MARCEL PROUST'S SEARCH FOR LOST TIME

THE WORLDWIDE SUMMARIZE PROUST CHALLENGE

In 1972 the English television show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, broadcast  'The Summarize Proust Competition’ in which contestants were required to summarize all seven volumes of In Search of Lost Time in fifteen seconds, first in evening dress and then in a bathing costume. One group of contestants sang their entry in madrigals but still failed to win. Eventually the prize was awarded to the girl with the largest breasts. To see a copy of that show on YouTube please click here.

To summarize Proust in fifteen seconds, even in the briefest bikini, is probably not possible, but Patrick Alexander's new guide  Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time, does include a 600 word summary of all seven volumes which can be read in less than 3 minutes. Click here to see it on YouTube. We hope to build a YouTube collection of people reading this summary in various places around the world from the top of the Eiffel Tower or a gondola in Venice to the beaches of Miami or the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

Whoever successfully posts a reading on YouTube will receive a personalized and signed copy of Patrick's new book, Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time.

Six Hundred Word Summary of A la recherche du temps perdu

1. Swann’s Way: The first part of this volume describes ‘Marcel’s family vacation at Combray, their country walks along the two ‘ways’; their relationship with various neighbors, including Charles Swann, and ‘Marcel’s fascination with the aristocratic Guermantes. The second part tells the story of Swann’s unhappy love affair with the courtesan Odette de Crecy at the salon of Mme. Verdurin. The volume’s final section describes the friendship between Marcel and Gilberte, the daughter of Swann and Odette – now Madame Swann.

2. Within a Budding Grove: The first half describes ‘Marcel’s adolescence in Paris in two upper middle-class households; that of his parents and that of the Swanns. The second half takes place in Balbec on the Normandy coast where he stays in the Grand Hotel with his grandmother. The Paris section describes hilarious haute-bourgeois pretensions while the Balbec section contains equally hysterical descriptions of provincial bourgeois pretensions. Recovered from his infatuation with Gilberte, Marcel now falls in love with every girl he sees, of which there are many. He makes friends with Robert de Saint-Loup, and his uncle Baron de Charlus.

3. The Guermantes Way:      ‘Marcel’s family move next door to the Paris residence of the Duke and Duchess of Guermantes and Marcel becomes obsessed with getting acquainted. He spends weeks at a military academy with their cousin, Robert Saint-Loup whom he had met at Balbec. Eventually Marcel is accepted into the magic circle of the Guermantes and the Faubourg St. Germain.

4. Cities of the Plain: Continuing his social success in the Faubourg St. Germain, Marcel also discovers the hidden homosexual world of the Guermantes’ Baron Charlus. On his second visit to Balbec he becomes part of the ‘little clan’ of the Verdurins, rekindles his love affair with Albertine and discovers the world of lesbianism.  

5. The Captive:  Marcel brings Albertine to live with him in Paris where he treats her more like a captive. Obsessively jealous, he discards his social circle and alternately tries to please her or to leave her.  Above all he tortures himself thinking about, asking about and neurotically thwarting any possible indulgence in her lesbian tastes. Meantime, Charlus’ public behavior becomes increasingly outrageous until he is publicly disgraced by the now influential Verdurins. Albertine leaves without warning and disappears.

6. The Fugitive: Marcel gradually recovers from the departure and subsequent death of Albertine. He rediscovers Gilberte who, with her mother Odette, is now accepted by smart Society while the memory of her father Swann is repressed and destroyed. Marcel visits Venice with his mother and learns by letter of Saint-Loup’s marriage to Gilberte. After his marriage, Saint-Loup becomes an active and promiscuous homosexual.

7. Time Regained: Visiting Gilberte at her home in Combray Marcel learns that Swann’s Way and the Guermantes’ Way are not irreconcilable. The war affects everyone: Robert dies a hero at the front, Charlus haunts the male brothels of wartime Paris. M, still an unsuccessful writer, returns to Paris after the war and is invited to an afternoon party at the Princess de Guermantes. All the novel’s characters, or those still living, are at the party but everyone has changed. Time has destroyed everything. Even the new Princess de Guermantes turns out to be the widowed Mme. Verdurin. Marcel realizes that memory can only be recaptured and Time defeated through great art. With a sense of great joy, in the middle of the party, he realizes that his vocation is to write a great novel and thus to bring the past back to life.