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| Céleste Albaret's favorite picture of Proust |
This was one of my most anticipated reads for 2026. It took me 7 months to read and finish it. I took my time, went down different rabbit holes, reflected back through the 7 volumes of In Search of Lost Time.
I re-read Swann's Way at least once every year- in part or in whole. There is something so meditative about Proust's work, and I wanted desperately to hear about his writing life, his mannerisms, his last days, and just his life.
I want to list some quotes here in an encouragement for you to get this biography. If you have been interested in Proust or in The Search, I highly suggest you start with Swann's Way. Here is the free link to Swann's Way on Project Gutenberg.
I like to always be reading one of the volumes of The Search. It helps me to live with mindfulness on creating memories. That's the power of reading Proust. He helps you see that by witnessing his memories- and the way he remembered- you too can focus on how you lay down your memories.
Proust began a life of partial seclusion in which he shut himself up for the sake of his work- and I with him- and which nothing disturbed for the eight years until the end.
He did sometimes feel a wish or even a need for a holiday, or a desire to see again a certain town, a landscape, a painting, a church- like Cabourg, when he'd talked about showing me the high tides in Brittany. But it was always:
"We'll go when I've finished my book, dear Céleste. Then you'll see how marvelous it is."
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| so many tabs and much more underlining inside |
This is a book that I will flip through every so often and feel the space that Proust created for living a life dedicated for a purpose.
To finish his book- that was all that mattered now. And from autumn 1914 onward, his whole life was organized around that compulsion more than ever before.
He severed most communications. Before the end of the year he decided to give up his telephone. He may have told people it was because he was in financial straits, as has been alleged. But that was only an excuse; he indulged in whatever other expense he fancied. In fact, he didn't want to be disturbed against his will any more. He made himself sole master of himself and any visitors and all his connections with other people.
It was a completely upside-down life, even in the simplest things. For example, I couldn't clean the house or do his room unless he was out, and since when he did go out it was rarely before ten in the evening. I never did housework except at night, never opened the windows of the flat except onto darkness.
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| loved these inserts |
I loved so many parts of this biography. There are definitely moments when I felt like Céleste Albert's view of Proust (who was really quite particular) was skewed. Proust seemed a little demanding... unrelenting even, and she was moderately oblivious.
We lived by electric light or perpetual darkness.
Now I realize M. Proust's whole object, his whole great sacrifice for his work, was to set himself outside time in order to rediscover it.
When I look back on all these things now and see the clearer than I did at the time, I realie that two things emanated from him as a man and from his life: his taste for quality, for perfection in everything- a perfection that belonged to the past, and which showed his loyalty to shops and restaurants. This attachment to the past in his everyday life is all the more strange when you realize how far, in his books, he saw into the future- when you think of all he wrote about the dissolution of a certain kind of world and society.
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| tiny sample of how I lived and reflected on these pages |
No, Céleste, you will live. And when I am dead, you will see. People will read me; yes, the whole world will read me. You will see my work grow in the public's esteem. And remember, Céleste, this article says it took a hundred years for Stendahl to become famous. It will take Marcel Proust less than fifty.
Secretly I took refuge in the memory of the magic nights.
The picture I have of him in my heart is the most beautiful possible, and the loveliest of memories. He is as magnificent as he always was. A prince among men and a prince of souls.
In summary,
The reading of this biography took 8 months because I allowed myself to truly live within these pages. I thought through Céleste's reflections of Proust's life with the same level of detail that I'd like to apply to my own memories.
In the end that's what it is all about with Proust- remembering and thinking about how we remember.
Reading this biography has transported me back to my reading of The Search. I have loved revisiting my notes from that time, and I can feel a re-read coming on.
Happy reading ☕️
