Proust and Venice

Description

Proust's famous novel A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) is a fascinating exploration not only of memory and desire, of high society and everyday life, but also of art. The study focuses on Venice, one of the hero's central obsessions, and shows how a whole network of allusions to art (from Titian to Turner, from Ruskin to Emile Male, from Giotto to Bellini, from Byzantine mosaic to the dresses designed by Fortuny after paintings by Carpaccio) ties in with the hero's quest for self-knowledge and self-fulfilment. Peter Collier demonstrates how an understanding of the writer's artistic sources and reworkings can shed light both on Proust's complex prose style and on the aesthetic theory proposed by his novel. Most importantly, Venice and Italian art provide a new key to the central themes of the novel: memory and desire.

"...provides remarkably original insights into Venice's prime role, and through Venice the role of art, in the reconstitution of reality in Proust's great novel A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past)... Collier exhibits a profound knowledge of Proust's work and also of Venice, its art and its soul, as Proust experienced them. Very well chosen illustrations and useful notes are included." C.G. Hill, Brooklyn College, CUNY, in Choice