In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower

Published in 1918 In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower Volume 2 of Marcel Proust’s giant novel In Search of Lost Time is a joy to read.In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower tells a story of separation and emergence. It is Proust’s spectacular dissection of male and female adolescence charged with the narrator’s memories of Paris and the Normandy seaside. At the heart of the story lies his relationships with his grandmother and with the Swann family. As a meditation on different forms of love In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower has no equal. Here Proust introduces some of his greatest comic inventions from the magnificently dull M. de Norpois to the enchanting Robert de Saint-Loup. It is memorable as well for the first appearance of the two figures who for better or worse are to dominate the narrator’s life—the Baron de Charlus and the mysterious Albertine.In Search of Lost Time is composed by seven magnificent volumes:- Volume One: Swann''s Way- Volume Two: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower- Volume Three: The Guermantes Way- Volume Four: Sodom and Gomorrah- Volume Five: The Prisoner- Volume Six: The Fugitive- Volume Seven: Time Regained