In Search of Lost Time
by Marcel Proust · first published 2015
36% recommend61% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Long, demanding novel on memory, time, love and perception, with near-musical sentences and philosophical, psychological depth; rewarding for patient readers who enjoy difficult books where little happens.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
<p>Through seven volumes, the narrator of <i>In Search of Lost Time</i> recounts his memories as they occur to him. An innocuous treat—say, a small cake paired with a cup of tea—may awaken memories buried deep within the narrator’s mind; memories cause more memories to surface. Like the cathedral builders of old, a whole life and the world around it are thus formed anew, slowly and methodically, by uniting pieces of the narrator’s life for the sake of the reader.</p> <p>This recollection takes us through the narrator’s childhood, weaving the social web his family finds itself entangled in, his
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While we're on the subject of modernist literature, I would suggest taking a look at In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. It's quite a bit longer than Ulysses, at about 1.5 million words, but I find it really fascinating. The flow of his words, to me, seems almost musical. However, I'd like to also point…
on “James Joyce's "Ulysses": Why you should read this book” ↗I'm halfway through the last volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and I admit I'm proud of it. I don't know what can be said in a small space about a novel so large and canonical, but I've deeply enjoyed it. An unexpected quirk of the novel is that though I've been…
on “Ask HN: What book are you reading right now?” ↗…Haunting and moving Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - Dangerous Liaisons. Scandalous, gripping. Ivan Turgenev - First Love. A masterclass in writing. Short, sensitive and exquisitely told. Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time. Exceptionally rich and a beautiful study of love. Reading it is like living another life. PG Wodehouse - the Jeeves series. Hilarious, perfectly frivolous, light and sunny * Non-fiction Stuart Russell…
on “Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?” ↗…one tenth of the great, all-time classic books. There just isn't enough time. My advice would be to read at least a few books that have reputations for being difficult. War and Peace, Gravity's Rainbow, In Search of Lost Time, Ulysses, etc. (The reason I'm only listing near-undisputed classics here is because these books are difficult, and in some cases very, very long [looking at you, Proust], and the assurance that it is…
on “Ask HN: What do you read?” ↗Bredin's 1983 The Affair is really seen as the most thorough account. My favourite reading of the affair is actually In Search of Lost Time, as Proust shows the split in society during this period over the second and third (perhaps the fourth too I think?) volumes.
on “The Whistle-Blower Who Freed Dreyfus” ↗One summer in high school I decided to read In Search of Lost Time before school started up again. I only made my way through Swann's Way (the first of seven books in the series), but I'm so glad I did. I think it was probably the toughest piece of literature I'd ever…
on “Ask HN: What book are you reading right now?” ↗For posterity: I think anyone really interested in these ideas of remembrance would enjoy reading Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time". It's very long, but I genuinely believe the length contributes meaningfully to helping you appreciate the weight of the insights portrayed in it. Basically I think the length helps you feel the passage…
on “Fleeting memories of youth and the increasing impermanence of culture (2021)” ↗…Representation. Actually just ordered this about a week ago. Read a couple articles about him and got the impression that he shares a lot with early Christianity (and also Buddhism) > Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time. Exceptionally rich and a beautiful study of love. Reading it is like living another life. Haven't read the Proust but I'd say the same for War and Peace
on “Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?” ↗…Crime and Punishment. I don't get literature culture in general. I love art. In my view art is aesthetics denouncing intention and information through symbology. What I don't get is why something like In Search of Lost Time from Proust, which I love, is THAT much better than Diary of a Wimpy Kid, when it sometimes explores a lot of similar ideas except using a different aesthetic. Is the value in art to be judged by how…
on “On Fyodor Dostoevsky’s the Brothers Karamazov” ↗In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, because he shows that there's writing after Dostoyevsky, and because he probably was a hacker.
on “Ask HN: Best book you read in 2010 and briefly why” ↗In Search of Lost Time. It's definitely famous and well-known, but I think it's far more talked about than actually read. Proust is a philosopher and psychologist more than a novelist, and large chunks of the book are basically…
on “Ask HN: What are the best books you've read that few others have?” ↗Sigh, oh, that lovely passage in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time when he writes of diesel exhaust…
on “EPA declines to tighten soot pollution standards” ↗In Search of Lost Time (Proust) -- the definitive portrait of life, memory and experience Phenomenology of Perception (Merleau-Ponty) -- groundbreaking analysis of "the thickness of things" implicit within perception Labyrinths…
on “Ask HN: What book changed your life?” ↗if you do read french, proust’s “in search of lost time” (vol 1) is a lot more accessible and enjoyable than my high school teachers made it sound years and years ago. it even contains a depiction of what a learned engineer should be like.
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗…translations of Russian literature can run into the absurd (sentences at half a page long), but even then there is a beauty to it. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin’s translation of Marcel Proust’s «In Search of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past)» contains nearly half-page long sentences. Many modern readers complain about the substantial difficulty in following such sentences, although I personally find them delightful.
on “The great shift of English prose” ↗