"Remembrance of Things Past (Volume 2)" Author: [France] Marcel Proust Publisher: Yilin Press Translator: Xu Hejin

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) occupies an extremely important position in the history of French and even world literature. In his novel writing, he achieved a "reverse Copernican revolution": the human spirit was once again placed at the center of heaven and earth; the goal of the novel became to describe the world as a reflection and distortion of the spirit. He changed the traditional concept of the novel and had a profound impact on the emergence of various new novel genres in the future.

"Remembrance of Things Past" is a landmark masterpiece and one of the most important novels in the world literary world in the 20th century. It is regarded as the pinnacle of stream-of-consciousness novels together with "Ulysses". This novel uses a fresh and lively unique artistic style, with the help of the subconscious that transcends time and space, to make the past time reappear in his writing, expressing his infinite nostalgia for old friends and past events and his inconsolable melancholy. The second volume, "In the Shadow of the Young Girl", was published in 1919 and won the Goncourt Prize in the same year. This volume mainly tells about the love affair between "I" and Gilberte in my youth, and what I saw and heard at the beach of Balbec.

"Proust's simple, individual and regional narrative has aroused the enthusiasm of the whole world. This is both the most beautiful thing in the world and the most fair phenomenon. Just as the great philosopher summarizes all thoughts in one thought, the great novelist makes all people's lives emerge in his pen through one person's life and some of the most ordinary things."

——André Maurois