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A review by franfernandezarce
Marcel Proust: A Life by William C. Carter
5.0
at last, it is done. it took me a little over a month but i did it. it is finished and i can proudly say i did not skip a single page. and it was amazing. unlike the [b:Leonardo da Vinci|34684622|Leonardo da Vinci|Walter Isaacson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1523543570s/34684622.jpg|55861438] biography i tried and failed to connect with at the start of the year, this biography was just the right type of a life's retelling i could have read. not only because it has helped me to understand proust's novels better, or at least from a more humane perspective, but also because it made feel for him.
i just couldn't help it. i laughed at his silly habits and stubborness at the beginning just as much as it saddened me to read about the same stubborness that drove him to his death years afterwards. and isn't that the greatest goal (or at least measuring point) for any good (or memorable) biography? to make your subject come alive not only as an interesting specimen, unique and worthy enough of one's time and curiosity, but as a human being? a human being that matters not because of whatever great achievement he might have done during his lifetime but because he lived just like you and me do every single day.
and now, as i've come to the end of this side of the story, i feel more than ready and excited to carry on with in search of lost time, to take one after the other volume until i can properly say that i know a bit more of proust-the-artist as i have known proust-the-person
p.s. also, i think it should be worthy to note that apparently EVERYONE was queer back in paris during the early twentieth century. honestly.
i just couldn't help it. i laughed at his silly habits and stubborness at the beginning just as much as it saddened me to read about the same stubborness that drove him to his death years afterwards. and isn't that the greatest goal (or at least measuring point) for any good (or memorable) biography? to make your subject come alive not only as an interesting specimen, unique and worthy enough of one's time and curiosity, but as a human being? a human being that matters not because of whatever great achievement he might have done during his lifetime but because he lived just like you and me do every single day.
and now, as i've come to the end of this side of the story, i feel more than ready and excited to carry on with in search of lost time, to take one after the other volume until i can properly say that i know a bit more of proust-the-artist as i have known proust-the-person
p.s. also, i think it should be worthy to note that apparently EVERYONE was queer back in paris during the early twentieth century. honestly.