On Proust - Jean- François Revel (used)

Hardcover. Hamish Hamilton ltd. 1972. ok condition (some tears on the dust jacket).

Jean-François Revel - one of the most exciting new names to emerge in recent French writing, a philosopher and critic with a growing and controversial reputation, does not approach the great work of Marcel Proust in the spirit of an academic commentator or a pious admirer. His is a nonconformist reading, full of surprises and challenges not only for those who regard Remembrance of Things Past as incontestably the twentieth century's greatest literary masterpiece, but for everyone interested in modern society and in contemporary controversy.

What were Proust's politics? Was he a snob, or a mortal enemy of snobbery? Can we trust Proust on exactly how to read those subtle novels of his which once (during World War II were charged with being a cause of 'the fall of France'? Does he truly have something to say to us (as almost all Proustians believe on the nature of time, memory and artistic creation - or does his real genius lie elsewhere? A recent Proust bibliography listed a thousand titles on the subject.

Fresh, original and polemical, Revel's book will add lustre to the reputation of the young Frenchman who has been called by Mary McCarthy one of the most adventurous minds in the world today.