The Stay-In Weather Sale: 20% off select books
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Award Winners
    • Signed Preorders
    • Signed Editions
    • Digital Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Book Club Subscriptions
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts + Gift Cards
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Read Rise Resist Gear
    • Journals & Notebooks
    • Games
    • Socks
  • Sell Books
    • Sell Books Online
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store
McAfee Secure

Don't Miss

  • Looking Forward Sale
  • The Stay-In Weather Sale
  • Kids' Graphic Novels Sale
  • Our 2021 TBR List
  • Books That Got Us Through 2020
  • Save 20% on OBOB Books

Visit Our Stores


Emily B.: Inauguration Reading List: 10 Books for 100 Days (0 comment)
We have put together a reading list based on President-elect Biden's publicized policy goals for his first 100 days in office...
Read More»
  • Rhianna Walton: Powell's Interview: Chang-rae Lee, author of 'My Year Abroad' (0 comment)
  • Jeremy Garber: New Literature in Translation: January 2021 Edition (1 comment)

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Monsieur Prousts Library

by Anka Muhlstein
Monsieur Prousts Library

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews
  • Read an Excerpt

ISBN13: 9781590515662
ISBN10: 1590515668
Condition: Standard
DustJacket: Standard

All Product Details

View Larger ImageView Larger Images
0.00
Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Cart
Add to Wishlist

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Reading was so important to Marcel Proust that it sometimes seems he was unable to create a fictional personage without a book in hand. Two hundred of his creatures inhabit his fictional world, and sixty writers hover over them. These writers--among them various classical authors of the seventeenth century such as Mme de Sévigné the letter-writer, Racine the playwright, Saint-Simon the memoirist, and novelists and poets of the nineteenth century, including Balzac, Baudelaire and Dostoevsky--are not there for show; their works play an active role in the construction of In Search of Lost Time.

A life without books was inconceivable for Proust. Not surprisingly, he made literary taste and reading habits a primary means of defining his characters. Everybody in the novel reads: servants and masters, children, parents and grandparents, artists and physicians, and even generals. Conversations at dinner tables and among friends are mostly literary. The more sophisticated characters find it natural to speak in quotations, and quoting from memory is much appreciated in the narrator's family--his grandmother, grandfather, and mother all excel at this pastime.

Literature is omnipresent in Proust's work but takes many different forms. It may be straightforward when it comes to the books read by the narrator and other characters; it may be a tool used to define the personality of a personage, a clue to hidden traits of character, or a comical ploy when quotations are taken out of context or when turns of speech are directly inspired by classical writers.

In this wonderfully entertaining book, scholar and biographer Anka Muhlstein, the author of Balzac's Omelette, draws out these themes in Proust's work and life, thus providing an indispensable introduction to his long and intricate novel.

More Praise for Balzac's Omelette:

"Original, delectable, and entirely readable." --Washington Post

"Scholarly yet escapist . . . irresistible." --Daily Beast

"Balzac's Omelette . . . is a charming and modest little book." --New York Review of Books

Synopsis

Reading was so important to Marcel Proust that it sometimes seems he was unable to create a personage without a book in hand. Everybody in his work reads: servants and masters, children and parents, artists and physicians. The more sophisticated characters find it natural to speak in quotations. Proust made literary taste a means of defining personalities and gave literature an actual role to play in his novels.

   In this wonderfully entertaining book, scholar and biographer Anka Muhlstein, the author of Balzac’s Omelette, draws out these themes in Proust's work and life, thus providing not only a friendly introduction to the momentous In Search of Lost Time, but also exciting highlights of some of the finest work in French literature.


About the Author

Anka Muhlstein was born in Paris in 1935. Muhlstein has published biographies of Queen Victoria, James de Rothschild, Cavelier de La Salle, and Astolphe de Custine; 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 (Other Press). She has won two prizes from the Académie française and the Goncourt Prize for Biography. She and her husband, Louis Begley, have written a book on Venice, Venice for Lovers. They live in New York City.

5 1

What Our Readers Are Saying

Share your thoughts on this title!
Average customer rating 5 (1 comments)

`
Katsuya , December 28, 2012 (view all comments by Katsuya)
Recommended to any fans of Proust, or those who are embarking on their first read of the Recherche. 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.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(1 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment




Product Details

ISBN:
9781590515662
Binding:
Hardcover
Publication date:
11/06/2012
Publisher:
OTHER PRESS
Pages:
141
Height:
.90IN
Width:
5.10IN
Thickness:
.75
Author:
Anka Muhlstein
Author:
Anka Muhlstein
Subject:
PROUST

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
0.00
List Price:0.00
Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
Used Book Alert for book Receive an email when this ISBN is available used.

This title in other editions

  • Used, Trade Paperback, Starting from $8.98
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Sitemap
  • © 2021 POWELLS.COM Terms

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##