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REVIEWS Marcel Proust The latest biography of Proust in English, Marcel Proust: A Biography by Richard H. Barker (New York: Criterion Books [Toronto: S. J. Reginald Saunders and Company Limitedl, pp. x, 373, $7.75), is an intensely personal portrait, indeed a sort of "Proust par lui-meme," since it relies mostly on quotations from the letters with related excerpts from the novels Jean Santeuil and A la recherche du temps perdu. The result is an almost depressing study in which the figure of Proust alone is clear-cut and detailed. It is depressing because a writer is never his own best critic and Proust the man was a singularly neurotic individual. The letters emphasize this side of his character to the detriment of his very great skill as a novelist, and our appreciation and understanding of the novels are scarcely enhanced by such a dismal portrait of their author. Richard Barker's biography seems directed mainly towards Englishspeaking students of Proust well acquainted with the Scott Moncrieff transla~ tion of A la recherche du temps perdu. It is assumed that readers know details of the story and the characters quite intimately (cf. the references to Andree, Saniette), but all quotations from Proust are in translation (includ~ ing excerpts from the letters) except for a single curious exception, a double quotation from the pastiches of the Lemoine case (p. 167) . Scholarly paraphernalia have purposely been eliminated even to the extent of excluding exact references for quotations from Jean Santeuil, Remembrance of Things Past, and the letters. In the whole book there are just a dozen very modest footnotes. The result is a readable narrative which will not however always satisfy a student who wants to chase up sources. There really is no startling new material in this biography even though the author has gone to great pains accurately filling in the background from contemporary newspaper accounts, letters to and from Proust, and any other material he could lay his hands on. The range of material covered is vast, and the merit of the study lies in the subordination of detail to the main line of evolution in Proust's life and work and the clarification of chronology. There is a very helpful chronological table at the end of the book along with an Index which is particularly useful in the details it gives under Proust's life. There is, of course, a certain monotony in Proust's existence-his illness 104 REVIEWS and its treatment, his society outings, his parties for aristocratic friends. Proust seems old right from the start and one reads the biography without any real sense of the passage of time except for the war years. In certain early chapters one assumes that Proust must be getting on in years and then, on stopping to calculate his age, discovers with surprise that he is still in his early thirties! This impression of disembodiment is exaggerated since the other individuals in Proust's life are treated marginally. Their names are mentioned frequently. but they are often just addresses on letters or a list of guests at a reception, with the possible exception of Madame Straus, who seems more real. It is, to be sure, impossible to separate completely Proust's life and his work, and critics will never have done seeking the models Proust used in his delineation of characters, locales, and even the music and paintings described and the various theories advanced. Dr. Barker mentions the usually accepted character keys and, in selecting information for the biography, tends to choose incidents which are closely related to incidents in the novels. In describing Proust's trip to Belgium and Holland with Bertrand de SalignacFenelon in 1902, for instance, he mentions only Vermeer's "View of Delft," which Proust saw at The Hague (p. 116), a painting which was to play an important role in the death of Bergotte (p. 335). Dr. Barker assesses the different sections of Proust's production-the articles contributed to the early reviews, Les Plaisirs et Ies jours, the newspaper articles (Les Chroniques), the Pastiches et melanges, and, in addition to A la recherche du temps perdu, the recently discovered early works-the novel...

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