Proust's way : a field guide to In search of lost time

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"Shattuck reveals that Proust must be read as carefully as a detective story, in which every detail becomes a clue to something else. At the same time, every page coruscates with a blend of passion and anxiety over the introduction of strange new elements. Shattuck writes on the ways in which Proust explores character, the false scent of social prestige, existential loss, humor, even memory itself. Finally, Shattuck laments Proust's defenselessness against zealous editors and translators, and distances his subject carefully from the tradition of aesthetic decadence blazed by Baudelaire and Wilde."--Jacket. Read more... Abstract: "Shattuck reveals that Proust must be read as carefully as a detective story, in which every detail becomes a clue to something else. At the same time, every page coruscates with a blend of passion and anxiety over the introduction of strange new elements. Shattuck writes on the ways in which Proust explores character, the false scent of social prestige, existential loss, humor, even memory itself. Finally, Shattuck laments Proust's defenselessness against zealous editors and translators, and distances his subject carefully from the tradition of aesthetic decadence blazed by Baudelaire and Wilde."--Jacket Content: Introduction: A sense of life : Biographical resume on Proust The work and Its author : Obstacles and inducements The life of an enfant nerveux An overdetermined universe -- How to read a roman-fleuve : Practical matters The elements of the story The Plot Verisimilitude and homosexuality -- The comic vision Four scenes A matter of temperament: the opening stumble The uses of the comic -- Proust's complaint : False scents From places to people: the "infirmity in my nature" Soul error The paradox of consciousness -- Proust's binoculars: memory and recognition : Optics and vision Happiness and memory Recognitions -- Art and idolatry : Art Idolatry -- The structure of sheer length : Finding a form Lost and found -- Continuing disputes : Too much of Proust? The challenge of translation Filming the unfilmable Time and space Intelligence versus sensibility: Proust's wager and "experimental faith" -- Reading for your life : Coda: Proust's "mysterious laws of thought" -- Appendixes : The wonders of optics Table of the moments bienheureux The opening sentence.