SOURCE: Waugh, Teresa. “In Search of a Better Self.” Spectator 278, no. 8803 (19 April 1997): 38.

In the following mixed review, Waugh derides How Proust Can Change Your Life, contending the work contains a contrived and patronizing tone, although she concludes the book paints a vivid picture of Marcel Proust.

Lurking in the world of letters there must somewhere be someone who could write a kindly introduction to Proust's In Search of Lost Time, whereby the reader would be taken by the hand and led gently through the text, skipping a paragraph here, a page or two there, until he or she, like all true admirers of Proust, is swept into the maelstrom of his great circular novel, fearful of ever again missing one word. For there are those, both well-educated and well-read, who still, after numerous attempts, fail to be captivated and thus, missing out on one of life's great pleasures...