Anka Muhlstein

A wonderful, quick read about the role literature played in shaping Proust's life and his approach to the Recherche. Muhlstein's prose is readable; her use of quotes from the Recherche are generous and contextualized well so that someone who has yet to read it will not be lost in any way; and her quotations from Proust's work and letters are unfettered by academic jargon (she leaves most of these in footnotes which doesn't interfere with the flow of her main text—a wise choice in this sort of book).

Here, we see how Proust was shaped by Racine's rejection of proper syntactical structure and also how Baudelaire piqued Proust's interest in issues of queerness and sexuality in literature; we learn of his unemphatic views of George Sand from whose book, curiously, the Narrator's mother in the Recherche reads to him in the beginning of the first volume; we see how British writers such as Hardy, Eliot, and especially Ruskin influenced Proust's approach to his novel; we get a good grasp of how influential Ruskin was on Proust after he had shelved his unfinished novel, Jean Santeuil, and found Ruskin to be "the gateway" to finding a workable structure for the Recherche both in terms of narrative and aesthetics; and we also meet the many writers and artists that populate Proust's massive novel, learning how their reading tastes reflect their moralities.

Recommended to any fans of Proust, or those who are embarking on their first read of the Recherche Note: Muhlstein offers an introduction of the major characters from the novel in the beginning of her book. Some major plot points are given away in these character sketches, and, given that she contextualizes the quotes from the Recherche rather well throughout, I would advise first-time Proust readers to skip this so as to not ruin the novel for them.… (mehr)

In an effort to get my mind in the right place to start reading Proust, I picked up this slim volume that focuses on reading and readers in In Search of Lost Time. Muhlstein focuses on authors who influenced Proust (Racine, Balzac, the Goncourts), the fictional author Bergotte, and the way his characters read and understand their reading. This was a great place to start for me as I now have some themes to grab on to that were presented in a very interesting and easy to read manner.

Recommended for anyone reading Proust.… (mehr)

I can't imagine reading this before reading A la Recherche, but as a pleasant afternoon post-Proust read, it's charming--very light scholarship on a number of topics vaguely connected to books in Proust. It's clearly meant for the kind of people who are obsessed with books *and* literature, rather than one or the other, although I imagine that bibliophiles will enjoy the design and very cute illustrations, and the literati will enjoy being told things they possibly already knew, and picking up one or two new facts, all in very pleasant prose. The whole thing has a vaguely belletristic odor, which, again, will appeal to those who've read Proust and feel at home with his aesthetic. And it's a great incentive to (re-re-re-)re-read the novel itself.… (mehr)