Reading Groups

Beginner Proust II: Within a Budding Grove with Lila Azam Zanganeh

10 Sessions 5:00 pm EDT - 6:00 pm EDT September 17 to June 17, 2024

Online via Zoom

The ‘With Book’ option includes the title required for this group at a 10% discount from our Bookstore.

Meeting Dates:
9/17, 10/15, 11/12, 12/10, 1/14, 2/11, 3/18, 4/15, 5/13, 6/17
Held Online via Zoom

In Within a Budding Grove, Marcel Proust continues his illustration of the sensual and mysterious nature of time that he began in Swann’s Way (the first of his seven volumes).

Time is evanescent yet capable of looping back around itself at any moment. Within a Budding Grove goes on weaving the cycle of time, enriching it with the myriad chords and colors of desire (for a girl, a seascape, a painting). Desire, Proust tells us, is the prime mover of the imagination and its secret golden lining. An inquiry into both the labyrinth of youth and the prismatic sheen of first love, Within a Budding Grove tells us how, against all odds, time is a gift if we know to become its lover.

Participants are encouraged to use Moncrieff’s translation of Within a Budding Grove for ease and consistency within the group.

What to expect from this reading group: Participants will discuss Within a Budding Grove over the course of one year, in 10 monthly sessions, paying particular attention to key moments in the narrative and sensorial detail.

What to read before the first meeting: Participants should read the first fifty pages of Within a Budding Grove ahead of the first class. Each month, participants will be asked to read 50 pages, and the group will reexamine several excerpts with a close lens.

Capacity: 20

Please note: All virtual classes are recorded. Please click here for information about our recording policy.

Led by

Lila Azam Zanganeh

Lila Azam Zanganeh

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 2025.

About this series

Reading Groups

Whether you’re looking to catch up on great novels or you’re interested in exploring a new writer or literary period, our reading groups offer high-level literary discussion led by experts in the field.

Groups+Workshops

More Groups+Workshops

Groups+Workshops