In Search of Lost Time: Volume 4

‘A giant miniature, full of images, of superimposed gardens, of games conducted between space and time’ 
Jean Cocteau

In this fourth volume, Proust’s novel takes up for the first time the theme of homosexual love – male and female – and dwells on how destructive sexual jealousy can be for those who suffer it. Sodom and Gomorrah is also an unforgiving analysis of both the decadent high society of Paris and the rise of a philistine bourgeoisie that is on the way to supplanting it. Characters who had lesser roles earlier on now reappear in a different light and take centre stage, notably Albertine, with whom the narrator believes he is in love, and the insanely haughty Baron de Charlus.