This, volume 1 of a new(ish) edition of Proust’s magnum opus In Search of Lost Time, is slow-moving but totally immersive. So slow-moving that even the event that arguably kick-starts the whole extended novel, the famous episode where the narrator’s childhood memories bubble up after tasting a madeleine, doesn’t happen until about 40 pages in. And even then he spends a couple of pages struggling to remember before the memories start appearing.
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This wry and trenchant book shows how Proust’s book is full of lessons we can apply to our own lives. It could be titled “All I Need to Know About Life I Learned from In Search Of Lost Time.” There are other books claiming that you can learn all you need from kindergarten, or from Little Golden Books, or even your cat. But de Botton’s claim actually seems plausible given the depths of detail Proust put in his book.
I remember a character in Gilbert Adair’s rollicking The Key of the Tower who always carried a volume of Proust, and often whipped it out and read some apposite quotation. This is how people used to use their bibles, as de Botton points out in his recent book Religion for Atheists. I would like to know a book this well. I have never read Proust, but after reading de Botton I really am quite keen to have a go. I give myself 5-10 years.