Swann's Way
by Marcel Proust · Du côté de chez Swann
Assigned by 2 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1913
- Form
- Novel
- Language
- French
- Length
- Long · 450 pp300 to 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Difficult4 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendSwann's Way, translated by Lydia DavisPenguin Classics, 2004Close to Proust's sentences and free of Scott Moncrieff's embroidery; the Modern Library Kilmartin-Enright text is the other standard.
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The first volume of In Search of Lost Time, published at the author's expense in 1913. Combray recalls the narrator's childhood summers in a provincial town, his anguish waiting for his mother's goodnight kiss, and the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea that brings the whole past back. Swann in Love, a novel within the novel set before the narrator's birth, tells how the cultivated Charles Swann fell in love with the courtesan Odette, was consumed by jealousy, and married her after his love had died. A short third part, Place-Names, describes the narrator's boyhood love for their daughter Gilberte.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Swann's Way are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
