Someone like Maman 
Elisabeth Ladenson
- Madame Proust: A Biography by Evelyne Bloch-Dano, translated by Alice Kaplan Buy this book
The heroic image of Proust in his cork-lined room, valiantly racing against death to finish his masterpiece, is now so ingrained that it eclipses that of the spoiled 30-year-old who left messages for his mother complaining about noise made by the servants; bullied her into throwing dinner parties for people who sneered at the family; and, later, challenged the father of a young man he had flirted with to a duel because the son had failed to respond with sufficient indignation to rumours about Proust’s sexual tendencies.
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Elisabeth Ladenson is the author of Dirt for Art’s Sake and Proust’s Lesbianism. She teaches at Columbia.
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