This is not a book to take on the subway, or squeeze into the odd spare moment. Take it from me that your ROI will be disappointing unless you’re prepared to sit down with it, in a quiet space short on distractions, where your thoughts and Proust’s can mingle freely, over and over and over again. I spent a year reading it, off and on, charging through two volumes in 2-3 months and then taking a much-needed breather before diving back in to the next two. It’s the opposite of a Tweet, or a meme, or a soundbite, or really anything we love about 21st-century communication. ISoLT contains one of the longest sentences in literature, at over 900 words, and Proust doesn’t hesitate to spend the better part of an entire volume on just one or two scenes. Proust died, apparently, not before he finished writing it, but before he finished revising it-otherwise he might have seen, and fixed, some of those “tl dr” notes his editor surely left in the margins. For all that, though, Proust’s style is largely accessible it’s the sheer length of the average sentence, and the work as a whole, that poses the greatest challenge.īecause, yes, In Search of Lost Time is mercilessly long. His tone is intensely intimate and immersive-a sort of six-volume showcase of introversion and introspection. Proust ruminates, alternately, on snobbery, jealousy, deceit, grief, art, identity, and homosexuality. (Involuntary memory occurs in contrast with voluntary memory, or the deliberate recollection of past events.) The most famous scene of the novel occurs early on, when the narrator dips a madeleine into his tea and suddenly remembers doing so years earlier, as a child, at his family’s country home in Combray.īut there’s much more, of course, filling up Proust’s 4,000+ pages.
One of Proust’s central themes is what he calls “involuntary memory,” a phenomenon in which an everyday object or activity evokes a specific memory of the past. In Search of Lost Time is, at its core, a reflection on the nature of time and memory. And when Proust veers into relatable and (thankfully) sensical musings on philosophy and social interaction, it’s mesmerizing in a way I had never encountered before. In Search of Lost Time (1913–1927) is dense, and abstract, and low on both action and dialogue.īut it’s also thoughtful, and insightful, and extraordinarily crafted. Proust is a true test of reader stamina, especially when he veers into complex and (occasionally) nonsensical musings on philosophy and social interaction. Proust: The writer who would rather die than edit
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