Support H-Net | Buy Books Here | Help Support the NBN and NBN en Español on Patreon | Visit New Books Network en Español!
- African Studies
- African American Studies
- American Politics
- American Studies
- American South
- American West
- Asian American Studies
- Australian and New Zealand Studies
- British Studies
- Canadian Studies
- Caribbean Studies
- Central Asian Studies
- Chinese Studies
- East Asian Studies
- Eastern European Studies
- European Politics
- French Studies
- German Studies
- Iberian Studies
- India Studies
- Indian Ocean World
- Iranian Studies
- Irish Studies
- Israel Studies
- Italian Studies
- Japanese Studies
- Korean Studies
- Latino Studies
- Latin American Studies
- Mexican Studies
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Native American Studies
- Pacific Studies
- Polish Studies
- Russian and Eurasian Studies
- Southeast Asian Studies
- South Asian Studies
- Turkish Studies
- Ukrainian Studies
- Western European Studies
- World Affairs
- Animal Studies
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Business, Management, and Marketing
- Media
- Critical Theory
- Disability Studies
- Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
- Education
- Economics
- Finance
- Geography
- Gender Studies
- Genocide Studies
- Higher Education
- Human Rights
- Journalism
- Language
- Law
- LGBTQ+ Studies
- National Security
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Policing, Incarceration, and Reform
- Political Science
- Politics & Polemics
- Public Policy
- Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work
- Sociology
- Sound Studies
- Sports
- Urban Studies
- Big Ideas
- Celebration Studies
- Co-Authored
- Cover Story
- Historical Materialism
- History Ex Silo
- Interpretive Political and Social Science
- Invested Investor
- Landscape Architecture
- Late Antiquity
- Mormonism
- NBN Book of the Day
- NBN Seminar
- Postscript: Conversations on Politics and Political Science
- Practical History
- Preparing for Life After Grad School
- Psychology and Climate Change
- Syriac Studies
- The Chair: In The Room at the Fed
- New Books with Miranda Melcher
Dec 15, 2022
On Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time"
A Discussion with Elisabeth Ladenson
Summary
The French writer Marcel Proust was fascinated by life. But he was even more interested in how we perceive life. In 1908, when he was in his late 30s, he began to write a novel that explored themes of memory, identity, and the passage of time. This project consumed him until he died in 1922. By the end, his novel came out at more than 1.2 million words—that’s 3,000-4,000 pages depending on the edition. Much of the work was inspired directly from his life, sometimes memories of the past, and sometimes experiences that were unfolding in the present. In English, the novel goes by the title In Search of Lost Time. Although it does have a plot of sorts, this book is more about ideas, and less about a storyline. Elisabeth Ladenson is Professor of French and Comparative Literature and General Editor of Romanic Review at Columbia University. She is the author of Proust’s Lesbianism. Michael Lucey is Professor in the French department at University of California Berkeley. He is the author of What Proust Heard: Novels and the Ethnography of Talk See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm.
Related Topics
Your Host
Zachary Davis
Zachary Davis is the host of Ministry of Ideas and Writ Large and the Editor-in-Chief of Radiant.