Monsieur Proust's Library

How did Proust read? As a child, like all of us: for the plot and characters. But even at a very young age he was outraged by the fact that grownups considered reading as something one did to amuse oneself. My great-aunt, he recalled in Days of Reading, would say to me, How can you go on amusing yourself with a book; it isn t Sunday, you know! putting into the word amusing an implication of childishness and waste of time. For little Marcel, reading was not fun; it was traumatic. He cried at the end of every book and was unable to go to sleep, desolate at the idea of leaving the characters he had grown attached to: These people for whom one has gasped or sobbed, one will know nothing more of them [ ] one would have so liked for the book to continue.
   Proust read as a moralist, in the sense that reading could lead to greater self-knowledge, a salutary discipline sometimes necessary to shock a lazy mind into action. And he read as a novelist, an artisan of the written word, endlessly analyzing the style and technique of other authors, whether he liked their work or not. Finally, Proust read as a homosexual, extremely sensitive to all transgressions and ambiguities of gender.
   The scope of his reading was too vast to allow for a list of favorites. All the writers who are important to the characters in the novel are French, but Proust, although he did not read English with ease, had a special affinity for British and American literature and was greatly influenced by them. It is curious that in all the different genres, from George Eliot to Hardy, from Stevenson to Emerson, there is no literature which has had as much hold on me as English or American literature. Germany, Italy, very often France leave me indifferent but two pages of The Mill on the Floss reduce me to tears, he wrote.

Anka Muhlstein is the author of biographies of Queen Victoria, James de Rothschild, and Cavelier de La Salle; studies on Catherine de Médicis, Marie de Médicis, and Anne of Austria; a double biography, Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart; and most recently, Balzac s Omelette and Monsieur Proust s Library (Other Press). She won the Goncourt Prize for her biography of Astolphe de Custine, and has received two prizes from the Académie française. She and her husband, Louis Begley, are the authors of Venice for Lovers. They live in New York City.

This gemlike exploration of the literary underpinnings of À la recherche du temps perdu reveals a Marcel Proust who did not so much read books as absorb them. The New Yorker
 
With Monsieur Proust s Library, Anka Muhlstein has added another volume to the collection of splendid books about Proust. A woman of intellectual refinement, subtle understanding, and deep literary culture Muhlstein is an excellent provisioner of high-quality intellectual goods. Wall Street Journal
 
[Muhlstein] here turns her attention to Proust s enthusiasms, antagonisms, and literary influences sensitive to nuances of style and echoes of older standard French authors. Edmund White, New York Review of Books
 
[Muhlstein] is thoroughly versed not only in Proust s life but also in his work This biography is an easy and interesting read, even for the novice Proust scholar, and an excellent accompaniment to an In Search of Lost Time (re)read. San Francisco Book Review
 
The author of Balzac s Omelette offers another sensual appreciation of a classic author, this time submitting to the books that Proust loved You don t absolutely need to know In Search of Lost Time to read Muhlstein s brisk little volume, a mini-biography that dissects the many literary influences of [Proust]. Daily Beast (Hot Reads)
 
The general madeleine enthusiast is bound to be entertained by Muhlstein s witty and lucid prose This tome energetically explores the distinct literary tastes of a modern writing genius. Library Journal

[Monsieur Proust s Library] has become a permanent addition to my Proust library, and is a must read both for Proustians and want-to-be Proustians alike a marvelous book. Publishing Perspectives

Muhlstein shows admirable restraint, focusing on select topics to contextualize Proust s work in an accessible way It s a quick read, and the tight focus and brisk, topical chapters offer an entrée to a work that is not