Swann's Way

Swann's Way (1913) is the first volume of Marcel Proust's seven-part novel In Search of Lost Time. Written while Proust was virtually confined to his bedroom from a lifelong respiratory illness, Swann's Way is a story of memory, history, family, and romance from a master of Modernist literature. Praised by Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Michael Chabon, and Graham Greene, In Search of Lost Time explores the nature of memory and time while illuminating the history of homosexuality in nineteenth century Europe. For a long time I used to go to bed early." Alone in his bedroom, the narrator meditates on sleep, dreams, and the passing of time. Spurred into memory by the taste of a madeleine dipped in a cup of lime blossom tea, he recalls his childhood in Combray, a rural village on the outskirts of Paris. Slowly, faces and names from the past come back to him-he recalls a neighbor named Swann, whose promising marriage proved disastrous; his Jewish friend Bloch, who introduced him to literature; and the walks he would take with his parents through the beautiful countryside. As he grows and learns, he begins to recognize the reality concealed by convention: the secret liaisons between lovers; the petty competitions of artists; the fleeting nature of affection and lust alike. Written in flowing prose, Swann's Way is a masterpiece of twentieth century fiction that continues to entertain and astound over a century after it appeared in print.
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Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (10 July 1871 - 18 November 1922), better known as Marcel Proust, was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier rendered as Remembrance of Things Past), published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927: Swann's Way, In the Shade of Blooming Young Girls, The Guermantes Walk, Sodom and Gomorrah, The Captive Girl, Vanished Albertine, and Time Found Again. He is considered by English critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century.
Begun in 1909, when Proust was 38 years old, À la recherche du temps perdu consists of seven volumes. Graham Greene called Proust the "greatest novelist of the 20th century", and W. Somerset Maugham called the novel the "greatest fiction to date." Proust died before he was able to complete his revision of the drafts and proofs of the final volumes, the last three of which were published posthumously and edited by his brother, Robert.
The book was translated into English by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, appearing under the title Remembrance of Things Past between 1922 and 1931. Scott Moncrieff translated volumes one through six of the seven volumes, dying before completing the last. This last volume was rendered by other translators at different times. The title In Search of Lost Time, a literal rendering of the French, has gained usage in modern times.