When the French writer Marcel Proust died at the age of 51 more than a century ago, many obituaries highlighted the fact that his mother was Jewish. But Proust’s relationship with his Jewish side was complex and many critics and readers of his masterwork, In Search of Lost Time, perceive signs of self-hatred and even antisemitism in the treatment of certain characters. Columbia University Professor Antoine Compagnon challenges this widespread misconception in a book entitled Proust du côté juif, which recently came out in English at Columbia University Press under the title Proust: A Jewish Way. In this ambitious investigation, Professor Compagnon examines Proust’s relations with his mother’s successful and assimilated family, the Weils. He explores how French Jews read and responded to Proust’s masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, in the 1920s and 1930s. By reconsidering Proust’s relationship with his Jewish identity, Compagnon also casts light on French society at the turn of the 19th century, and interrogates issues of cultural difference, integration, and assimilation.
Antoine Compagnon is the Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, professor emeritus at the Collège de France, and a member of the Académie française. He is the author of many books on subjects including Montaigne, Baudelaire, Proust, Colette, literary theory, and cultural history.
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Host: Dr. Emmanuel Kattan
Editor and Producer: Rachel Kahn
Producer: Georgia O’Neil