“So, too, the truth in politics, when one goes to well-informed men and imagines that one is about to grasp it, eludes one.”
Proust Curious is a podcast miniseries about the experience of reading À la recherche du temps perdu in its entirety.
Hosts Emma Claussen and Hannah Weaver enter the glamorous and bleak world of fin-de-siècle Paris through the ironic gaze of the narrator. With new access to the chicest salons, their witty denizens, and their gauche intruders, the narrator finds himself a spectator at the drama of social interaction – even as his beloved grandmother grows sick and dies. We talk about the advent of new technology (the telephone) and hot debates (the Dreyfus affair). As he enters the world of salons, the narrator uncovers the relativity of truth and the hypocrisy of society through the lens of the Affair, the signal anti-semitic scandal of the time. The architecture of the novel emerges alongside the narrator’s growing social acumen. Plus, we ponder the question, “Where would you like to live?” Join us as we search for lost time and remember things Proust.
Subscribe to Proust Curious on Apple or Spotify to listen and to be notified when new episodes are released. The RSS feed is available here.
View a transcript of the episode here.
resources
Featured image: Jeanne Demarsy by Paul Nadar, Le Théatre numéro 109, 1903 .