2025 Readings 14

 One of the obvious measures of how much you love a book it that not only do you have multiple copies of it, but you also have books about the book. So, not only do I have the classic C.K. Scott Moncrieff translation of all seven volumes of Remembrance of Things Past, but I also recently purchased the complete Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of In Search of Lost Time (the more preferred rendering), beginning with Lydia Davis's award-winning translation of Swann's Way. I haven't started the new translation yet, and I may not get to it until Summer 2026 (for several reasons), but I'm definitely looking forward to it. And over the years you pick up books related to the classic work, such as Saul Friedlander's Proustian Uncertainties. For a book that, in reality, not as many people have read it as you would think - or at least less than you would think should have read it - In Search of Lost Time has produced a small library of supporting works. I really liked Friedlander's book, and he focused on key issues such as the role of family in the story, Proust's complicated relationship to Judaism both in real life and in the novel, homosexuality, the influence of The Arabian Nights, the unique position of the narrator in the novel, and classic foundational aspects of the novel such as time, death, and memory. I've read the novel fours (after all, it's only 3300 pages long), but I pick up new things every time, which is why these supporting books are so helpful. For example, here's Friedlander's observation about the nature of the narrator: "Fundamentally, when the author holds the reins, the Narrator fulfills a dual main function: he is the dreamy conveyor of an emotional world, that of childhood, of loves and of pin; he is also the sharp observer of the social currents that swirl around him. As a dreamer, he can unveil aspects and puzzles of the unconscious; as an observer, he is allowed to ferret out the most ridiculous features of the puppets strutting on the social stage, and also their darkest secrets. This dual persona allows him o move from one world to the other and hold the whole story together." On one level the reader already understands this, but, as I always tell my students, the more contextual tools the better. If you're a fan of Proust, or only thinking of taking up the challenge of In Search of Lost Time, I highly recommend Friedlander's book.