Marcel Proust: A Life

Booklist Starred Review

Carter braves the ascent of one of the highest peaks in world literature, retracing the lifetime of Marcel Proust. . . . Newly available correspondence and memoirs provide revealing details of Proust's complicated Parisian social life, his intimacies with male lovers, his disputes with critics and other writers. . . . Carter deftly reveals how Proust's artistic talents-finally at full strength in his multivolume Remembrance-enabled him to fathom the mysteries of memory, revealing no only how memory recalls the past but how in rare and luminous moments it transforms that past into living meaning. The serious readers attracted to Proust's brilliant novel will thank Carter for illuminating the life that produced it.

Carl Bromley

Carter’s energetic biography leaves us with a livelier impression of Proust’s life,and the social,historical and artistic forces that shaped him.
—In These Times

Carl Bromley

Carter's energetic biography leaves us with a livelier impression of Proust's life, and the social, historical and artistic forces that shaped him.
— In These Times

Choice

Carter's account of Proust's life is very, very good—the best biography of the novelist to date. Carter gracefully balances the various sides of the great writer, who was fawning, imperious, jealous, malicious, loyal, amusing, generous, and selfish... . The text is so nicely balanced and well written that it reads rapidly and pleasurably throughout.

Christopher Gray

Massive and magisterial.
— Oxford Times

Christopher Gray

Massive and magisterial.
—Oxford Times

Dan Hulbert

Diligently researched and written . . . with a probing intelligence worthy of its complex subject . . . . Carter brings to life not only Proust but his times: the Parisian belle epoque of artistic ferment,affluence,and joie de vivre.
—Chicago Tribune

Dan Hulbert

Diligently researched and written ... with a probing intelligence worthy of its complex subject ... . Carter brings to life not only Proust but his times: the Parisian belle epoque of artistic ferment, affluence, and joie de vivre.
— Chicago Tribune

Gary Pulsifer

William Carter’s biography of Proust’s life is a masterpiece in itself—and for once I wish a long biography was even longer.
—Gay Times

Gary Pulsifer

William Carter's biography of Proust's life is a masterpiece in itself—and for once I wish a long biography was even longer.
— Gay Times

Iain Finlayson

Magisterial.
— The Times (London)

Iain Finlayson

Magisterial.
—The Times (London

Roger Shattuck

An even-handed down-to-earth biography of one of the most finely tuned novelists of all time. Carter documents everything,exaggerates nothing,and keeps the vivid story moving.

Virginia Quarterly Review

Proust would have been pleased with this life. . . . [This] biography will likely stand for . . . many years.

Virginia Quarterly Review

Proust would have been pleased with this life... . [This] biography will likely stand for ... many years.

Publishers Weekly

When the newly famous Marcel Proust (1871-1922) consented to an interview after winning the prestigious Prix Goncourt toward the end of his life, he modestly claimed he had spent the previous 15 years "entirely in bed." It was, of course, during this time that he began his quasi-autobiographic masterpiece, A la recherche du temps perdu. While Proust mythologized his life more than his writing, University of Alabama French professor Carter (The Proustian Quest), in the longest biography yet of the novelist, methodically takes account of both. Proust's voluminous social diary, his numerous friendships and his close relationship with his mother all inspired his great novel, as recounted here, but Carter also argues that Proust's earlier writings, often viewed as dilettantish, in fact led him progressively to write his masterpiece by virtue of the discipline they imposed. Carter comprehensively examines these early projects, from the abandoned novel, Jean Santeuil, and some pseudonymous society columns to Proust's idiosyncratic critique of the great 19th-century literary critic Sainte-Beuve. Excavating biographic details out of such material as untranslated memoirs and recently collected letters, Carter meticulously, often mundanely, accounts for the daily affairs of this social butterfly-turned-hypochondriac and shut-in. Proust's romances and infatuations, his political action during the Dreyfus affair, and his literary runs-ins with Anatole France and Andr Gide, as well as larger issues such as his homosexuality, all receive lengthy treatment. Yet despite the impressive Proustian detail that Carter amasses, the biography still only skims the depths that flow from the author's life into his timeless novel. Illus. not seen by PW. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

George Scialabba

Rewarding; it's safe to say that every Proustian will be > entertained by Carter.—Boston Sunday Globe

Lucy Hughes-Hallett

An immense and richly interesting account of a singular character.... Carter places [Proust] before us in all his oddity, his contradictoriness and his charm.
— Sunday Times

Victor Brombert

Serious, thoughtful, well-balanced, well-informed.... Carter is the kind of reader Proust hoped for, one who understands that a great work compels us to become better readers of ourselves.
— Los Angeles Times Book Review