“Thus it can be only after one has recognized, not without having had to feel one’s way, the optical illusions of one’s first impression that one can arrive at an exact knowledge of another person, supposing such knowledge to be ever possible.”
Proust Curious is a podcast miniseries about the experience of reading À la recherche du temps perdu in its entirety.
In the second episode of Proust Curious, hosts Emma Claussen and Hannah Weaver slog through the narrator’s first love on the Champs-Élysées and emerge onto the dazzling shore of Normandy, where he travels with his grandmother. We notice that Proust begins to introduce concepts critical to the project: the ongoing tussle between habit and novelty, the social kaleidoscope, the subject matter of art, and the essential perspectivalism of all human relations. We dissect a passage about toenails, classical statuary, and living nymphs. Plus, we’ll answer the question: “What is your favorite virtue?” Join us as we search for lost time and remember things Proust.
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View a transcript of the episode here.
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Featured image: Claude Money, Impression, Sunrise (1872).