All in all, this is an excellent brief biography of the man many regard as the great novelist of the 20th century. I heartily recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about Proust.

Rating:
Summary: An Enjoyable and Readable Biography
Review: Edmund White, one of my favorite contemporary American Authors, manages to capture the life of Marcel Proust in a manner that grabs the reader's attention. The book is a short appraisal of Proust's life, with a refreshing focus on Proust's barely in-the-closet homosexuality. The illuminating look at Proust's psyche and private relationships provide a different way of interpreting his masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past. This easy-to-read biography comes highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A good overview, but not very deep
Review: Hmm. I'm not sure what to make of this book. It's relatively brief (165 short pages), informative, well-written and easy to read. I'd read "Remembrance of Things Past" 15-20 years ago, but knew next-to-nothing of Proust himself. I was most interested in (1) his background, primarily his childhood; and (2) how it was possible that an unpublished author could get such a beast published. Edmund White addresses both issues to a degree (most satisfactorily on the second), but concentrates (not unreasonably, I guess) on people and events from Proust's life that make their way into the novel.

I found White's "Marcel Proust" to be enjoyable, but it mainly whetted my appetite for a more substantial biography. Perhaps that's part of the purpose of this series of books.

Rating:
Summary: Proust briefly?
Review: Proust by Edmund White is really good but the other one How Proust can Change Your Life was funnier, though I know that it was a different genre altogether. White has been accused of "homosexualising" Proust, in fact I think it is relevant, since others have always "de-homosexualised" Proust and his many affairs. White has been quite proud of his status as a gay writer and that does not limit him, only that the rather short biography sometimes lapses into an account of his failed affairs, sometimes with straight younger men. However, I cannot forget that moving passage in which Proust immortalized his Italian lover, Alfred Agostinelli who died of a plane crash. Though the affair was largely unrequitted, Proust spoke of it with great passion in the book. White's accounts weave back and forth from Proust's life and works, to a point they are linked seamlessly. I also like the rather passionate conclusions where White comments on love as seen by Proust, and one knows that the writer is intense and involved in his affair with Proust!

Rating:
Summary: Edmund White - finally a useful biography of Proust!
Review: Working my way through the Proust oeuvre and biographies, I was relieved beyond measure to find that White, alone among biographers, has dared to write that Proust was gay, and to redefine some of the 'close friendships' his other biographers refer to so coyly.
It is hard to quantify the influence Proust's sexuality had on his writing, mainly because it is so gracefully veiled. Yet on a second reading, particularly through the prism of White's biography, it screams from every line. How could past biographers not deal with the central fact of his life? While White does not mistake Proust's oeuvre for autobiography, he provides a short account of the missing piece of the puzzle that is as entertaining as it is revealing. As in all his writing, White is direct and uneuphemistic - qualities which starkly reveal the subtext of Proust's complex and imagistic novels.
White is accurate, as factual as one can be in such a brief book, and provides a bibliography which is invaluable for anyone setting out to discover Proust's life for themselves. I recommend this book to anyone planning to read Proust for the first time, or anyone who is moving beyond "In Search of Lost Time" to a search for the lost novelist himself.