Elisabeth Ladenson is the author of Dirt for Art’s Sake and Proust’s Lesbianism. She teaches French and comparative literature at Columbia University.

Shut Up, He Explained

Amtrak’s designated quiet cars ought to be conducive to silence and peaceful contemplation. Turns out they’re tense battlegrounds between the entitled and the noise police.

At the age of 100, it seems that there’s nothing hotter than Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. Elisabeth Ladenson on how he got so damn popular, despite his best intentions.