Monsieur Proust

By Céleste Albaret
Translated from the French by Barbara Bray
Foreword by André Aciman

Céleste Albaret was Marcel Proust's housekeeper in his last years, when he retreated from the world to devote himself to In Search of Lost Time. She could imitate his voice to perfection, and Proust himself said to her, "You know everything about me." Her reminiscences of her employer present an intimate picture of the daily life of a great writer who was also a deeply peculiar man, while Madame Albaret herself proves to be a shrewd and engaging companion.

Read the foreword (PDF)

Reviews

A fond and winning picture of the daily life of a great writer and reclusive man, with his foibles, worries and kindnesses. This alluring volume is as close as we can come to meeting Marcel Proust in person.
— Sunday Telegraph

C&eacaute;leste is probably the most famous PA in literary history. Her literary touch is almost Proustian—everyday objects, the very stuff and fabric of their lives together, become totemic. Her total recall, using a fatal gift, is here compelling, convincing and riveting.
— The Times

The strangest story . . . it can be read, I think, only with the most continually warring emotions—admiration for Proust's courage to endure the slow suicidal routine on which he believed his great novel depended; admiration for Céleste's courage in adapting herself to such a monstrous service; . . . growing horror at the way in which Proust used cold-bloodedly everyone he knew as creatures for his art; . . . at last, a deep physical revulsion as one would from a brilliant evocation of a madman's padded cell by his mental nurse; and a strange embarrassment at being privy to a relationship at once so intimate and so deforming. . . . Yet anyone who has known delight from the 20th century novel must accept the repugnant prison cell gratefully, for it gave us a great and liberating work of art.
— Angus Wilson, The New York Times Book Review

Monsieur Proust is moving, often unwittingly funny, [and it conveys] something of the fabulous quality of an existence literally held in thrall by Proust. The book is rich in concrete and, one feels, authentic details that give an unprecedented and entertaining picture of Proust’s daily life.
— Germaine Brée, The New Republic

The novelistic impulse of the memoirist transforms a mere recitation of mundane detail into a textured portrait of a quite peculiar genius.
— Saturday Review

Also see:

The Unknown Masterpiece By Honoré de Balzac Translated from the French by Richard Howard Introduction by Arthur C. Danto The story, which has served as an inspiration to artists as various as Cézanne, Henry James, Picasso, and New Wave director Jacques Rivette, is, in critic Dore Ashton's words, a "fable of modern art."

Renoir, My Father By Jean Renoir Translated from the French by Randolph and Dorothy Weaver Introduction by Robert L. Herbert In this delightful memoir, Jean Renoir, the director of such masterpieces of the cinema as Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, tells the life story of his father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the great Impressionist painter.

Shelley: The Pursuit By Richard Holmes Here we have the real Shelley at last—radical agitator, atheist, and apostle of free love, as well as a brilliant and uncompromising poetic innovator.

Sign up for our free email newsletters for updates and special offers on NYRB books.