Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (1871–1922) was a French novelist whose main work was the seven-volume novel À la recherche du temps perdu, normally translated into English as In Search of Lost Time.
Books by Marcel Proust
Swann's Way
by Lydia Davis (translator) & Marcel Proust
Swann’s Way (Du côté de chez Swann in French) is volume one of Marcel Proust’s monumental autobiographical novel, À la recherche du temps perdu.
“It’s very much about love. It starts out with this beautiful evocation of his mother. It’s talking about parents who die and the weight that has. His whole life is very much in the context of a family. You see the character almost only in context of that significant family. It’s also a wonderful translation by Lydia Davis, who is a terrific writer and a great translator.” Read more...
The best books on Family Stories
Mona Simpson, Literary Scholar
“Proust’s reflection on the nature of time is deep and spread over his writing. Reflect for a moment: the three thousand pages of his magnificent novel, packed with people, emotions, parfums, reflections, are not presented as happening in reality, but as emerging from the memory of the protagonist. A vast universe hidden among the folds of his brain, in the few inches between his ears. Proust’s art thus brings to life a key intuition that we can find in thinkers ranging from St Augustine to Husserl, and which I think is crucial for understanding our experience: the fact that the time of our experience is only weakly related to the time of physics. Mostly, it is a space, a clearing, opened up by our memories and anticipations. What we call time in our daily life is these memories and anticipations.” Read more...
Carlo Rovelli, Physicist
Interviews where books by Marcel Proust were recommended
The best books on Time, recommended by Carlo Rovelli
Our experience of time is only weakly related to the fundamental realities of physics, says the physicist and best-selling author Carlo Rovelli. Here he selects five works for understanding the nature of time in its truer sense.
Stephen Breyer on his Intellectual Influences
US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer talks about the books that have influenced his thinking and explains why reading widely, including literature, is essential for judges and lawyers.
The best books on Memory and the Digital Age, recommended by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger
The Professor of Internet Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute selects books on how memories are made and discusses the effect of digital data storage on our perception of the present and the future
The best books on Family Stories, recommended by Mona Simpson
Family dynamics are changing dramatically in our modern, workaholic age. The novelist – and sister of Steve Jobs, separated at birth – selects five works of fiction that illustrate some truths about families in all their variety
