Table of Contents

Preface

1. Love and the Meaning of Life
2. On Possibility and Significance
3. Skepticism and Perspective: The Elusiveness of Truth
4. On Loving Badly and Discovering Truth Nonetheless
5.

About the Author

Rick Anthony Furtak is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colorado College. His work is focused on the moral psychology of the emotions, the relations between philosophy and literature, and the unique spirit of existential thought. He is past President of the Søren Kierkegaard Society. His translations from Rainer Maria Rilke and a book of his own poems are among his most recent publications.

Reviews

In this lucid and beautifully written book, Rick Anthony Furtak explores the infinite folds of the heart as it closes and opens to reality -- the reality of the world, and the reality of the self. His inquiry into the truthfulness of love in Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu crosses seamlessly between literature, philosophy, and psychology, illuminating the grounds of perception and value.
*Yi-Ping Ong, Associate Professor of Comparative Thought and Literature, Johns Hopkins University*

A hundred years on, Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu remains the leading candidate for The Great Philosophical Novel. Rick Furtak has written a great philosophical book to accompany that novel, a book that helps us navigate the complex, often contradictory statements of Proust's narrator and reveals the coherent philosophical sensibility that lies beneath. Furtak is the ideal guide to a potentially intimidating but profoundly rewarding and enriching literary work. Readers will find it both informative and inspiring, and will be inspired by it, I hope, to return to Proust's novel.
*Troy Jollimore, Author of Love's Vision and Earthly Delights: Poems*

Once in a rare while, a book comes along that makes you rethink everything you believed about Proust; Love, Subjectivity, and Truth is just such a book. It is original, persuasive, and as clear as it is erudite, and it has persuaded me to see matters of love and knowledge in an entirely new way. Elegantly written, and even moving at times, this is the best book on Proust I've read in many years.
*Joshua Landy, Author of The World According to Proust*

This carefully researched book treats Proust fairly without at any time allowing the secondary sources - including not only major entries in Proust scholarship, but also moral psychology, phenomenology, and philosophical scepticism - to make of Proust's novel merely an example...This book makes a compelling argument about Proustian subjectivity with all of its (perhaps errant) truth claims, but also reminds us what makes À la recherche worth reading in the first place.
*French Studies*

This book makes a compelling argument about Proustian subjectivity with all of its truth claims, but also reminds us what makes À la recherche worth reading in the first place.
*Bryan Counter, French Studies*