Time Well Spent: Jeffrey Swann assesses a study of the influence of Wagner on two of his great literary successors

William Pastor has written a small, but quite meaty book in which he explores and discusses the influence of Wagner on Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and Joyce’s Ulysses. This volume is to be seen in the context of the recent outpouring of works on Wagner’s uniquely powerful and widespread impact on artists and thinkers of many different disciplines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and beyond), most especially Alex Ross’s monumental Wagnerism. In my view, one great asset of Pastor’s work is that he doesn’t limit himself to general trends and lists of names, but rather concentrates on specific works and techniques.