A remembrance of things Proust
Marcel Proust, how does Harvard love thee? Let me count the ways: an exhibit of rare letters, now on display at Houghton Library, and, coming later this semester, an online art show, a photography exhibit, a music concert, a film series, and a late-April international conference of literary scholars. All this affection and attention — a sort of Proust spring at Harvard — is inspired by the 100th anniversary of “Swann’s Way,” the first volume of the novel that grew to be the longest ever written. “In Search of Lost Time” — first known as “Remembrance of Things Past” — eventually filled seven volumes, ranged over 4,000 pages (in the Modern Library edition), and brought to literary life something like 2,000 characters. Its eventual size is partly a memento of World War I, which stalled the French publishing industry, giving the dreamy, discursive Proust more time to write. For all its length,...