El cantó de Guermantes

All the splendour of Paris of the Belle Époque: social climbing in the salons of high society

The narrator and his family have moved into an apartment in the Guermantes residence in Paris. He is in love with the Duchess of Guermantes, and spends the day watching her comings and goings. Later, when they meet face to face, the narrator will discover that the Duchess leaves him indifferent.

In these pages we witness the illness and agony of the narrator's grandmother - one of the most exciting and brilliant episodes in the entire novel. This event is in fact his rite of passage into adulthood, the severing of his umbilical cord with the safety of childhood. A few weeks later, he receives a visit from Albertine, and the two begin an intermittent relationship. At the same time he continues to learn about high society, to visit the salons and homes of the aristocracy and the landed gentry, and becomes friends with Baron de Charlus, the brother-in-law of the Duchess of Guermantes - although the narrator is not yet aware of the true nature of the friendship. In the midst of all this social whirl, he has a longing that he constantly puts off: a desire to write, to become an artist, to be able to sit down and work to think about the world and give it form on paper.


To mark the centenary of In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust’s most emblematic novel, we offer you seven recitals (one for each of the seven volumes that make up the work) based on Josep Maria Pinto’s translation and selection of texts. The sessions directed by Jordi Bosch will be accompanied by piano and violin.

Proust’s novel was written between 1908 and 1922, and with James Joyce’s Ulysses, was the cornerstone of the new narrative of the twentieth century, and irreversibly transformed the way time, space and own self are narrated from what himself named 'involuntary memory'.

You can also attend in person at the Espai Lliure the seven performances of this show on the first day of broadcast.