Proust and the aristocracy

[alastair]

Are the books of Proust the best for information on the aristocracy in the Belle Epouqe ? I'm looking for books on manners and social ritual of the aristocracy from 1890-1914 in England or France fiction or factual X

[mal4mac]

Can novels ever be "the best" for information? That make a lot of stuff up you know :)

But for "manners" and "social ritual" I can't think of anything more detailed than Proust! (Too much detail for me, I found reading him the height of tedium, but then I 'm not that interested in trhe French aristocracy and their hangers on...)

E.M. Forster is good on the tensions between bohemian intellectuals, middle-class aspirants and aristocrats. Try Room with a View and Howards End. In fact, check out check out Old Bloomsbury in general:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsbury_Group#Old_Bloomsbury

Bertrand Russell's biography is very good. He was growing up in that period, and comes from an aristocratic background.

[Des Essientes]

Proust was wrote about the haute bourgeoisie, not the aristocracy.

[hawthorns]

Proust was wrote about the haute bourgeoisie, not the aristocracy.

That's funny, I seem to recall quite a bit on the aristocracy but maybe I'm mistaken. But yeah a lot more on the haute bourgeoisie. I'd imagine it's a pretty good source given his experiences, but the length of the books present a bit of a problem. I'm sure there are more concentrated forms of information on the subject.

[loe]

In my opinion Proust ist one of the finest observers of manners and social rituals of human beings in general. :)

[mal4mac]

That's funny, I seem to recall quite a bit on the aristocracy...

Yeah, just look at the list of characters:

http://tempsperdu.com/achar.html

An endless parade of Ducs and Duchesses, Princes and Princesses... my idea of hell...

[Alexander III]

An endless parade of Ducs and Duchesses, Princes and Princesses... my idea of hell...

How is saying that any different to saying, look at the list of charcters - a bunch of working class bartenders, constuction workers and office clerks...my idea of hell.

As to the subject, Anna Karenina springs to mind staight away, but that is set in the 70's , for the turn of the century, I think your best bet is to look at Henry James

Also, this is not French-english, but D'annunzio spent much time in aristocratic circles, and they feature in his novels, especial his early ones like L'inoccente

[Emil Miller]

A brilliant novel that concerns itself with this subject is Alphonse Daudet's 'Les Rois en Exil', but I don't know if it has been translated into English.
You might also try Emil Zola's 'Son Excellence Eugene Rougon', which deals with French political machinations during the reign of Napoleon III.

[WICKES]

Oscar Wilde wrote almost exclusively about the English aristocracy.

How about Henry James? He and Wilde both observed the English upper classes of the late 19th- early 20th century with the eyes of outsiders (sometimes admiring, sometimes despising, what they saw).

A generation later and I'd have said Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh and Virginia Woolf. Huxley's early novels will give you an idea of the kind of dinner party conversation found among the English intellectual upper classes of the 1920s.

Siegfried Sassoon's memoirs of a foxhunting man is (I think) about life among the English aristocracy before WW1.

[mal4mac]

How is saying that any different to saying, look at the list of charcters - a bunch of working class bartenders, constuction workers and office clerks...my idea of hell.


There aren't many ducks and duckesses who are bartenders, construction workers, and office clerks. So it looks pretty different to me...

I'd be happy to hang out with any boys from the blackstuff "up there" - but can think of very few ducks and duckesses I'd like to encounter - there are exceptions of course... Montaigne, Russell, Tolstoy spring to mind...