Proust's great novel is called Remembrance of Things Past in English. The original French title, À la recherche du temps perdu could be translated as In Search of Lost Time. This translation would make it clear that the book is an answer to Proust's parents' complaints that he wasted his life. Rather than devoting himself to some useful profession, as did his father and brother who were both physicians, Proust became a socialite, aesthete, invalid, and raconteur who also wrote.1 Only after the death of his mother did he devote himself to writing full time, slowly and painfully producing his gigantic novel built on the experiences of his lonely illness and the empty pleasures of society.2 Proust's great book answers his parents' objection to their son's way of life by using his experience of society life to reach a deep understanding of human motivation.

Proust believed that love is longing, only sustainable when unfulfilled,