Monsieur Proust's Library

Monsieur Proust's Library by Anka Muhlstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My wife is the biography reader in our family. To be honest, I'm not fond of biographies at all.

But this, this Monsieur Proust's Library, while it shares some DNA with biographical sketches, it is not the same thing. This is a sort of convergence of, yes, biography, bibliography, critical essay, and Proust's fiction itself. It is a strange intersection, yet seems like the only one that matters. It's not so cut and dried as "art imitates life" or the claim that one must entirely separate the artist from their art. No, it's much more complicated than that. And it is in this moil of complexity, of half-shadowed influences and inferences, that Muhlstein provides a book whose sum is greater than its parts. It's not perfect, but it might be the perfect introduction to Proust. I'll be sure to let you know, once I know for sure.

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