In Search of Lost Time
On the surface a traditional “Bildungsroman” describing the narrator’s journey of self-discovery, this huge & complex book is also a panoramic & richly comic portrait of France in the author’s lifetime, & a profound meditation on the nature of art, love, time, memory & death. But for most readers it is the characters of the novel who loom the largest: Swann & Odette, Monsieur de Charlus, Morel, the Duchesse de Guermantes, Françoise, Saint-Loup, & so many others — Giants, as the author calls them, immersed in Time.
