Monsieur Proust (New York Review Books Classics)

She obviously adored him and her book reflects it. She served as his housekeeper, cook, messenger, and intimate for the last eight years of Proust's life. She recounts her daily interaction with Proust and describes his reclusive approach to life as his masterpiece was being finished. To her, he was a perfect man although she was married to another. Was she in love with him? She certainly loved him and it shows in her praise of him. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the intimate details of Proust's unusual life and I recommend this book to anyone interested in Proust, his writing, and his time.

This is not really a review, but I would like to add a few comments. As others have stated, it is a shame that 50 years went by before Celeste felt the need to tell her story. It is also unfortunate that she did need keep the requested diary. The fact that she was 80 years old should not necessarily be an issue as I have met a few folks that are still very lucid at that age i.e., long-term memory is not the issue that short-term memory is.There are others that have written some things that are not in agreement with Celeste, but she was in a position to know.Marcel was definitely an unusual character, but in my mind not an odd-ball as some suggest:especially considering his chosen line of work.I found myself actually choked up as this book came to an end. I have read over 5,000 pages on or by Marcel Proust in 2013 and it makes me somewhat melancholy for this odyssey to come to an end though I am still looking forward to reading Harold Pinter's screenplay starting tomorrow.If you are a Marcel Proust devotee, it is essential that you read this book. It is informative, enlightening, sometimes comical, enjoyable but ultimately sad.

Celeste is a very simple person but had the privilege of being with Proust for a number of years as his companion/servant. Her observations are quite interesting about his schedule, the way he wrote (she pasted in the long emendations to his work) and other interesting details. As she was genuinely fond of Proust and writes of him with love, it is at times a touching and fascinating memoir of a simple French woman who came to enjoy serving a genius.

A special reading that sheds bright light on Marcel Proust's life. Céleste Albaret's narrative has the ring oftruth from beginning to end. Just a few minor caveats: remember that she is telling all this forty or fiftyyears after the events. So the conversations she cites are subject to some caution. But certainly if Mme Albarethad wanted to make money on her memories she would have published them back in the 1930's. Instead shenarrated them only after being urged to do so. I am very pleased that Mm Albaret received national recognitionfrom the French nation for her total dedication to Marcel Proust.

'Monsieur Proust' is based on tape recorded interviews with Marcel Proust's personal assistant/chambermaid Celeste Albaret, made in the 1970's, several decades after Marcel's death. The text has (probably) been altered from the spoken word, and is very clear, consistent and readable. Celeste tells in detail about the last ten years of Proust's life, which he mostly spent in his bed, curtains blocking the light and a layer of cork shutting out noises - writing on 'À la recherche du temps perdu'. Celeste had to attend to all of Prousts routines and whims: he usually woke up late in the afternoon, ate only a croissant and some coffee and sometimes went out in the middle of the night to attend parties, and Celeste had to stay awake and let Marcel in cause he didn't use a key. As time went by the relationship between Marcel and Celeste became closer, and he became more and more dependent on her.'Monsieur Proust' is not only about Marcels charming eccentricities. It also gives a glimpse of Paris in the late 1910's, and some insight into Proust as a writer, the relationship between his writing and memory and the demise of the old society. And the debacle between Proust and Gallimard and Gide when 'Du côté de chez Swann' was first refused (something Proust made them regret).Also, Celeste criticizes some of the established views of Proust given by other commentators, his homosexuality for instance. I don't know how trusted Celeste can be as a narrator, and what may be additions made by the publisher, but 'Monsieur Proust' is a very captivating read.

The pleasure of memoirs is that for all that they allow a circumscribed vision of things they tend to offer coherent narratives of the past, and let you know "what it was like." This famous memoir by Celeste Albaret, Proust's housekeeper for ten years while he was writing his masterpeice, gives us thus a better and more complete view of the writer during his most productive years than could be imagined otherwise. Albaret was not a writer herself--the memoir was composed by others who shaped her oral reminiscences--but this work is beautifully shaped, and flows wonderfully. Almost all the major questions anyone would have about Proust--how he wrote, what he was like, who the bases were for the characters in his novel, and what his relations with his family were like--are answered in due course, and though Albaret retains her biases (she refuses to give much credence to his affairs with his chauffeur and others, for example) she is still as honest as can be. It's clear that she considered knowing and working for Proust the great event of her life, and she feels bound to tell as much as what she saw as she can.

It's a nice companion to Remembrance of Things Past. The author - Proust's housekeeper the last few years of his life - obviously relied quite heavily on her editors. She writes beautifully and has an encyclopedic knowledge of his work, all of which is a little suspicious. But it's an engaging read and certainly underscores the autobiographical nature of Proust's masterpiece.

Most people will be aware this is the account of her fifteen years spent living with Proust til his death.During that period she was his nurse, companion, friend and secretary.She was there when his masterpiece was written.It is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read and I can't recommend it too highly.Theirs was a love affair of a rare and special kind, a marriage of true minds indeed.Superbly edited from taped conversations you almost feel you are there with them and although you know how it is going to end it is still immensely moving.She probably knew Proust better than anybody other than his mother.An indispensable addition to any Proust library and a work of great beauty and charm.

A mandatory reading for fans of Proust.