The Low and Slow Book Club Reads Swann's Way

The Low and Slow Book Club will be back on January 13th to journey through Swann's Way, the first volume of Marcel Proust's masterpiece In Search of Lost Time. Proust is one of those intimidating names in the history of world literature, his name synonymous with long books and even longer sentences. Not to fear, though, as the Low and Slow Book Club, as always, will work through this French master collaboratively and at a pace that allows for deep exploration. In Search of Lost Time follows the development of Proust's nameless narrator from his early childhood on through early adulthood. Swann's Way details the early days of the narrator's childhood, specifically his holidays and vacation in the French village of Combray. On the surface, it is a society novel about the machinations, relationships, and culture of the French aristocracy. Far below that surface runs a meditation on the nature of memory and nostalgia. Proust interrogates the limits of knowing others, knowing ourselves, and knowing how our own memory has the ability to shape who we are. Our decision to choose this book came out of our reading of Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being, where Proust and his ideas on memory loom large. The Low and Slow Book Club hopes to get to the root of Proust's foundational ideas of involuntary memory and his keen observations on, not just French high society, but the human experience as a whole.