Antoine Compagnon is the Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, professor emeritus at the Collège de France, and a member of the Académie française. He is the author of many books on subjects including Montaigne, Baudelaire, Proust, Colette, literary theory, and cultural history.Jody Gladding is a poet who has translated dozens of works from French.

• Introduction1. Ultima Verba2. Menorah3. A Pointless Question?4. “The Same Degree of Heredity as Montaigne”5. La Revue Juive6. “The Style of the Rabbi”7. “Making a Niche for Themselves in the French Bourgeoisie”8. The Zohar or L’Astrée?9. The End of the Postwar Era10. The Baruch Tomb11. Manuscripts RegainedPostscriptAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

In this delicate, detailed account of certain readings of Proust, Compagnon evokes a double destiny: that of Proust as a Jewish writer and that of France as a country where Zionism and assimilation clash and where antisemitism seems to fade only to rise again with a vengeance. The story, which takes us from the 1920s to World War II, is fascinating, troubling and haunted by a discreet, difficult hope of understanding. A masterpiece of historical re-creation.

Antoine Compagnon is the Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, professor emeritus at the Collège de France, and a member of the Académie française. He is the author of many books on subjects including Montaigne, Baudelaire, Proust, Colette, literary theory, and cultural history.Jody Gladding is a poet who has translated dozens of works from French.

• Introduction1. Ultima Verba2. Menorah3. A Pointless Question?4. “The Same Degree of Heredity as Montaigne”5. La Revue Juive6. “The Style of the Rabbi”7. “Making a Niche for Themselves in the French Bourgeoisie”8. The Zohar or L’Astrée?9. The End of the Postwar Era10. The Baruch Tomb11. Manuscripts RegainedPostscriptAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

In this delicate, detailed account of certain readings of Proust, Compagnon evokes a double destiny: that of Proust as a Jewish writer and that of France as a country where Zionism and assimilation clash and where antisemitism seems to fade only to rise again with a vengeance. The story, which takes us from the 1920s to World War II, is fascinating, troubling and haunted by a discreet, difficult hope of understanding. A masterpiece of historical re-creation.

Antoine Compagnon is the Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, professor emeritus at the Collège de France, and a member of the Académie française. He is the author of many books on subjects including Montaigne, Baudelaire, Proust, Colette, literary theory, and cultural history.Jody Gladding is a poet who has translated dozens of works from French.

• Introduction1. Ultima Verba2. Menorah3. A Pointless Question?4. “The Same Degree of Heredity as Montaigne”5. La Revue Juive6. “The Style of the Rabbi”7. “Making a Niche for Themselves in the French Bourgeoisie”8. The Zohar or L’Astrée?9. The End of the Postwar Era10. The Baruch Tomb11. Manuscripts RegainedPostscriptAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

In this delicate, detailed account of certain readings of Proust, Compagnon evokes a double destiny: that of Proust as a Jewish writer and that of France as a country where Zionism and assimilation clash and where antisemitism seems to fade only to rise again with a vengeance. The story, which takes us from the 1920s to World War II, is fascinating, troubling and haunted by a discreet, difficult hope of understanding. A masterpiece of historical re-creation.