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The Cambridge Introduction to Marcel Proust (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)

The Cambridge Introduction to Marcel Proust (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)

by Adam Watt (Author)

  • New

    Paperback 2011

    $20.51

  • New

    Hardcover 2011

    $98.05
Synopsis

Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time, 1913-27) changed the course of modern narrative fiction. This Introduction provides an account of Proust's life, the socio-historical and cultural contexts of his work and an assessment of his early works. At its core is a volume-by-volume study of In Search of Lost Time, which attends to its remarkable superstructure, as well as to individual images and the intricacies of Proust's finely-stitched prose. The book reaches beyond stale commonplaces of madeleines and memory, alerting readers to Proust's verbal virtuosity, his preoccupations with the fleeting and the unforeseeable, with desire, jealousy and the nature of reality. Lively, informative chapters on Proust criticism and the work's afterlives in contemporary culture provide a multitude of paths to follow. The book charges readers with the energy and confidence to move beyond anecdote and hearsay and to read Proust's novel for themselves.

$20.51

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 154
 Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 07 Apr 2011
ISBN 10: 0521734320
ISBN 13: 9780521734325
Book Overview: The most up-to-date and detailed introduction to Proust's life and work available today, including a volume-by-volume study of Proust's novel.

Media Reviews
'Watt creates a successful guidebook for new and hesitant readers of the Recherche ... [He] shares with his reader what, in the end, is the true secret of Proust's novel: for its great length and difficulty, the Recherche holds the promise of being an inexhaustible source of pleasure.' H-France Review
'Watt manages to make a difference with his fresh overview of Proust reception beyond literary scholarship and his focus on highlighting the richness of the Search beyond the well-known stereotypes of madeleine and memory. One of his most commendable achievements in this respect is the attention to the text's linguistic quality.' Modern & Contemporary France
Setting a course away from the reductive image of Proust as the reclusive hypochondriac hidden in his cork-lined room, Watt creates a successful guidebook for new and hesitant readers of the Recherche. In particular, Watt provides a preview of, and a map leading to, the many pay-offs one is likely to receive from their investment of time and effort in the three thousand pages of a novel whose first sentence-- Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure [For a long time I would go to bed early]--is perhaps not the most promising in the history of literature....The Cambridge Introduction to Marcel Proust is organized intuitively and with the intention of easing a first-time reader into the complexities of a decidedly difficult text....a pertinent and useful text. -Herve G. Picherit, University of Wyoming, H-France Review Vol. 12 (March 2012), No. 36
Author Bio
Adam Watt is Senior Lecturer in French at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of Reading in Proust's A la recherche: 'le delire de la lecture' (2009), and editor of Le Temps retrouve Eighty Years After/80 ans apres: Critical Essays/Essais critiques (2009).