Lesson 7: A beginner's guide to Marcel Proust & SWANN'S WAY

You quickly collate the facts of Proust’s life into a sterile skeleton of bullet points:

He’s born in July of 1871. (A year like a ripple in pond. Does that number mean a thing? Does it mean anything when attributed to a bookmark in the chronology of our man-made history? No, not to you.)

His father is a French Catholic doctor, well regarded. His mother comes from a wealthy Jewish family.

He spent his childhood summers in the towns Illiers and Auteuil, which become the launchpad for his fictiona...