Rick Anthony Furtak, a philosopher with past work on Kierkegaard, Rilke, Thoreau, and the nature of the emotions, has written an intriguing book on Marcel Proust, which is meant to be “not merely compatible, but continuous, with . . . [Furtak’s] work about emotion, literature, and existential thought” (xi). Its main claim is that, despite the narrator’s many expressions of skepticism, Proust’s Recherche ultimately endorses the view that love—understood not as erotic love alone but broadly as a person’s entire affective orientation of cares and concerns—is, or at least can be, a way of knowing, indeed “a prerequisite of veridical apprehension” (xii).
The book’s style is worth comment; as Proust said in a 1913 interview, “Style is in no way an embellishment” (Essais et articles 255). It’s beautifully written, as one might expect from an author who is also a poet and translator. It also contains 550 endnotes, which...
