Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time Vols. V & VI - The Captive & The Fugitive

“Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”

– Marcel Proust, The Captive & The Fugitive

This ‘second time around’ study is designed specifically for people who, having completed their journey through Proust’s monumental creation at least once, have the urge to do it again.

We continue our voyage through Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time with this, the fifth and sixth volumes (combined), which together consider closely the seductive agony of jealousy. There are one or two spaces in the study alongside people who have already journeyed through the first four volumes. If you are interested in joining the group please use the ‘enquire’ link below to discuss.

Here is how one Salonista describes the pleasure and work of reading Proust: ” This is a velvet jewel of a book that demands the attention of a lover full of enchantment  and obsession, we need not get impatient as all good lovers perfect their art in taking their time.”

Reading Proust teaches the reader to observe how the world is experienced, to be aware that although humans are tempted to give greater weight to the perceptual universe, it is the entwining of memory, idealised experience (dreams) and relationships with what our senses perceive that moulds our consciousness.

JOINING DETAILS:

• Virtual study facilitated by Toby Brothers
• Mondays 3.30-5.30pm (UK time)
• Fifteen meeting study with nine sessions from 15 September to 1 December (no meetings on 29 September, 6 and 13 October), resuming for six weeks from 12 January to 23 February 2026.
• Recommended edition: Vintage Classics (Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright)  
• £400 for 15 meetings (includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes).
• N.B. The eleven meeting study of Volume 7: Time Regained is likely to run from 9 March 2026.