Word: valetudinarian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...clef, Davenport-Hines shows the parallels between Proust and his fictional narrator, real figures and the fabricated ones. Born in Paris to a rich Jewish mother and a Catholic physician father, Proust was a nervous, asthmatic child who grew up to be, in Davenport-Hines' phrase, "the most famous valetudinarian in literary history." His mother was his life's obsession. His father, ironically, made his reputation studying emotional disorders. Proust did military service before throwing himself into the Paris salon scene. There he painstakingly extracted every minute detail of his surroundings. As he observed, "The writer, long before he knew...