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Welcome to Slate's audiobook club. I'm David Hagland, editor of Browbeat, Slate ABC.

Welcome to Slate's Audio Book Club.

I'm David Hagland, editor of Browbeat, Slate's Culture Blog, and I'm here with Emily Emily, Emily, we're also joined by Megan O'Rourke, a critic for Slate and currently

the Mary Rout Chair of Writing at Scripps.

Hello, Megan.

Hi, David.

Today we are going to be talking about Swan's Way, the first volume of Marcel Proust's

magisterial seven-volume novel In Search of Lost Time.

Swan's Way was published 100 years ago in 1913, hence this discussion.

And it comes so freighted with expectations and with its reputation preceding it so heavily that I thought we could begin this discussion a little differently than we usually begin our audiobook clubs by talking about what we expected from this book.

Let me first describe it briefly. It's in three parts. It begins with a section called Cambrai, which is a place where the narrator would spend his childhood. And so these are childhood memories. Then almost half the book is given over to the romance of Swan, a family friend of the narrators, and Odette. And then the third section returns to the narrator's

childhood. He's now slightly older, maybe an adolescent or something. It's a very strange book,

I think, but I'm curious to hear what you guys expected from it. Emily, what did you think you

would find when you opened Swan's Way? I expected revelation, and I also expected that it would be impossible to read. I have

been getting these great messages for months from book groups on goodreads in particular in honor of

the 100th anniversary from people who are just so deep into Proust in this way that for me as someone

who was not an English major in college has

no advanced degree in literature to offer at all has been really instructive and illustrative.

And people feel so strongly about him. He seems to me like a very individual, almost sui

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