0
    • Elementary Secondary Higher Ed Common Reads
    0 0
    Download high-resolution image

    Marcel Proust

    Author Edmund White
    Read by David Case
    Audiobook Download
    Audio | Random House Audio
    On sale Jul 13, 1999 | 4 Hours and 11 Minutes | 9781415910528
    Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies

    Considered one of the greatest—and most influential—writers of the twentieth century, Marcel Proust was also one of its most fascinating figures. A strange, reclusive genius who often lay in bed for days at a time obsessively rewriting his masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past, Proust was at other times a tireless socialite, attending the grandest parties and dazzling guests with his vivacity and wit. But as a boy Proust was yearning and lonely, an ambitious grasper after honors, and a miserably closeted homosexual, an aspect of his life that this book explores frankly and perceptively.
     
    “White has a novelist’s eye for the telling detail or the remarkable phrase.”—New York Times Book Review
    Edmund White was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1940. His fiction includes the autobiographical trilogy A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony, as well as Caracole, Forgetting Elena, Nocturnes for the King of Naples, and Skinned Alive, a collection of short stories. He is also the author of a highly acclaimed biography of Jean Genet, a short study of Proust, a travel book about gay America—States of Desire—and Our Paris. He is an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and teaches at Princeton University. He lives in New York City. View titles by Edmund White
    "White has a novelist's eye for the telling detail or the remarkable phrase and, like Proust himself, concentrates upon the minutiae of the past so that it might live again. He has a wonderful sympathy with his subject, adduced in such reflections as ''Proust fancied that so long as he failed to begin his life's work, his life would go on.'' -- Peter Ackroyd, The New York Times Book Review

    "White's deft prose is densely packed with information but never burdensome. He gives a good sense of why Proust's work is valuable, and why it remains eternally fresh." -- Washington Post

    "A tale of twentieth-century literature 'par excellence' that White makes fun, accessible, and insightful."
    -The Philadelphia Inquirer

    "White's biography of Proust is a paragon of the genre; an engrossing and delightful piece of work."
    -Norah Vincent, author of Self-Made Man

    About

    Considered one of the greatest—and most influential—writers of the twentieth century, Marcel Proust was also one of its most fascinating figures. A strange, reclusive genius who often lay in bed for days at a time obsessively rewriting his masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past, Proust was at other times a tireless socialite, attending the grandest parties and dazzling guests with his vivacity and wit. But as a boy Proust was yearning and lonely, an ambitious grasper after honors, and a miserably closeted homosexual, an aspect of his life that this book explores frankly and perceptively.
     
    “White has a novelist’s eye for the telling detail or the remarkable phrase.”—New York Times Book Review

    Author

    Edmund White was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1940. His fiction includes the autobiographical trilogy A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony, as well as Caracole, Forgetting Elena, Nocturnes for the King of Naples, and Skinned Alive, a collection of short stories. He is also the author of a highly acclaimed biography of Jean Genet, a short study of Proust, a travel book about gay America—States of Desire—and Our Paris. He is an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and teaches at Princeton University. He lives in New York City. View titles by Edmund White

    Praise

    "White has a novelist's eye for the telling detail or the remarkable phrase and, like Proust himself, concentrates upon the minutiae of the past so that it might live again. He has a wonderful sympathy with his subject, adduced in such reflections as ''Proust fancied that so long as he failed to begin his life's work, his life would go on.'' -- Peter Ackroyd, The New York Times Book Review

    "White's deft prose is densely packed with information but never burdensome. He gives a good sense of why Proust's work is valuable, and why it remains eternally fresh." -- Washington Post

    "A tale of twentieth-century literature 'par excellence' that White makes fun, accessible, and insightful."
    -The Philadelphia Inquirer

    "White's biography of Proust is a paragon of the genre; an engrossing and delightful piece of work."
    -Norah Vincent, author of Self-Made Man

    Other Books by this Author

    Related Articles

    Subscribe

    Penguin Random House Higher Education

    © 2026 Penguin Random House

    Back to Top
    0
    Wish List (0)