This book combines a Nietzschean reading of Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu with a Proustian reading of time and transcendence in Nietzsche's philosophy. Drawing in particular on Gilles Deleuze's early studies of the two writers, it argues (against Jacques Derrida and Julia Kristeva) that they pursue a parallel programme of overcoming post-Kantian idealism through an emphasis on the materiality of the body and the 'genealogy' of its interpretations. 'Proust's perspectivism' is analysed in the context of Nietzsche's radical epistemological relativism, the key themes of involuntary memory and eternal recurrence are read together as elements in a shared aesthetics of self-creation, and in conclusion the complex temporalities of Nietzsche and Proust's 'untimely' texts are shown to issue into the problematics of the 'postmodern'.
Readership: Academics and students in philosophy, French Studies, German Studies, General and Comparative Literature
Duncan Large, Lecturer in German, University of Wales Swansea
"Admirably combative approach ... engrossing and highly persuasive investigation ... one is sorry to come to the end of this absorbing demonstration of what a sympathetic and keen-eared comparatism can do to reconcile reluctant bedfellows, to their mutual benefit." - Modern Language Review
List of Abbreviations, Editions, and Translations IntroductionNietzsche and Proust? Nietzsche and Proust? 1: Towards a Comparative Analysis: Four Case Studies 2: Proust's Nietzsche 3: Epistemoptics: Proust's Perspectivism 4: In Search of the Self 5: Logics of the Future Perfect Conclusion Appendix Notes Bibliography Index
