Curious about Proust?

Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu is one of the most famous works in French literature. You too might go ‘in search of lost time’ after reading the 4000-word, seven-volume masterpiece, which is the Guinness World Record’s longest book.

But now, thanks to a new podcast by Trinity College Lecturer Dr Emma Claussen, you can discover the Recherche and the life of Proust (1871-1922) without turning a page.

Although of course Dr Claussen and her Columbia University collaborator Professor Hannah Weaver hope that ‘Proust Curious’ will encourage more people to try the Recherche and increase the enjoyment of those already familiar with it.

Dr Claussen writes:

We hope to make Proust accessible to interested listeners. In Search of Lost Time isn’t an easy read and Proust is also often treated as a kind of rarefied monument, a pinnacle of high culture. We aim to cut through the veneration: we want to show that reading his work, all or any of it, is fun and worthwhile.

Equally, you could say that we’re reading it so you don’t have to! Proust Curious is also for someone who’s always been curious about Proust but doesn’t have time to read the longest book ever right now.

In Search of Lost Time is a landmark in French literature and has influenced generations of later writers. It’s best known for the ‘madeleine scene’ in which the main character involuntarily remembers his childhood holidays after dipping the little cake in tea the same way he did in his youth. But beyond the madeleine, there is a whole world to discover.

Proust’s novel is an idiosyncratic attempt to understand memory and to map the relationship between life and art. It gives a highly compelling portrait of his society, including reflections on sexuality, the Dreyfus affair, and shifting class hierarchies.

We think we can offer something novel. We’re literature academics – I am in French Studies and Hannah is in English and Comparative Literature – but we are not Proust specialists.

We enjoy talking about books and we enjoy teaching, including first-year undergraduate courses in French and ‘Literature Humanities.’ We wanted to offer a free, public conversation as a way of exploring one of the most famous French literary works. We have a level of knowledge and critical skill that means we can guide readers through the long, challenging text.

We have one episode about each of the seven volumes of the Recherche, with a summary and thematic analysis of the text. We cover the most important features of the book and some key historical contexts.

We are honest when we get a little bored and confused. We talk about what we like and don’t like about In Search of Lost Time. Among many other things, we have loved his lyrical prose style, his skilful structuring of narrative across those thousands of pages, and above all, his humour! Proust is many things – perhaps what sometimes gets a bit lost is his humour, especially about social awkwardness and pretention.

In this way we aim to dramatize the experience of reading a classic of world literature both for discovery and for pleasure.

Proust Curious is created in collaboration with Public Books. You can subscribe to Proust Curious on Apple or Spotify to listen and to be notified when new episodes are released.