À la Recherche du temps perdu, 4/7

After the fixations and disappointments of the previous volumes, the narrator continues his discoveries about memory and time in this long retrospective quest of the past and this journey to the heart of the present. The narrator is now accepted in the social circles of Parisian aristocratic high society and, if he is somewhat disenchanted, he is not at the end of his surprises: it is the discovery of the homosexuality of certain characters, notably that of Baron de Charlus, and his growing shadow that is at the heart of this work. Disenchantment certainly, but reenchantment of life through the work of writing and the certainty that all women and all men are mysteries to be pierced and elucidated.

We read this book in the fall of 2021.