フランスが誇る文豪、マルセル・プルースト（1871-1922年）畢生の傑作『失われた時を求めて』を取り上げます。作品中の、記憶、社会、芸術、同性愛、知識、自己理解、自己形成、無意識などの主題の扱いを通し、この超大作をひとつの探求の軌跡として解説します。世界における居場所、他者との真のつながり、芸術が持つ人を変える力、世界・周囲・自分自身に対する理解、性的指向が人とのつながりや自己同一性に与える影響、人生を物語として捉えること、変化や競合する欲望への対処など、プルーストの問いかけるものが私たちにとって重要で興味深いのはなぜなのか考察します。この超大作を読破するのは困難ですが、それは喜びをもたらす経験で、心に変化をもたらす可能性があります。この大著に取り組む価値はそこにあることを示唆しています。
 

• Offers a concise, clear, comprehensive introduction to Proust's magnum opus In Search of Lost Time
• Connects Proust's writing to questions we all have reason to care about: Who am I really? What can I know? How can I know other people? Is knowledge always desirable? How can I find (real, secular) magic in my life?
• Helps the reader get the most out of reading Proust's often intimidating novel

        
100 years after Proust's death, In Search of Lost Time remains one of the greatest works in World Literature. At 3,000 pages, it can be intimidating to some. This short volume invites first-time readers and veterans alike to view the novel in a new way.
   
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was arguably France's best-known literary writer. He was the author of stories, essays, translations, and a 3,000-page novel, In Search of Lost Time (1913-27).
   
This book is a brief guide to Proust's magnum opus in which Joshua Landy invites the reader to view the novel as a single quest--a quest for purpose, enchantment, identity, connection, and belonging--through the novel's fascinating treatments of memory, society, art, same-sex desire, knowledge, self-understanding, self-fashioning, and the unconscious mind.
   
Landy also shows why the questions Proust raises are important and exciting for all of us: how we can feel at home in the world; how we can find genuine connection with other human beings; how we can find enchantment in a world without God; how art can transform our lives; whether an artist's life can shed light on their work; what we can know about the world, other people, and ourselves; when not knowing is better than knowing; how sexual orientation affects questions of connection and identity; who we are, deep down; what memory tells us about our inner world; why it might be good to think of our life as a story; how we can feel like a single, unified person when we are torn apart by change and competing desires. Finally, Landy suggests why it's worthwhile to read the novel itself-how the long, difficult, but joyous experience of making it through 3,000 pages of prose can be transformative for our minds and souls.