Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time: Volume I, The Way by Swann's (evening)

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

Who hasn’t gazed at this mountain of Modernism and felt daunted, or wondered what could possibly take any writer more than three thousand pages and six or seven volumes to say?

In our study, we will enter the Proustian universe through the first volume: this will give readers a glimpse of the breadth and purpose of this carefully constructed creation that Proust uses to reflect on the workings of the mind, memory, imagination and the role of art. Harold Bloom cites In Search of Lost Time as ‘the greatest literary work of comic jealousy’. Proust uses social critique, abundant detail, lyric descriptions and philosophical query to portray a sensitive young mind engaging with the world and human relationships. The narrator’s incredible vision and unique voice develop over the course of the volumes. By studying this first volume, you will acquire the tools needed to complete the epic on your own if you are inspired, or continue with the Salon study if this is working for you. Could there be a better moment in history to go in search of Lost Time?

This will be the eighth troop I have led through this massive work and for the first time I will be joined by the amazing Ralph Kleinman as co-facilitator. Please be assured that registering for the first volume does NOT commit you to continuing. However, even though this involves two and a half years of reading together, most people choose to stay the course (some might say become addicted) and find the work immensely satisfying.

I would say simply that my time in Proust has changed the way I understand my relationship to the world of art and experience, and 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.”

SALON DETAILS

• Nine week virtual study, 16 October – 18 December 2023 for first time readers of In Search of Lost Time (please note that we are also offering a ‘second time around’ study for those who have already completed their first encounter with Proust’s work).
• N.B. No study session on 30 October
• Two options: Mondays 1.00 pm – 3.00 pm or 6.00 pm – 8.00 pm
• Facilitated by Salon Director, Toby Brothers and Ralph Kleinman
• Cost £270 (includes notes and critical resources)
• Recommended edition: In Search of Lost Time: Volume I, The Way By Swann’s, by Marcel Proust, translated by Lydia Davis, Penguin Modern Classics, ISBN 978-0141180311

A little background and encouragement:

Proust’s writing requires a wide-awake mind as the reader is drawn into dissecting the world as it is experienced and the way our minds decorate and create memories, values and paradigms of understanding. This sounds so dry; the wonder is how deeply sensual Proust’s work is — he is most concerned with the experience of intimacy and how this dance between two beings is fractured and re-imagined through the lens of perception.

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.