Rarely has anyone taken Swan's Way down a stranger path, and never with such intriguing results. What begins as a meditation on the fictional identity of the elegant "swan" of Proust's In Search of Lost Time becomes, through a series of turns and twists, an ingenious investigation of the character's real-life counterpart, Charles Haas. Part novel, part essay, part literary sleuthing, Swan's Way is a critical tour de force.Through an inspired reading of Proust's text, Henri Raczymow gradually unravels the multiple contradictions of Charles Swann's personality, brought into focus by the fault lines in Proust's narrative method. The author traces Swann's evolution and the multiple ways in which his Jewish identity keeps peeping through the veneer of respectability of this sophisticated dandy. Through a parallel inquiry into the history of the Jockey Club--to which Haas, a Jew, was, like Swann, exceptionally admitted--and the transformation of the German-Jewish Haas into the fashionable British Swann, Swan's Way evolves into an examination of the question of personal identity and posthumous survival. Haas's Jewish identity is the invisible thread that guides Raczymow through the maze of Proust's work, which serves as a backdrop against which fin de siècle French society enacts the ugly drama of anti-Semitism. Blurring the boundaries between life and fiction, Swan's Way leads the reader ever deeper into the unresolved question of literary and personal character.

Swan's Way

Literature & Fiction

Raczymow, Henri

History & Criticism

Northwestern University Press

Rarely has anyone taken Swan's Way down a stranger path, and never with such intriguing results. What begins as a meditation on the fictional identity of the elegant "swan" of Proust's In Search of Lost Time becomes, through a series of turns and twists, an ingenious investigation of the character's real-life counterpart, Charles Haas. Part novel, part essay, part literary sleuthing, Swan's Way is a critical tour de force. Through an inspired reading of Proust's text, Henri Raczymow gradually unravels the multiple contradictions of Charles Swann's personality, brought into focus by the fault lines in Proust's narrative method. The author traces Swann's evolution and the multiple ways in which his Jewish identity keeps peeping through the veneer of respectability of this sophisticated dandy. Through a parallel inquiry into the history of the Jockey Club--to which Haas, a Jew, was, like Swann, exceptionally admitted--and the transformation of the German-Jewish Haas into the fashionable British Swann, Swan's Way evolves into an examination of the question of personal identity and posthumous survival. Haas's Jewish identity is the invisible thread that guides Raczymow through the maze of Proust's work, which serves as a backdrop against which fin de siècle French society enacts the ugly drama of anti-Semitism. Blurring the boundaries between life and fiction, Swan's Way leads the reader ever deeper into the unresolved question of literary and personal character.

Swan’s Way

The prominence of Holocaust themes in the media testifies to their compelling grip on contemporary consciousness and memory, particularly for a younger generation of Jews who never experienced the Nazi genocide first-hand but were raised amid its ashes.Mathieu, the narrator of this novel, is one such person, drawn by his sister's suicide to confront the effects of his family's tragic past. Esther, the narrator's gifted older sister, a teacher and aspiring writer, was born in France to Polish-Jewish refugees in 1943, narrowly escaping the deportations that claimed the aunt after whom she is named. Growing up in the Jewish immigrant quarter of Paris, she is haunted by the Holocaust, obsessively reliving - in her fantasies, dreams, troubled behavior, and abortive struggle to write - the family trauma she has absorbed but not actually experienced. Born after the war, Mathieu is left to grapple with recovering his sister's memory - which he had resolutely tried to deny - and with it the meaning of his own identity, family origins, and historical predicament.Piecing together other people's memories, conjecture, conversations, and eyewitness accounts, Mathieu attempts to write the book, and tell the tale, that Esther and his family failed to transmit. A result of his effort is the novel itself, which interweaves multiple layers of time, identity, memory, and experience.Mathieu's intense relationship with his sister is provocative for its deep psychological and moral resonance. Being neither victim, survivor, nor witness, does he have the right to give voice to the unlived and unimaginable? Or is he a voyeur or imposter, usurping the lives of the real victims?Placing in bold relief the hidden thoughts, obsessions, conflicts, and creative struggles of the second generation that has inherited the anger, sadness, guilt, and fear - but not the actual memory - of the Nazi genocide, Henri Raczymow gives an authentic and powerful voice to its grim legacy in our time.

Writing the Book of Esther (French Expressions)

Short Stories & Anthologies

Holmes & Meier Pub

Contes d'exil et d'oubli

Literary

Gallimard]

Edition bilingue français-anglais\nCe livre, illustré de 90 photographies d'époque et de tableaux, donne à voir les figures et les paysages parisiens liés à la vie de l'écrivain et à son oeuvre.\nDe la plaine Monceau aux Champs-Élysées, le Paris de Marcel Proust est essentiellement celui des beaux quartiers. Né à Auteuil, ayant vécu boulevard Malesherbes ou boulevard Haussmann, l'écrivain situe son œuvre dans le Paris de la Belle Époque. Les appartements cossus donnent sur des avenues plantées d'arbres, les enfants s'amusent dans d'élégants jardins et les réceptions se tiennent dans des hôtels particuliers. Swann, Odette ou la duchesse de Guermantes fréquentent Maxim's, le bois de Boulogne ou les cafés animés des Grands Boulevards. Ces décors et les figures qui ont inspiré le 
romancier, les voici en images, révélant un Paris 1900 à la fois réel et imaginaire: le monde de Proust.\nFrom the Plaine Monceau to the Champs-Élysées, the Paris of Marcel Proust essentially encompasses the high-end districts. Born in Auteuil, having lived on the Boulevard Malesherbes, as well as the Boulevard Haussmann, the writer's work is embedded within the Paris of the Belle Époque. The Posh apartments look out onto tree-lined streets, children play in elegant gardens and receptions are held in private mansions. Swann, Odette or the Duchesse de Guermantes all socialize at Maxim's, the Bois de Boulogne or the bustling cafés along the Grands Boulevards. These settings and the different characters, who inspired the famous novelist,are hereby presented in evocative images, revealing Paris during the early 1900s, both real and imaginary: the world of Proust.

A la recherche du Paris de Marcel Proust

Travel

Europe

PARIGRAMME

Brand new book. Fast delivery of your order.

Le Paris retrouvé de Marcel Proust 2005

Comics & Graphic Novels

Graphic Novels

Used. Very Good conditions. May have soft reading marks and name of the previous owner.

Cassigneul - Aquarelles Et Dessins

Jean Pierre Cassigneul

Arts & Photography

Editions Michele Trinckvel

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