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With the research of time lost is a Romance of Marcel Proust, written between 1908 - 1909 and 1922 and published between 1913 and 1927 through seven volumes, whose last three appeared after the death of the author. Rather than the account of a given sequence of events, this work is interested not in the memory of the narrator but in a reflection on the literature: “I had misfortune to begin my book with the word “I” and at once it was believed that, instead of seeking to discover general laws, I analyzed myself with feel individual and hateful word” Marcel Proust.

The novel is published in seven volumes:

On the side from Swann (on account of author at Grasset in 1913, then in a version modified at Gallimard in 1919) (text on Wikisource)
In the shade of the young girls in flowers (1919, at Gallimard; receives the Prix Goncourt the same year)
the side of Guermantes (in 2 volumes, at Gallimard (1921 - 1922)
Sodome and Gomorrhe I and II (at Gallimard, 1922-1923)
captive the (posth. 1925)
Albertine disappeared (posth. 1927) (original title: Fugitive the )
Time found (posth. 1927)

It is necessary to keep in mind by considering this cutting that its writing and its publication were done in parallel, and that the design even as Proust had of its novel evolved/moved during this process. This cutting is thus more the fruit of the circumstances since a reflection of choice of the author.

The first volume starts with an evocation of the surge of memories which attack the narrator in the state of half-sleep, where the Self-awareness is sufficiently deadened not to put at the step a Raison the most improbable daydreams. The narrator thus rebuilds a very compartmental image of his childhood in the village of Combray, on the basis of these involuntary memory that similar feelings make him return. It is only by one effort of will that he arrives finally, while being based on the singular evocation which the taste of small a madeleine brings to him soaked in the, to extract from deadened shares of its memory a complete image of the feelings and feelings of its childhood. This first part, entitled Combray , presents all the reasons for work on the memory which will make the screen of the entire novel, to find its result in Time found .

a love of Swann , the second part of On the side from Swann , is often published separately. This work tells the sentimental adventures of Charles Swann with Odette de Crécy. As it is rather short and independent of the remainder of work, one often regards it as a good introduction to the Recherche and one for this reason studies it in the schools. The reader of Middle Age or young adult finds a necessarily little itself in this portrait of Swann in love which sees its love poked by contrarieties that it meets.

Synopsis

It is difficult to try to summarize the Recherche without falling into the caricature, as in the sketch of the Monty Python organizing a “Contest of best summarized of Proust in 15 seconds”. One will simply point out, as memorandum, the principal elements of the narrative framework.

The narrator, hypersensitive young man born in a Parisian middle-class family towards the end of the 19th century, wants to become writer. However, fashionable temptation diverts it a long time its main objective. Attracted by mirage of aristocracy or of vacation resorts with mode (like Balbec, city of the coast Norman whose Cabourg is the model), it grows at the same time as it discovers the world, the love, the existence of the Homosexualité. The disease and the war, which will cut it world, will make him become aware of the extreme vanity of fashionable temptation and its aptitude for becoming finally writer to fix wasted time.

One can also read the test of Gerard Genette: “How the small Marcel became writer” ( Figures ).

Elements of reflection

The step of Proust is paradoxical: in research, the study of its personal life in its least details, in a very specific medium (upper middle classes and French aristocracy of the beginning of the 20th century) it reaches the universal one.

Philosophy, the esthetism of the work of Proust cannot however be extracted completely from their time:

the philosophy of Bergson,
the Impressionism,
music of Debussy,
the Business Dreyfus.

Its style remains very particular. Its rather long sentences, if they point out the style of the Duc of Saint-Simon, one of the authors whom it generally quotes, require a particular breath to join the final point. Its contemporaries testify that it was with little is necessary of it the spoken language of the author, who was however asthmatic.

This particular style translates a will to seize reality in all its dimensions, in all its possible perceptions, all the facets of the prism of the various speakers. The concerns of the impressionists were joined: reality has direction only through perception, real or imaginary, that the subject has some.

The prism is not only that of the various actors, but it is also that of the author who is in various visual angles with the time which passes, the point of view of of the present moment, the point of view of the moment spent, the point of view of the moment spent such as it revives it at the present.

Work is not limited to this psychological and introspective dimension, but also analyzes, in an often pitiless way, the company of its time: opposition between the aristocratic sphere of Guermantes and the parvenu middle-class woman of Verdurin, for which it is necessary to add the world of the servants represented by Francoise. With the wire of the volumes, work reflects the history of its time, since the controversies of the Affaire Dreyfus until the war of 1914-1918.

This complexity brings closer the cycle to To the research of time lost of “novel-world” like the human Comédie or the Rougon-Macquart .

Main characters

the narrator;
his/her mother;
his/her grandmother
Albertine;
Francoise;
Charles Swann: inspired by Charles Haas (1833-1902);
Odette (Mrs Swann);
Gilberte Swann;
Robert of Saint-Wolf;
the baron de Charlus;
the Duchess of Guermantes: inspired in particular by Mrs. Straus and the Countess Greffulhe;
Mrs Verdurin.

A extensive list of the characters of Research is also available.

Guides of reading

The volume of text represented by the Recherche does not make it possible to read integrality in only once of it. To help the readers who did not take notes, here some synthetic articles likely to be used as memorandum:

List of the characters of “To the research of time lost”
List of the places of “To the research of time lost”
Chronology of the events of “To the research of time lost”

Editions

The French editions of Research currently available are listed below.

Pleiad : edition in 4 volumes
Folio
Garnier-Flammarion : edition in 10 volumes
Books : edition in 3 volumes
Delcourt : an adaptation of Research as a cartoon is in hand by Heuet.
Fourthly : complete text in quarto
Proustpourtous : edition shortened into 1 only volume of the 7 volumes of “To the research of time lost”

A detailed description of the editions of “To the research of time lost” will be used for those which want to locate the passages of Research quoted in Wikipedia, whose articles refer to the Garnier-Flammarion edition.

Film adaptations

a love of Swann (1984, of Volker Schlöndorff with Jeremy Irons and Ornella Muti)
time found (1999, of Raoul Ruiz with Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Béart and John Malkovich)
the Prisoner (2000, of Chantal Akerman)

External bonds

electronic Texts of the first 3 volumes: Project electronic Gutenberg
Text of Time found : on Gallica
electronic Texts electronic Library of Quebec: With the research of time lost , Gallimard edition of 1946-47.
On the spot of Research (It, Paris, Trouville and still Trouville), the http://www.terresdecrivains.com site offers a short presentation, all the information to visit and especially, very beautiful photographs.
the Company of the Friends of Marcel Proust and the Museum of Aunt Léonie with It: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/marcelproust/
the researchers and amateurs of provided bibliographies will find their happiness by visiting the site of the Research center of Kolb-Proust which, after complete digitalization of the funds, will become one of the best resources on the writer: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/kolbp/homef.html
On the vocabulary of Research: this page synthesizes the results of a work of statistics on the words of Research ( the Vocabulary of Proust by BROWNISH Etienne, Éditions Slatkine Champion 1983).

Readings

How Proust can change your life , Alain de Botton, 10x18.
" Proust and signes" , Gilles Deleuze

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