Novel
In Search of Lost Time
À la recherche du temps perdu
Marcel Proust · 1913
Opening lines
Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure. Parfois, à peine ma bougie éteinte, mes yeux se fermaient si vite que je n’avais pas le temps de me dire : « Je m’endors. »
For a long time, I went to bed early. Sometimes, my candle barely out, my eyes would close so quickly that I did not have time to say to myself: “I'm falling asleep.”
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from fr.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Seven volumes. Each evening, at Combray, a child waits for his mother's kiss; years later, a madeleine dipped in tea will give him back that whole past. Grown into a young man, he contemplates the aristocratic world of the Guermantes and falls in love from afar with a duchess. At Balbec, a seaside resort, he meets a band of young girls and prefers Albertine among them, toward whom he will feel a tenacious jealousy.
Context
The first volume, rejected notably by the Nouvelle Revue française, was published by Grasset on 14 November 1913, at the author's own expense. The author had begun writing it around 1908 or 1909, according to the sources; the cycle comprises seven volumes, published from 1913 to 1927. The second won the Prix Goncourt in 1919, by six votes to four over Roland Dorgelès's war novel, a choice that caused a scandal.
Who it is for
Seven volumes and very long sentences, which are easier to take in aloud at first. After the first volume, the order is not compulsory.
Prizes and reception
First translated into English under the title Remembrance of Things Past, the cycle is now translated under that of In Search of Lost Time.
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