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Rose, author of Parallel Lives and Jazz Cleopatra employs Proust less as the subject of her rambling memoir than as a reference point, using his observations to review one year in her life, where, for example, her friend Annie Dillard has a cancer scare, Rose fights with a landlady over potted palms and banana trees, prepares a dinner honoring Salman Rushdie, and recounts her mother moving toward death. The desire for originality and its difficulty, and attempts to stop passing time are among the Proustian themes Rose ponders. No index, bibliography, or notes. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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A brilliant and original memoir of midlife-a writing life, a reading life, a woman's life-by the distinguished author of Parallel LivesPhyllis Rose, a biographer, essayist, and literary critic, finally got around to reading Proust in middle age. As Rose learned, you don't have to live through an unhappy childhood or celebrity adulthood to write an autobiography. You just need patience, candor, and a close-to-scientific passion for truth. She begins to learn how to navigate the intricacies of Proust's novels, at the same time reflecting on the course of her own life.With striking honesty, Rose writes about marriage, friendship, childbirth, and her own mortality. As she moves from daily experience to what she's read and back again, she illuminates how the close reading of her own life reveals truths for the rest of us and how such a subtle celebration of books can help us live.
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