Beginner Proust I with Lila Azam Zanganeh

The ‘With Book’ option includes a copy of Swann’s Way at a 10% discount.

Exclusive First Access for Members

Meeting Dates:
9/26/23–7/16/24
Fourth Tuesday of Every Month*
5–6pm ET via Zoom
*No Meeting in December; Final Meeting on 7/16/24

“An open book is time regained,” wrote Bernard de Fallois, a legendary French editor and Proustian who, upon dying in 2018, released a trove of previously unpublished Proust stories and caused an earthquake in the field. Marcel Proust, beginning with Swann’s Way (the first of his seven volumes), points the way to the mysterious nature of time. Time is evanescent, and yet may, at any moment, loop back around itself. Swann’s Way is the foundation of the cycle of time, and perhaps its secret, golden thread. Both an exploration and a deciphering of the labyrinth of youth, Swann’s Way tells us how, against all odds, time is a gift if we know to become its lover.

Students are encouraged to use Moncrieff’s translation for ease and consistency within the group.

What to expect from this reading group: Students will discuss Swann’s Way over the course of one year, in ten monthly sessions, paying particular attention to key moments in the narrative and sensorial detail.

Each month, students will be asked to read 50 pages, and the class will re-read several excerpts in close-up.

Lila Azam Zanganeh was born in Paris to Iranian parents. After studying literature and philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, she moved to the United States to teach literature and cinema at Harvard University. She has contributed criticism, interviews and essays to a host of publications including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Le Monde, La Repubblica, and the Paris Review. Her first book, The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness, was the recipient of the 2011 Roger Shattuck Prize and was published worldwide in thirteen languages. Lila serves as a Director on the Board of Trustees for the Vladimir Nabokov Literary Foundation and as a member of the Advisory Board of Libraries Without Border. She has also served as a judge for the Man Booker Prize and the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. Her forthcoming novel, Exit Paradise, will be published in 2024.