Yet, for me, I've rarely been so delighted by a novel in all my life. Pick any 20 pages and it's unlikely that much will happen - although I believe that's partly because this is the opening book in the series, and there is still much setup. Proust (or, perhaps, his narrator) is absorbed by description and detail. Of course, it's no surprise that most people of my generation would never dream of reading these books, and many who start won't finish. Oh, marvellous independence of the human gaze, tied to the human face by a cord so loose, so long, so elastic that it can stray alone as far as it may choose! I am eager to read the second volume, and excited for the journey I will take with Proust for the rest of my life. It's a portrait filled with endearing and frustrating characters, precise observations about all kinds of humanity, always painful or poignant, hilarious or sly, erudite and insightful. Meanwhile, piecing together a tale that occurred before his youth, the narrator tells us of Charles Swann and his love for Odette de Crecy, in the fractured world of Paris society. In the opening volume, Du côté de chez Swann ( Swann's Way, perhaps better translated as The Way By Swann's), the Scott Moncrieff-twice-updated-by-Kilmartin-and-Enright translation depicts the narrator's youth at Combray, his first crushes, and his elderly reminiscences of a world now gone by. In retrospect, I'm not sad about that, as I feel my heart, soul, and mind are more open to understanding the Frenchman's great 20th century tome with every passing year of my life.

Despite being a lit major, classicist and language-lover, I have somehow lived 28 years without ever committing myself to read Proust. With those words, one of the greatest achievements of Western literature begins.

Swann's way modern library