But he did read a book that appears to have resulted in an epiphany. The book was Marcel Proust’s A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, a mystical and existential text that spoke to Oppenheimer’s troubled soul. Reading it in the evening by flashlight during his walking tour of Corsica, he later claimed to his Berkeley friend Haakon Chevalier, was one of the great experiences of his life. It snapped him out of his depression. Proust’s work is a classic novel of introspection, and it left a deep and lasting impression on Oppenheimer.
