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Marcel Proust: A Life
Marcel Proust was arguably the greatest writer of the twentieth century. This fascinating, definitive biography by the premier world authority on Proust redefines the way we look at both the artist and the man.
A bestseller in France, where it was originally published to great critical acclaim, Jean-Yves Tadie's monumental life of Proust makes use of a wealth of primary material only recently made available, Marcel Proust: A Life provides a scrupulously researched and engaging picture of the intellectual and social universe that fed Proust's art, along with an indispensable critical reading of the work itself. The result is authoritative, magisterial, and a beautiful example of the art of biography.
1016 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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827 people want to read
About the author
Jean-Yves Tadié
100 books21 followersJean-Yves Tadié is a French writer, biographer, and academic, noted particularly for his work on Marcel Proust.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
September 26, 2014
This book is a remarkable work of scholarship which is of enormous assistance to anyone who has read the complete set of seven novels in A la Recherché du temps perdu which despite its great charms can leave the reader confused at times. To the person familiar with Proust, the book is a source of great pleasure. It would not however be a good introduction to Proust as it is too tightly tied to his writing to stand alone.
Tadie notes that Proust completed the project in a hurry as he understood that he was dying. Originally Proust had considered the work as two novels. One would be comprised of Du Cote de chez Swan, A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, and Le cote des Guermantes (I & II). The other work would have been comprised of Sodome et Gomorrhe and Albertine Disparue. Tadie carefully goes through the drafts and helps the reader appreciate how the two projects were ultimately integrated into one. In so doing he explains some of the inconsistencies that surprised me and I assume other readers.
Tadie also does a great job of identifying who the book's characters were based which is also of great help as Temps Perdu is a roman a cle of enormous complexity. Thus with Tadie one is able to identify who is James Whistler, Alphonse Daudet, Henri Bergson, Ignacy Paderewski, etc. Despite the old rule that a book is to stand on its own not on information that stands outside of it, in this case it is helpful. If you have the key to Roman a clé and you know the works of the artists or writers who appear in a work, your ability to appreciate the book is greatly enhanced.
Finally, it must be said that for the person who has read the entire series, the book is a great joy because of Tadié's remarkable writing style which often leaves the reader feeling that she or he is reading one more volume from A la recherché du temps perdu.
Tadie notes that Proust completed the project in a hurry as he understood that he was dying. Originally Proust had considered the work as two novels. One would be comprised of Du Cote de chez Swan, A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, and Le cote des Guermantes (I & II). The other work would have been comprised of Sodome et Gomorrhe and Albertine Disparue. Tadie carefully goes through the drafts and helps the reader appreciate how the two projects were ultimately integrated into one. In so doing he explains some of the inconsistencies that surprised me and I assume other readers.
Tadie also does a great job of identifying who the book's characters were based which is also of great help as Temps Perdu is a roman a cle of enormous complexity. Thus with Tadie one is able to identify who is James Whistler, Alphonse Daudet, Henri Bergson, Ignacy Paderewski, etc. Despite the old rule that a book is to stand on its own not on information that stands outside of it, in this case it is helpful. If you have the key to Roman a clé and you know the works of the artists or writers who appear in a work, your ability to appreciate the book is greatly enhanced.
Finally, it must be said that for the person who has read the entire series, the book is a great joy because of Tadié's remarkable writing style which often leaves the reader feeling that she or he is reading one more volume from A la recherché du temps perdu.
September 1, 2020
I'm gonna split the difference on this one: 5 Stars for the scholarship; 3 stars for actual readability.
Let me tell you why in a forty-page long, unbroken paragraph:
Just kidding.
If you're a fan of Proust, everyone's favorite gay French asthmatic, then you might think you'll want to read this, and you're probably right, in part. There is a lot of value here. The problem is the complexity of the subject because Proust, as you may know, wrote thousands of pages of semi-autobiographical fiction already. If your goal is to find out what was based on what and who on who, you may come away only partly satisfied. Characters in his works were often pastiches of multiple people and his obsessions with beautiful young Frenchmen were often disguised in the novel as someone else's obsession or under another gender entirely.
It's fine to be curious about these things. I am and I read the goddamn thing, but the level of detail is often excruciating and overbearing. Proust's every move and eyelash-bat is pounced upon, hunted down, cornered, and analyzed, usually for the purposes of relating it to his fiction. It gets a little dizzying at times.
For me, the most valuable parts were Proust's relationships (or lack thereof) with other writers of the time, the development of his philosophies of memory and fiction, and the general cultural tenure of an age that wasn't so long ago but seems quite alien and distant.
Anyway, probably worth it for the obsessive, frothing completist, but more of a challenge for the casual Proustie.
Let me tell you why in a forty-page long, unbroken paragraph:
Just kidding.
If you're a fan of Proust, everyone's favorite gay French asthmatic, then you might think you'll want to read this, and you're probably right, in part. There is a lot of value here. The problem is the complexity of the subject because Proust, as you may know, wrote thousands of pages of semi-autobiographical fiction already. If your goal is to find out what was based on what and who on who, you may come away only partly satisfied. Characters in his works were often pastiches of multiple people and his obsessions with beautiful young Frenchmen were often disguised in the novel as someone else's obsession or under another gender entirely.
It's fine to be curious about these things. I am and I read the goddamn thing, but the level of detail is often excruciating and overbearing. Proust's every move and eyelash-bat is pounced upon, hunted down, cornered, and analyzed, usually for the purposes of relating it to his fiction. It gets a little dizzying at times.
For me, the most valuable parts were Proust's relationships (or lack thereof) with other writers of the time, the development of his philosophies of memory and fiction, and the general cultural tenure of an age that wasn't so long ago but seems quite alien and distant.
Anyway, probably worth it for the obsessive, frothing completist, but more of a challenge for the casual Proustie.
October 17, 2016
I read both the French original and the English translation of this - the definitive Proust biography. Yes, George Painter's was written with primary sources that were still alive, but Painter was not French and did not have enough distance from the subject to be objective. Tadie by contrast, who edited the Pleiades versions of La Recherche (and his notes also populate the less-expensive but nonetheless invaluable Folio paperback volumes), does an incredible job of painting the more accurate picture possible of my favourite author (with Joyce) and (with Ulysses) my favourite book and how it came into being. It is a fascinating and captivating look into this man with so many contradictions and who - as so many in his generation - died so early. Fans of Proust should absolutely read this one to understand more deeply both the man and the monument to world literature he left behind.
February 5, 2017
Not just the best biography of Proust, by a long shot, but one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read about anything. Tadié has lived for so long with Proust's work and life that he speaks about him as if he were a friend or relative, which you'd think would be irritating but his learning is so deep that it's not. The part of this book that has stuck with me the most is actually a footnote, where Tadié compares 4 versions of the last sentence of ROTP, and this comparison in itself is validation for obsessive re-writers everywhere: the first 3 are merely good, or merely interesting, or merely ambitious, but the 4th is immortal.
August 3, 2016
Il monumentale lavoro di studio e documentazione che sta dietro questa biografia meriterebbe dieci stelle, ma l'ossessione di Tadié per il dettaglio rende la lettura non sempre gradevole. Comunque un'opera notevole.
February 14, 2021
This is essentially how biography should be written, with a couple of major caveats. The thoroughness of the recounting of Proust's life, combined with Tadié's in-depth knowledge of the literary aspects of the works is profound. He knows not only "what happened," he is able to piece together a number of connections which would be absolutely unknown to the average reader. Further, he understands the place of other writers and acquaintances of Proust in relation to Proust's literary legacy.
This is why the first caveat is so surprising. When the book ends, we are left with Proust dead in his bed, being photographed by Man Ray. But I was hoping and expecting to see a summary or assessment of the impact and place of Proust in the literary canon, given all that we had absorbed in the previous 800 pages. But there was no such assessment. Perhaps Tadié expects his readers to glean this understanding from the whole, and if we have not synthesized a clear understanding of Proust's place in literature by this point in his biography, he is not about to do the synthesizing for us.
The other aspect that surprised me is that while there is obviously a detailed accounting of the compilation of RTP over the many years Proust wrote it, there is never a clear image of where, when and how Proust did his writing. He wrote in bed? What materials did he use? Did he write for hours at a time, or in snippets? Did he always follow a routine, or did he work impulsively. I just never felt I understood the episodes in which the dozens of notebooks were filled.
A final comment. It would be nice to have a brief explanation of the steps leading to the publication of a book at that time. From manuscript, to typescript, to galleys, to printer's proofs – I don't totally understand the implications of Proust making last-minute changes and how the editors, publishers and printers would have responded to that.
Overall, I'm glad I read this book with two volumes of RTP (out of seven, total) remaining to read. It will help me understand "who's who" and why. I recommend reading this biography while mid-stream in RTP. If you read it first, the references to scenes and characters will lack meaning. If you read it after, you'll wish you had known some of these things in advance....So read it in the middle of reading RTP.
This is why the first caveat is so surprising. When the book ends, we are left with Proust dead in his bed, being photographed by Man Ray. But I was hoping and expecting to see a summary or assessment of the impact and place of Proust in the literary canon, given all that we had absorbed in the previous 800 pages. But there was no such assessment. Perhaps Tadié expects his readers to glean this understanding from the whole, and if we have not synthesized a clear understanding of Proust's place in literature by this point in his biography, he is not about to do the synthesizing for us.
The other aspect that surprised me is that while there is obviously a detailed accounting of the compilation of RTP over the many years Proust wrote it, there is never a clear image of where, when and how Proust did his writing. He wrote in bed? What materials did he use? Did he write for hours at a time, or in snippets? Did he always follow a routine, or did he work impulsively. I just never felt I understood the episodes in which the dozens of notebooks were filled.
A final comment. It would be nice to have a brief explanation of the steps leading to the publication of a book at that time. From manuscript, to typescript, to galleys, to printer's proofs – I don't totally understand the implications of Proust making last-minute changes and how the editors, publishers and printers would have responded to that.
Overall, I'm glad I read this book with two volumes of RTP (out of seven, total) remaining to read. It will help me understand "who's who" and why. I recommend reading this biography while mid-stream in RTP. If you read it first, the references to scenes and characters will lack meaning. If you read it after, you'll wish you had known some of these things in advance....So read it in the middle of reading RTP.
July 25, 2020
Oh my god this was an amazing biography. It is a masterpiece that portraits Proust thoroughly and with enough chiaroscuro to distinguish his flaws and virtues.
About the writing: It is a compassionate narration, the author obviously loves his subject matter and always puts him under the best light, it doesn't excuse his bad behavior but you can see a little parcialness over the protagonist, praising him very often.The author sometimes slips his opinion about the people who mistreated Marcel, defending him. And it was always charming to read, as well as his personal views about art and literature and intellectualism during the XIX and XX century. The prose is clear and flows nicely in sections dedicated to important characters, periods, family members or crucial events, a very organized format which was easy to read.
This is monument of a book. The culture and knowledge about the politics, arts and history of the period surrounding Proust, that Tadié shows, are as impressive as the erudition of the author of À la recherche. I have to admit that I was overwhelmed with information most of the times and I'm sure I'm going to forget a lot of this because I'm dumb. But some passages are going to remain in my heart, like the little poems Proust wrote to his maid or his friends, the funny comic he drew in a letter to Reynaldo Hann, his heartbreak for never encountering the love he looked for his entire life and being rejected constantly if not maltreated by his love interests, his death. Just beautiful, just life.
About the writing: It is a compassionate narration, the author obviously loves his subject matter and always puts him under the best light, it doesn't excuse his bad behavior but you can see a little parcialness over the protagonist, praising him very often.The author sometimes slips his opinion about the people who mistreated Marcel, defending him. And it was always charming to read, as well as his personal views about art and literature and intellectualism during the XIX and XX century. The prose is clear and flows nicely in sections dedicated to important characters, periods, family members or crucial events, a very organized format which was easy to read.
This is monument of a book. The culture and knowledge about the politics, arts and history of the period surrounding Proust, that Tadié shows, are as impressive as the erudition of the author of À la recherche. I have to admit that I was overwhelmed with information most of the times and I'm sure I'm going to forget a lot of this because I'm dumb. But some passages are going to remain in my heart, like the little poems Proust wrote to his maid or his friends, the funny comic he drew in a letter to Reynaldo Hann, his heartbreak for never encountering the love he looked for his entire life and being rejected constantly if not maltreated by his love interests, his death. Just beautiful, just life.
May 28, 2024
Not so much a narrative biography as an academic one, this book can, at times, feel like a series of footnotes to Proust’s long novel Remembrance of Things Past. That is not a bad thing, but it does mean that this bio rarely has momentum of its own. The writer approaches Proust’s life as the source material for his novel (which it is), and so I would discourage anyone who hasn’t read Remembrance in its entirety from reading this. It is not an intro to Proust’s world, but a scholarly analysis of that world as it relates to his art. The amount of references and corrections to previous biographies can also be overwhelming, as it seems to expect the reader to have familiarity with these other works. Finally, with few exceptions Tadié refuses to stray from certifiable fact, and doesn’t engage in speculation; this is admirable, but it means that we learn very little about Proust’s romantic/sexual life, since there is not much documentation of this in the reliable sources Tadié uses. So this biography is essential for a certain kind of reader, but contains too much info and too little scandal for the layman.
December 1, 2019
I've spent about a year with this book, on purpose. I allowed myself to finish this in December and on the first, I did. The wealth of details into not just how Proust wrote his masterpiece by scrapping and adding is amazing, but also which music and poetry and science and just life experiences inspired him. All this while Tadié never forgot the man behind the masterpiece. In some biographies there is only emphasis on the character and in others only on the work. I feel that this biography had plenty on both. I really enjoyed reading this, but it isn't a book for people who haven't read the life work of Proust and loved it. What I really admire about Tadié is that he has remained honest about who Proust was. He hasn't made a saint out of him and neither a horrible person. He has so much knowledge about Proust as a human and about the life work of Proust. After having studied these subjects for decades, he still kept his objectivity. I am grateful that he shared his knowledge with us.
By the way, isn't reading biographies in our times an entirely different experience than say the 80's or even the 90s? When Tadié mentioned which concerts Proust visited and which plays he enjoyed, I could actually find them online immediately. People from his circle are on various websites as well. I even became an admirer of some of the work of Hahn, while I didn't know it before reading this biography. Or how about being able to look up paintings mentioned immediately? This changes the way we read a biography from the time before internet. I couldn't find all the music for example unless I'd buy everything and even then, not all music would have been available in the Netherlands. I played some of the music mentioned while reading the rest of the chapter.
By the way, isn't reading biographies in our times an entirely different experience than say the 80's or even the 90s? When Tadié mentioned which concerts Proust visited and which plays he enjoyed, I could actually find them online immediately. People from his circle are on various websites as well. I even became an admirer of some of the work of Hahn, while I didn't know it before reading this biography. Or how about being able to look up paintings mentioned immediately? This changes the way we read a biography from the time before internet. I couldn't find all the music for example unless I'd buy everything and even then, not all music would have been available in the Netherlands. I played some of the music mentioned while reading the rest of the chapter.
October 19, 2021
Lange schon steht diese biographische Kathedrale in meinem Buchregal und endlich habe ich zu lesen begonnen. Ina Hartwig schreibt in ihrem großartigen Buch "Das Geheimfach ist offen" über dieses Biographie: "Zwölf Jahre Wartezeit, seit das franz. Original erschienen ist. Da hat sich viel Nervosität angestaut bei den Betroffenen. Doch dann ist sie plötzlich da, die deutsche Ausgabe von Jean-Yves Tadies großer Proust-Biographie. Wer auch nur ein bisschen eingeweiht war, will es kaum glauben. Max Looser nämlich, der im Endspurt völlig unerwartet gestorben ist, hatte sich mit Haut und Haaren nicht nur der Übertragung Tadies in Deutsche verschrieben, sondern zugleich dessen Korrektur und Ergänzung. (...) und freuen uns, dass die deutschsprachigen Leser und Fans endlich diesen Meilenstein der Proust-Biographik kennenlernen dürfen. (...)"
Mehr als ein Monat habe ich mit und in dieser Biographie verbracht. Hunderte Zeitgenossen Prousts kennen gelernt, hunderte Briefzitate, Querverweise, Romanauszüge gelesen. Es ist einfach unglaublich was Jean-Yves Tadie hier zusammen getragen hat. 900 Seiten Biographie und fast 300 Seiten Anmerkungen, Register, Namensverzeichnis. Diese Bio stellt schon Anforderungen an ihre Leser und setzt Leseerfahrung in Sachen Proust voraus. Zumindest die Recherche sollte man gelesen haben. Auch ist sie in ihrer sprachlichen und umfangreichen Komplexität sehr fordernd - aber darum auch auch so bereichernd. Ich werde darin bestimmt immer wieder lesen.
Mehr als ein Monat habe ich mit und in dieser Biographie verbracht. Hunderte Zeitgenossen Prousts kennen gelernt, hunderte Briefzitate, Querverweise, Romanauszüge gelesen. Es ist einfach unglaublich was Jean-Yves Tadie hier zusammen getragen hat. 900 Seiten Biographie und fast 300 Seiten Anmerkungen, Register, Namensverzeichnis. Diese Bio stellt schon Anforderungen an ihre Leser und setzt Leseerfahrung in Sachen Proust voraus. Zumindest die Recherche sollte man gelesen haben. Auch ist sie in ihrer sprachlichen und umfangreichen Komplexität sehr fordernd - aber darum auch auch so bereichernd. Ich werde darin bestimmt immer wieder lesen.
November 27, 2011
A thorough biography but a bit intense for anyone approaching Proust without a backround in reading his novels.
February 25, 2016
Informative; a good companion while reading The Book.
November 6, 2022
An incredibly badly written book: how ironic given its subject. Probably the most tedious one I've ever read. I wanted to learn about a great writer & this book did not shine light on him as a person nor why he was such a talent. Sheer length & appalling padding seem to substitute for insight & the exceedingly boring lists of names quickly wears one out. Time & time the author admits he knows nothing about key issues: the duel which is one of the few dramatic incidents in Proust's life gets a few lines in a book of a thousand pages. A key assistant for two years is dimissed in one sentence. Proust did not attend Oscar Wilde's funeral yet we get a list of those who did: in contrast that of his mother, which was so traumatic, lists none of the "many" there. Typos and poor grammar crop up frequently (can anyone have faced editing it?) and speculation trumps facts: usually accompanied by decrying other biographers who came to differnt conclusions. All this buried under piles of verbiage which distracts from the poverty of illumination.
July 28, 2018
Tadié’s overarching concept is that Proust never forgot anything and every experience has been used in the construction of the great masterpiece of the 20th century. What Tadié does in this wonderful biography is not only to present the life story of Marcel Proust but the story of the making of In Search of Lost Time. Unfortunately, the story ends with Proust’s death in November 1922, but another chapter should also be told of how Robert Proust in association with a group of editors worked to bring this great work to completion in 1927.
May 19, 2021
Very well written
December 15, 2020
When I wanted to read a biography of Joyce or Nabokov, it was simple. Both had biographies that were considered definitive. Therefore there’s no excess of Joyce and Nabokov bios: You read Ellmann and Boyd. No other biographers have bothered to try to topple those masters. This is not the case for Proust. There are many, many Proust biographies and none seem to be particularly highly regarded. When researching which would be best for me, the debate seemed to be Tadié vs. Carter. I chose Tadié because I was promised more analysis. It seemed like an easy choice; I like Proust so of course I want analysis!
Oh god, the analysis. The worthless analysis I have sat through. Is there a single salon that Tadié thinks wasn’t the model for the Verdurins’? This biography was an endless wad of facts and names with no narrative or story-telling acumen whatsoever. I knew the names of everyone Proust knew, but with no sense of who anyone actually was or what Proust’s life actually was like. Tadié dedicated his life to Proust and seemed to find every aspect of Proust’s life fascinating, and in the process lost any and all sense of what the reader might find interesting or how to present it to the reader in an interesting way.
Because he was writing about Proust, Tadié seemed to believe this gave him license for digression and long-windedness. We tolerate and even love these qualities in Proust because of his elegance of style, something Tadié does not possess. His style reads like a poor imitation of the master. His writing (though perhaps some of the blame falls on the translator) is incredibly muddy and unclear (I would constantly have to reread sentences in an attempt to parse their meaning and often failed) and his tangents are confusing. He’s also a tad hypocritical, constantly taking shots at other Proust scholars in footnotes and criticizing them for using Proust’s fiction to fill out unknowns in his biography…while doing the same thing on a regular basis.
It is, however, incredibly well-researched and certainly full of facts and gossip. I read it largely out of a desire to confirm my understanding that In Search of Lost Time is a work of fiction and not the slightly fictionalized memoir that it is often portrayed as. Proust was…a complicated man, and I did appreciate the opportunity to spend a little more time with him.
Oh god, the analysis. The worthless analysis I have sat through. Is there a single salon that Tadié thinks wasn’t the model for the Verdurins’? This biography was an endless wad of facts and names with no narrative or story-telling acumen whatsoever. I knew the names of everyone Proust knew, but with no sense of who anyone actually was or what Proust’s life actually was like. Tadié dedicated his life to Proust and seemed to find every aspect of Proust’s life fascinating, and in the process lost any and all sense of what the reader might find interesting or how to present it to the reader in an interesting way.
Because he was writing about Proust, Tadié seemed to believe this gave him license for digression and long-windedness. We tolerate and even love these qualities in Proust because of his elegance of style, something Tadié does not possess. His style reads like a poor imitation of the master. His writing (though perhaps some of the blame falls on the translator) is incredibly muddy and unclear (I would constantly have to reread sentences in an attempt to parse their meaning and often failed) and his tangents are confusing. He’s also a tad hypocritical, constantly taking shots at other Proust scholars in footnotes and criticizing them for using Proust’s fiction to fill out unknowns in his biography…while doing the same thing on a regular basis.
It is, however, incredibly well-researched and certainly full of facts and gossip. I read it largely out of a desire to confirm my understanding that In Search of Lost Time is a work of fiction and not the slightly fictionalized memoir that it is often portrayed as. Proust was…a complicated man, and I did appreciate the opportunity to spend a little more time with him.
February 1, 2016
This book is methodically researched and a great reference, but unless spending 3-6 months reading the tiny details of Proust's life is your idea of fun, a shorter bio may be wise. This book is . . .well . . . kinda like reading Proust. I'm not sure why I read the whole thing but if I got drunk when it was over, I celebrated appropriately.
March 14, 2018
One of the best biographies I've ever read. Great for the addict, but not so much the general reader, if there is such a thing with Proust. It does rehash the novel in detail--filling in blanks of who was really who--but also adds a wealth of extra and extraordinary details.
Read
June 20, 2008Again I need to review my notes.
Read
July 29, 2016Something I'm going to read concurrently or post my Proust project.
August 8, 2014
Excellent, but so long!
July 22, 2023
Dans le premier tome il est chou, dans le deuxième un peu moins.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews