Ranking Each Volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time
The volumes of the classic novel, arbitrarily ranked for you.
I recently had the privilege of reading Marcel Proust’s 20th century masterpiece In Search of Lost Time (also known in English as Remembrance of Things Past, or in the original French as À la recherche du temps perdu) in its entirety. Reading this work was an emotional rollercoaster: while it is true it is filled with passion and philosophy, a few sections are mere documentations of gossip around the Parisian elites of the Belle Époque. Nonetheless, I still learned a lot from perusing its pages. The following is a ranking of each of the seven volumes that compose this work — ranked not by their literary merit or historical significance, but rather by how much I personally enjoyed them. Proust would probably remind me, as he often does throughout the novel, that while I read his novel I was also adding my feelings and experiences to the experience. Therefore, perhaps I recall most pleasantly the volumes I read while I was feeling better. Who can tell?
Without further ado, here is the ranking by most to least enjoyable:
- In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleur)
The second installment of the Recherche was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1919, immediately pleasing critics. This volume follows the narrator’s naïve love for Gilberte Swann, the daughter of a friend of his family, as well as his vacation in the (fictional) beach resort of Balbec in Normandy. His crush on Gilberte would allow the narrator to develop his theory of love, which he would refer back to in the later volumes. Even better is his séjour in Balbec, where he evolves from a shy, anxious teen to one that follows a group of cool girls and learns from impressionist painter Elstir. The last few pages of this volume are pure aesthetically pleasing, blissful prose, so it is only natural it became immediately a hit upon publication.
2. The Fugitive (Albertine disparue)
There is some controversy regarding the sixth installment of Proust’s magnum opus: Proust did not have time to correct it, or so we thought, until his niece Suzy Mante-Proust found a version where he had deleted over 100 pages of it in the 1980s. Nonetheless, it is the longer version that most people are acquainted with and the one that flows better with the rest of the plot.
Albertine disparue is the emotional height of the full series. It begins rather abruptly when the narrator realizes his lover Albertine has escaped from his apartment and shortly after dies tragically while riding a horse in the countryside. Much of the beginning reads more like a treatise on grief and love rather than a novel, and that’s what makes this volume so interesting. The plot remains rather static until near the end, when the narrator briefly travels to Venice with his mother. Proust is, in my opinion, at his most exquisite when he spells out his feelings like a philosopher, so this quickly became one of my favorite volumes.
3. Sodom and Gomorrha (Sodome et Gomorrhe)
Literary scholars, particularly those working with queer theory and sexuality studies, have had a lot of fun with the fourth volume of Proust’s novel. It is quite obvious why: he discusses explicitly gays and lesbians. In fact, the novel starts with a rather detailed — almost taxonomical — discussion of homosexuality after the narrator spies Charlus having sex with Jupien. He seems quite outraged, yes, but at the end concludes there is something wonderful or magical about homosexuals being able to find each other in spite of the obstacles society sets for them.
Later on, the narrator is particularly tormented by his belief that his dear Albertine might be attracted to women and might have acted upon her attraction. An attempt at reconstructing Albertine’s defiant sexual practices will be the focus of the next two volumes.
4. Finding Time Again (Le Temps retrouvé)
The conclusion of the novel is both magnificent and perplexing. As in with Albertine disparue, there is a section that is more reminiscent of a treatise than of a novel: one in which the narrator discusses the meaning of art and his desire to write a fantastic book before passing away. This section is in the middle of a number of interactions with people from Parisian society who like him have aged, as well with a description of WWI Paris. The fact that the passing of time has eroded the physical and cognitive abilities of the narrator is clear by the rather compact ending: one feels as if the novel is slipping from one’s hand like a few grains of sand in the last few pages.
5. The Prisoner (La prisonnière)
This volume describes the period that the narrator and his dear Albertine lived together in his Parisian apartment. The joys and torments of love are described in rich detail. The scenes of Paris are particularly vibrant and colorful — very reminiscent of the poetry of Baudelaire that appreciates urban spaces and people, too.
6. Swann’s Way (Du côté de chez Swann)
When I first read Swann’s Way last summer, I was rather puzzled by how slowly the plot moved and how much attention the narrator paid to everything around him. When I read it a second time, I admired better the intricate descriptions of Combray, the French village where the narrator would spend time with his aunt Léonie.
The second part, aptly titled Un amour de Swann, takes us back in time when Charles Swann was courting Odette de Crécy. How this love unfolds will have a variety of repercussions for the plot of the rest of the work. And, honestly, it is a highlight of the entire series. It reads as a romantic novel-within-a-novel and has inspired many film adaptations.
The first volume ends with a foreshadowing of the narrator’s short-lived affair with Swann’s daughter Gilberte.
7. The Guermantes’ Way (Le Côté de Guermantes)
I placed the third installment of the novel last because it goes a little heavy on keeping track of the Parisian elite, with Proust dropping too many names too quickly while the narrator is at an elegant soirée. It is in this regard very reminiscent of the first third of the 17th century novel La princesse de Clèves by Madame de Lafayette.
In spite of this, it is perhaps the richest novel from a sociohistorical perspective. Proust shows us through the behavior and conversation of the rich what society was like at the time. The narrator, who started obsessed with the aristocratic Guermantes family, soon realizes they are not very special — in fact, they are shallow and declining in prestige. The discussions around the Dreyfus Affair have particularly attracted the attention of historians interested in French Jews at this point in time.
