In the Shadow of Girls in Blossom

'I was at one of those periods in youth—vacant, without any particular love object—when, like a lover seeing his beloved in all things, we desire, we seek, we see Beauty everywhere.'

In the Shadow of Girls in Blossom, the second volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1913-27), is a novel of exploration and (self-) discovery, continuing the story of the narrator's youth and adolescence. From the enclosed spaces of the fin-de-siècle social world that revolves around Madame Swann, we move t...