Marcel Proust

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist, born on July 10, 1871, in the Auteuil quarter of Paris. He came from a wealthy family; his father, Adrien Proust, was a well-known pathologist who studied cholera, and his mother, Jeanne Clémence Weil, belonged to a prosperous Jewish family. Though raised in his father's Catholic faith, Proust later became an atheist. As a child, he often suffered from severe asthma, which interrupted his schooling.

Proust developed a love for literature and writing, and he moved in the high society salons of Paris, where aristocrats and wealthy people gathered. These experiences inspired his writing. His early works, such as the story collection Les plaisirs et les jours, were published in the 1890s but didn’t gain much attention.

In 1908, Proust began his most famous work, À la recherche du temps perdu, which translates to In Search of Lost Time in English. This novel, published in seven volumes between 1913 and 1927, explores important themes such as memory, art, love, and human life through the narrator’s memories. It was one of the first books to use a special writing style called stream of consciousness and became a key piece of Modernist literature. Proust worked on this book until his death.

Proust spent the last three years of his life often confined due to illness, yet he managed to finish drafts of the final parts of his novel. He passed away from pneumonia and lung problems on November 18, 1922, at the age of 51 and was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Biography

Proust was born on 10 July 1871 in Paris, in a neighborhood called Auteuil. His family was wealthy and well-off. His father, Adrien Proust, was a doctor who studied diseases like cholera. His mother, Jeanne Clémence, came from a German-Jewish family in Alsace and was very well-read. Proust grew up in Paris during a time of big changes in France.

Proust had asthma as a child, which made him often feel unwell. He spent time in the village of Illiers, which later inspired a town in his famous book, In Search of Lost Time. Though he had health problems, he still managed to study well and learn a lot about literature. He also got to meet many important people through social gatherings called salons.

Proust worked a little in a library but mostly stayed in his apartment, writing. His mother passed away in 1905, which was very hard for him. In the last few years of his life, he stayed mostly in his room, writing his novel at night. He passed away in 1922.

Early writing

Proust loved to write from a young age. He wrote for school magazines and had his own society column in a journal called Le Mensuel. In 1892, he helped start another literary magazine named Le Banquet.

In 1896, Proust published a book called Les plaisirs et les jours, which included many of his early writings. Even though it was well liked, the book didn’t sell many copies because it cost too much. That same year, he started working on a novel named Jean Santeuil, which was finished after his death in 1952. This book showed up many ideas that later appeared in his famous work, In Search of Lost Time.

Proust also spent time reading writers like Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Ruskin. He translated some of Ruskin’s books into French, working with others to help with the translations. His translation of The Bible of Amiens came out in 1904 and got good reviews.

In 1908, Proust wrote pieces that copied the styles of other writers, which helped him find his own voice. He also began working on essays and a new novel. By 1910, he was writing what would become his masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu.

In Search of Lost Time

Main article: In Search of Lost Time

A la recherche du temps perdu, which started in 1909 when Proust was 38 years old, is a big book made of seven parts. Together, these parts have about 3,200 pages, or around 4,300 pages in one special English version. Some famous writers, like Graham Greene, think Proust was one of the best writers of the twentieth century.

The first part of the book was turned down by a publisher because another writer, André Gide, didn’t think it was good at first. But Gide later said sorry to Proust for helping to turn it down. Finally, the book was printed using money from Proust himself, and he even paid some critics to say nice things about it. Proust passed away before he could finish changing the last few parts of the book. His brother, Robert, helped finish them after he was gone. The book was turned into English by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and was called Remembrance of Things Past from 1922 to 1931. Later, other people helped change Scott Moncrieff’s work, and the book’s name was made closer to the original, In Search of Lost Time.