The Trial

First published in 1913, Swann's Way by Marcel Proust is one of the most enthralling reading experiences of the twentieth century. It is the first volume of the seven books that comprise In Search of Lost Time (A la recherche du temps perdu, 1913-1927). The novel begins with the narrator's efforts to recapture and understand his own past, by the taste of a madeleine soaked in tea. The narrator's recollections about his own life lead him inevitably to the past of Charles Swann, a family friend the narrator knew as a child. By remembering Swann's love affair with the coquette Odette, the narrator gains insight into his life and the nature of love itself. In looking back at his own life, the narrator confronts the question of what exactly an individual's identity consists of. As he tries to understand his life, he realizes that it is inseparable from the lives of others—his parents, his grandmother, the family's servant Françoise, and family acquaintances, including Charles Swann. The first volume of the work established Marcel Proust as one of the finest voices of the modern age—satirical, confiding, and endlessly varied in his response to the human condition. Swann's Way also stands on its own as a perfect rendering of a life in art, of the past recreated through memory.