Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, known as Marcel Proust, was a French novelist, critic, and essayist. Proust was involved in writing and publishing from an early age. In addition to the literary magazines with which he was associated, and in which he published while at school, from 1890 to 1891 he published a regular society column in the journal Le Mensuel. Marcel Proust is best known for his monumental novel In Search of Lost Time; earlier rendered as Remembrance of Things Past. Begun in 1909, when Proust was 38 years old, In Search of Lost Time consists of seven volumes totalling around 3,200 pages and featuring more than 2,000 characters. The Guermantes Way is the third volume of Proust’s masterpiece. It refers to the path that runs past the château belonging to the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes near Combray and also to the route the narrator takes to make his way into their Parisian salon. The Guermantes Way presents a troubling portrait of levity in the face of great loss. Proust began work on the version we know today of the third volume in his series after the outbreak of fighting in 1914 when Paris had all but shut down and the future of Europe looked grim. Over the course of the narrative, Marcel’s beloved grandmother dies, and Charles Swann, a central figure for him since childhood, reveals himself to be close to death. Enjoy free online English audiobook “The Guermantes Way”, the third part of In Search of Lost Time, a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust.
