Proust and His Banker: In Search of Time Squandered
By Gian Balsamo
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
The steady hand that kept Proust financially afloat despite speculative ventures and extravagant pursuits of love
What Marcel Proust wanted from life most of all was unconditional requited love, and the way he went after it—smothering the objects of his affection with gifts—cost him a fortune. To pay for such extravagance, he engaged in daring speculations on the stock exchange. The task of his cousin and financial adviser, Lionel Hauser, was to make sure these speculations would not go sour. In Proust and His Banker, Gian Balsamo reveals that Proust was quite aware of the advantageous trade-off between financial indulgence and artistic inspiration; his liberal squandering of money provided the grist for fictional characters and incidents of surprising effectiveness, both in the artistic sphere and later on in the commercial one. But Hauser was not aware of this odd aspect of Proust's creativity, nor could he have been since the positive returns from the writer's masterpieces were late in coming.
Focusing on more than 350 letters between Proust and Hauser and drawing on records of the Rothschild Archive and financial data assembled from the twenty-one-volume Kolb edition of Proust's letters, Balsamo reconstructs Proust's finances and provides a fascinating window into the writer's creative and speculative process. Balsamo carefully follows Proust's financial activities, including investments ranging from Royal Dutch Securities to American railroads to Eastern European copper mines, his exchanges with various banks and brokerage firms, his impetuous gifts, and the changing size and composition of his portfolio. Successes and failures alike provided material for Proust's fiction, whether from the purchase of an airplane for the object of his affections or the investigation of a deceased love's intimate background. Proust was, Balsamo concludes, a master at turning financial indulgence into narrative craftsmanship, economic costs into artistic opportunities.
Over the course of their fifteen-year collaboration, the banker saw Proust squander three-fifths of his wealth on reckless ventures and on magnificent presents for the men and women who struck his fancy. To Hauser the writer was a virtuoso in resource mismanagement. Nonetheless, Balsamo shows, we owe it to the altruism of this generous relative, who never thought twice about sacrificing his own time and resources to Proust, that In Search of Lost Time was ever completed.
Related to Proust and His Banker
Related ebooks
Proust & His Banker: In Search of Time Squandered Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Confessions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essential Rousseau: Confessions, Emile & The Social Contract Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRousseau: Confessions, Emile & The Social Contract Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConfessions & The Social Contract Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRousseau: The Social Contract & Confessions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConfessions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Illustrated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConfessions (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Emile, Confessions & The Social Contract (3 Books in One Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Confessions of Jean Jacques Rouss Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Volume 01 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Good European: Essays and Arguments Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsProust For Beginners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Confessions: New Revised Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Fortune of the Rougons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shenandoah: A Military Comedy. Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Nabob Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 Boule de Suif and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgainst Nature (À Rebours) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Temptation of Saint Anthony Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFamiliar Studies of Men and Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMadame De Treymes, And Three Novellas Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hawthorne (English Men of Letters Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHawthorne Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tolstoy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Temptation of St. Anthony Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Villa Rubein: "Love has no age, no limit; and no death." Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Biographies For You
The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Moveable Feast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confessions of a Bookseller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Writer's Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare: The World as Stage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dad on Pills: Fatherhood and Mental Illness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Real Lolita: A Lost Girl, an Unthinkable Crime, and a Scandalous Masterpiece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil and Harper Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writers and Their Notebooks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Very Best of Maya Angelou: The Voice of Inspiration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Teacher Man: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woman Who Could Not Forget Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5These Precious Days: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5James Baldwin: A Biography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Incest: From "A Journal of Love": The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1932–1934 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Molly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Distance Between Us: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It: A Memoir of My Irish Boyhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Proust and His Banker
0 ratings0 reviews