What is Marcel Proust known for?
Marcel Proust was an early 20th-century French writer responsible for what is officially the longest novel in the world: À la recherche du temps perdu – which has 1,267,069 words in it; double those in War and Peace.
Who is Albertine Simonet based on?
Marcel’s relationship with Albertine is based largely upon Proust’s with Alfred Agostinelli, shown posing at left. An occasional chauffeur from the summer of 1907, he also served as companion to his lonely employer, playing checkers and otherwise entertaining him.
What is the main theme of the work of Marcel Proust?
In this sense, the novel is a bildungsroman, or novel of development. We follow the development of Proust’s narrator from his early childhood right up to maturity, and as we do we come to know him better than possibly any other character in literature. Important themes include alienation, the role of memory, and art.
Did Marcel Proust have a wife?
Life and works. Marcel was the son of Adrien Proust, an eminent physician of provincial French Catholic descent, and his wife, Jeanne, née Weil, of a wealthy Jewish family.
How many words are in A la recherche du temps perdu?
List
| Book title | Author | Word count |
|---|---|---|
| Gordana | Marija Jurić Zagorka | 1,400,000 (estimated) |
| In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu) | Marcel Proust | 1,267,069 |
| Bottom’s Dream | Arno Schmidt | 1,300,000 (estimated) |
| Joseph and His Brothers | Thomas Mann |
What is the longest book in the world 2021?
His epic story À la recherché du temps perdu—or In Search of Lost Time—boasts nearly 1.3 million words, making it the world’s longest book. Though it’s split up into multiple volumes, In Search of Lost Time is considered the longest novel ever published by Guinness World Records.
What did Marcel Proust believe?
Proust was raised in his father’s Catholic faith. He was baptized (on 5 August 1871, at the church of Saint-Louis d’Antin) and later confirmed as a Catholic, but he never formally practised that faith. He later became an atheist and was something of a mystic.
How long is Proust In Search of Lost Time?
4,215
In Search of Lost Time
| A first galley proof of À la recherche du temps perdu: Du côté de chez Swann with Proust’s handwritten corrections | |
|---|---|
| Author | Marcel Proust |
| Publication date | 1913–1927 |
| Published in English | 1922–1931 |
| Pages | 4,215 |
Marcel Proust’s Biographer Makes the Case. In Search of Lost Time, like many great literary works, is a quest whose structure resembles that of a symphony. The novel’s major themes—love, art, time, and memory—are carefully and brilliantly orchestrated throughout the book.
What is the central idea of Swann’s Way?
One of these major themes is the relationship between time and memory, which served, perhaps, as Proust’s primary motivation for writing Remembrance of Things Past. Proust believed that time was not necessarily a linear, clock-like, measure of fixed and unchangeable moments.
Is Proust a great writer?
Graham Greene called Proust the “greatest novelist of the 20th century”, and W. Somerset Maugham called the novel the “greatest fiction to date”. André Gide was initially not so taken with his work. The first volume was refused by the publisher Gallimard on Gide’s advice.
Is reading Proust worth it?
Proust’s work has many qualities that might recommend it for pandemic reading: the author’s concern with the protean nature of time, the transportive exploration of memory and the past, or simply the pleasure of immersing oneself in the richly detailed life of another.
Which Proust should I read first?
The best place to start is the first book, Du côté de chez Swann. (Called variously Swann’s Way and The Way by Swann’s in English translation.) This first volume contains some of the best writing of the book, and one of the more important and interesting self-contained stories.
Who is Proust’s Swann based on?
Jeanne Weil was from a wealthy Alsatian Jewish family. Proust lived with her until she died, when he was 34. Many of Proust’s friends and fictional characters were of Jewish origin, including Charles Swann, the Paris dandy and art critic who is a friend of the narrator’s parents.
Does Odette marry Swann?
Swann was the art collector and man about town who, in the first volume, fell obsessively in love with a courtesan, Odette de Crecy. Swann had ceased to love Odette at the time he married her. He married for his daughter’s sake, to provide her a comfortable home and a respectable name.
Why is it called Swann’s Way?
Scott Moncrieff chose to call it Swann’s Way, which irritated Proust when he learned it in September 1922. Not only did it refer (as he had intended) to the path leading past Swann’s home near Combray, but it also suggested that the novel might be about Swann’s way of life, or his personal manner.
How long does it take to read Proust?
Published in seven volumes, the novel contains 3,031 pages and 1,267,069 words (9,609,000 characters). It will take the average reader (at 300 words per minute), about 45 hours and 27 minutes to read the entire novel, excluding any meal and bathroom breaks, of course.