In the first pages, Proust’s narrator heart a whistle in the distance as he lies in bed, prompting him to think of the train that is crossing the countryside, which leads him to think of the traveller who is looking out the window having recently exchanged farewells beneath an unfamiliar lamp… How fluidly Proust moves between the concrete world of impressions into the poetic world of memory and imaginings.
~ Amor Towles
In the first volume in Proust’s monumental novel In Search of Lost Time, the narrator recounts his childhood, telling the love story between Swann and Odette, which took place before his own birth and yet forsees his future relationships. The themes which characterise the author’s work are already anticipated in the opening novel.