In 1904, while still working on his translations of Ruskin, Marcel Proust wrote to Maurice Barr s "I still have two Ruskin's to do, and after that I shall try to translate my own poor soul, if it doesn't die in the meantime." Within a few years Proust would begin this translation of his "own poor soul"--the monumental Remembrance of Things Past, one of the great literary works of the 20th century. In this volume of Proust's collected letters--translated by Terence Kilmartin, acclaimed for his work on the Moncrieff translation of Proust's works--the reader is carried inside this pivotal moment in a great writer's life. In a letter to Louis d'Albufera he lists the projects he has in hand: "a study on the nobility, a Parisian novel, an essay on Sainte-Beuve and Flaubert, an essay on Women, an essay on Pederasty (not easy to publish), a study on stained-glass windows, a study on tombstones, a study on the novel"--all subjects that eventually found their way into Remembrance of ThingsPast. The final letter in the volume talks of alterations to his flat "which are essential for my peace and quiet"--an allusion no doubt to the cork-lined room in which he would spend so many years continuing to pursue his quest for "Lost Time." The letters are intriguing for what they say about the work, but they also offer an intimate portrait of the man--the sometime invlaid recluse, sometime socialite. Although Proust spent a great deal of time insulated at home, when he does go out it is clear that the talent for malicious observation so evident in Guermantes Way was already quite sharp. He refers to a group of dowagers he'd seen at a concert as "portraits of monsters from the time when people didn't know how to draw." And his letters to his devoted friend the composer Reynaldo Hahn are full of wit, scurrilous gossip and a great deal of teasing. He also carries on lively exchanges with two very different women--Marie Nordlinger, a serious, dedicated artist, and Louisa de Mornand, a frivolous, mercenary actress. His letters to Marie are affectionate, but his letters to Louisa are amorous--sometimes even salacious, (possibly because she served as a surrogate for his real interst, her lover Albufera.) Proust's celebrated devotion to his mother is also evident in this collection. Theirs is an intimate and loving correspondence, and her death in 1905 is clearly a tremendous blow ("My life has now forever lost its only purpose, its only sweetness, its only consolation.") This long-awaited volume will be welcomed by scholars and general readers alike. The letters offer a special insight into the man and his art during a crucial period, and they are as delightful to read--as beautifully crafted, witty and poignant--as his fiction.

Selected Letters: v. 3

Marcel, Proust

Biographies & Memoirs

HARPER/COLLINS

Marcel Proust: Selected Letters, Volume 4 (Four): 1918-1922

Marcel Proust: Selected Letters: 1918, 1922: 4

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Harpercollins Pub, Ltd.

Time Regained, the final volume of In Search of Lost Time, begins in the bleak and uncertain years of World War I. Years later, after the war’s end, Proust’s narrator returns to Paris and reflects on time, reality, jealousy, artistic creation, and the raw material of literature—his past life. This Modern Library edition also includes the indispensable Guide to Proust, compiled by Terence Kilmartin and revised by Joanna Kilmartin.For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of Á la recherché du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).

Time Regained Tilm (Vol 6)

Contemporary

Vintage

In Search of Lost Time [Paperback] [Dec 05, 1996] Marcel Proust (Vintage Classics) (v. 4)

Classics

Vintage Classics

1. Time is a central concern for Proust, appearing first in the title and last as the final word of the novel. What is his vision of the past? Does he have a vision of the present? The future? Can the Narrator be said to be living in the past? Is he like the White Queen in Through the Looking-Glass , with 'jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never jam today'? 2. The renowned translator of Proust, C. K. Scott Moncrieff, originally grouped the opening section of In Search of Lost Time under the title 'The Overture,' which includes two famous passages, the good night kiss and the evocative taste of the madeleine. Does this seem apt? If so, how might this fifty-odd page beginning prefigure what will transpire later? What would you expect to follow, given that an overture usually introduces the main themes of a musical work? What does it suggest about Proust's conception of literature and music? 3. The episode of the good night kiss strikes some readers as odd or contradictory: the Narrator's need for a kiss seems almost infantile, while his power of observation seems extraordinarily precocious. Considering that he is sent to bed at eight o'clock, how old do you think the Narrator is? Is it significant that his father suggests the Narrator be given the kiss he craves, whereas his mother is reluctant, saying 'We mustn't let the child get into the habit . . .'? Is the fact that the Narrator succeeds in getting the kiss he wants a good thing or a bad thing? Why? 4. 'The whole of Proust's world comes out of a teacup,' observed Samuel Beckett. Indeed the episode of the madeleine dipped in tea is the first (and most famous) of numerous instances of 'involuntary memory' in the novel. A recognized psychological phenomenon triggered by smells, tastes, or sounds, involuntary memory vividly reproduces emotions, sensations, or images from the past. Why do you think readers and critics universally consider this scene to be pivotal? What does the Narrator think about the experience of involuntary memory? What might its function be in the scheme of In Search of Lost Time ? 5. Another emblematic theme involves the recurring 'little phrase' of music by Vinteuil that catches the ear of Swann at the Verdurin's salon and steals into his life. How do Vinteuil's compositions stir both Swann and the Narrator? In Proust's scheme of things, is music a higher art than painting or writing because it can produce involuntary memories? How does involuntary memory affect writing and painting? Is it unrelated to art except as a necessary catalyst? 6. In 'Combray' we are introduced to the Narrator's family, their household, and their country home. Since Paris is the true heart of upper-class France, why do you think Proust chose to begin In Search of Lost Time elsewhere? What do we learn from the Narrator's description of his family's life and habits? Is the household dominated by men or by women? Does the Narrator's account seem accurate, or is it colored by his own ideas and preoccupations? 7. A madeleine dipped into a cup of tea first impelled Proust into the 'remembrance of things past.' Though Proust was a gourmet in his youth, in the final years of his life he subsisted mainly on fillets of sole, chicken, fried potatoes, ice cream, cakes, fruit, and iced beer. Consider how food and culinary happenings - from meals at the restaurant in the Grand Hotel in Balbec to dinners at La Raspelière and the Guermantes's in Paris - form an integral part of the work. 8. Swann's Way and the Guermantes Way are presented as mutually exclusive choices for promenades, with Swann's Way given primacy of place at the novel's outset. Where, metaphorically speaking, does Swann's Way seem to lead? What are the aesthetic signposts and milestones the Narrator points out? What does the landscape around Combray represent? 9. 'I want my work to be a sort of cathedral in literature,' Proust once said. In his description of the area around Combray - and in many other places in the novel - the Narrator describes churches, and particularly steeples. Indeed, Howard Moss cites the steeple as one of Proust's most important symbols. In religious architecture, the steeple represents man's aspiration toward God, and by inference toward Art, the Proustian religion. What else might it suggest? Does it have a counterpart in nature? 10. Proust and the Narrator share an appreciation of gardens and flowers - Proust himself was eager to visit Monet's celebrated garden - and in a sense, all Combray can be seen as a garden. What associations does this evoke? How does the Narrator respond to natural beauty? What do flowers mean to him? How do we know? 11. Proust's work is filled with 'doubling' - the most obvious being the identification of the author with a fictional self of the same name but with somewhat different characteristics. Is Swann a double of the Narrator? What qualities do they share? In what ways do they seem different? What is the importance of the fact that Swann is a Jew? 12. Louis Auchincloss questions the use of a fictional first person named 'Marcel,' who is but isn't Proust. Marcel claims that he is neither a snob nor a homosexual, yet he is obsessed with both. Would Proust have strengthened Marcel's viewpoint by making it that of the young social climber that he himself so clearly was? Did he enhance or detract from Marcel's credibility by casting him as one of the few heterosexuals in the book? Does it matter that Marcel regards 'inversion' as a dangerous vice? Did Proust? 13. 'Swann in Love' might be thought of as a dress rehearsal for the Narrator's own performance, and Swann's passion for Odette establishes a model for various other love relationships that appear later in the book. Proust believed that all emotions and behavior obey certain psychological laws. E. M. Forster maintained that 'Proust's general theory of human intercourse is that the fonder we are of people the less we understand them - the theory of the complete pessimist.' Do you agree? How does Swann's love affair reflect this? What conclusions does the Narrator draw from his perception of Swann's experience? In what way does this differ from Swann's own view? 14. The Balbec sequence of Within a Budding Grove gathers a group of the novel's principal characters, many for the first time: Robert de Saint-Loup, the Baron de Charlus, and Albertine, to name three of the most important. Others begin to emerge in their true significance, like Elstir the painter. Why do you think Proust chose to bring them together in Balbec? In what ways does Balbec echo or amplify Combray? Is the little 'society' of Balbec a preview in microcosm of Paris? 15. While writing In Search of Lost Time Proust often rummaged through his vast photographic collection of Belle Époque luminaries as a means of stimulating his memory. 'You could see that his thoughts were following a kind of underground track, as if he were organizing everything into images before putting them into words,' recalled his maid Céleste Albaret. Indeed, the Baron de Charlus, in Within a Budding Grove , speaks of the special importance of photographs in preserving an unsullied moment of time past, before it has been altered by the present. Discuss how Proust used photographs in the story - just as he exploited the technology of trains, cars, and airplanes - as symbols of passing time. 16. In his landmark essay on Proust, Edmund Wilson praises the broad Dickensian humor and extravagant satire that animate vast sections of In Search of Lost Time , yet he goes on to call it 'one of the gloomiest books ever written.' Can you reconcile Wilson's remarks? 17. Critic Barbara Bucknall maintains that 'no Proustian lover really cares at all for his beloved's feelings.' Is this true? Would the Narrator agree? Would the

THE CAPTIVE; THE FUGITIVE: In Search of Lost Time Volume 5 [Paperback] [Jan 01, 1996] Proust, Marcel (Vintage Classics) (Vol 5)

Time Regained, the final volume of In Search of Lost Time, begins in the bleak and uncertain years of World War I. Years later, after the war’s end, Proust’s narrator returns to Paris and reflects on time, reality, jealousy, artistic creation, and the raw material of literature—his past life. This Modern Library edition also includes the indispensable Guide to Proust, compiled by Terence Kilmartin and revised by Joanna Kilmartin. For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin’s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of Á la recherché du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade in 1989).

In Search of Lost Time, Volume VI:Time Regained and A Guide to Proust (Vintage Classics) (v. 6)

VINTAGE (RAND)

Each volume contains notes, addenda and synopses, and the sixth and final volume also includes a guide to the complete work.

The Captive: In Search of Lost Time. Vol. 5

This book is the first movement in the synphonic structure of Marcel Proust's long novel "A la recherche dutemps perdu" The word itself is thename of a fictious village, not far from Paris...

Combray ( French- Intro and notes in english) (French and English Edition)

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Pearson

One of the greatest translations of all time: Scott Moncrieff's classic version of Proust, published in three stunning clothbound volumes designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflection on art, time, memory, self and loss, it is often viewed as the definitive modern novel. C. K. Scott Moncrieff's famous translation from the 1920s is today regarded as a classic in its own right and is now available in three volumes in Penguin Classics. This first volume includes Swann's Way and Within a Budding Grove. 'Scott Moncrieff's [volumes] belong to that special category of translations which are themselves literary masterpieces ... his book is one of those translations, such as the Authorized Version of the Bible itself, which can never be displaced' - A. N. Wilson 'For the reader wishing to tackle Proust your guide must be C K Scott Moncrieff ... There are some who believe his headily perfumed translation of À la recherche du temps perdu conjures Belle Époque France more vividly even than the original' - Telegraph 'I was more interested and fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's creation' - Joseph Conrad to Scott Moncrieff

Proust: Remembrance of Things Past

Penguin??Books

Ce volume contient:\nDu côté de chez Swann - À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs (première partie) - Esquisses\nÉdition sous la direction de Jean-Yves Tadié avec la collaboration de Florence Callu, Francine Goujon, Eugène Nicole, Pierre-Louis Rey, Brian Rogers, Jo Yoshida

Remembrance of Things Past, Vol. 1

Penguin Books Canada, Limited

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