Michael McCooe – Literature: In Search of Lost Time

In Search of Lost Time is a novel by Marcel Proust which is written in seven parts. It translates from French to Remembrance of Things Past.

The novel is the story of Proust’s own life, told as an allegorical search for truth, and is one of French fiction’s greatest works of the early 20th Century.

Early life of Proust

In January 1909, Proust was dipping a rusk into his tea and recalled his childhood. It prompted him to begin writing his novel in July. The first novel, Du côté de chez Swann (Swann’s Way) was finished and published in 1912, and he had planned to write a further two sequels.

During the war years, Proust was able to triple the length of his novel, enriching and deepening its feeling, texture, and construction, as well as enhancing the realistic and satirical elements of it. This made it into the profound novel that it is today, having stood the test of time as an achievement of human imagination.

You can read the article in full with Michael McCooe.