Reading and Rereading Proust

One cannot read Proust, one can only reread him. As a matter of fact, who has not heard of the legendary “Madeleine” before opening the book? However, we will try to read Proust’s novel, as far as possible, before rereading it, to read it afresh, with the naivety of the innocent readers who discovered Swann’s Way in 1913, and fell in love. Proust is a classic, but also an innovator, a follower of Balzac and Baudelaire, and a precursor of Barthes and Blanchot. This is why there is so much pleasure – complexity and contradiction – in reading and rereading the Recherche, betwixt and between, connecting centuries, coupling genres.

Our goal will be to closely read together at least four of the seven volumes of the Recherche, the first and last, Swann’s Way and Time regained, and two or three from in-between, Within a Budding Grove, Sodom and Gomorrah and The Fugitive.

Major literary critics will be introduced starting week 3.