去年託同學赴美之便，帶回不少有關 Proust 的書籍，而其中一本正是 Patrick Alexander 所寫的 Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time: A Reader's Guide ，時隔一年， Patrick Alexander 又重新出了這本書，副標題則加上 to Remembrance of Things Past ，儘管從 Table of contents 看來是差不多一模一樣，但從整本書的厚度做比較，新書的385頁比起舊版本將近增加了100頁，這或許是舊瓶新裝，不過我相信應該仍然有不少新東西吧！


Marcel Proust’s Search for Lost Time: A Reader’s Guide to Remembrance of Things Past
作者：Alexander, Patrick
出版社：Random House Inc
出版日期：2009年09月22日 
語言：英文 ISBN：9780307472328
裝訂：平裝 

基本上，這本書可以到 Patrick Alexander 自己的網站得到一些簡單介紹的資訊
http://www.proustguide.com/index.htm

首先在給讀者的 A Welcome Message 中，他提到了他出書的目的 “I hope that my book will prove a useful aide-memoir for fellow Proustians"

http://www.proustguide.com/PAGES/GUIDE%20Pages/Author's%20Welcome.htm

I discovered the world of Marcel Proust more than twenty years ago and have read his novel several times since then, finding more pleasure with each new reading. Because I have found such personal joy and humor in Proust’s novel, it always saddened and frustrated me that my friends did not share my passion. I have therefore written what I hope is an accessible, irreverent guide to introduce more people to, what I believe is, the greatest novel ever written.

At seven volumes, three thousand pages, and with more than four hundred characters, as well as its towering reputation as a literary classic, Proust’s novel can indeed seem daunting and suitable only for academics and the literary elite. But Proust wrote his novel for the general public, not the academics, and he described it as the sort of book that anybody might pick-up at a railway bookstall before setting-off on a journey.

I wrote this guide in order to return Proust to the general public where he belongs. I hope that it will prove useful for readers and book groups currently reading Proust who want help keeping track of the huge cast and intricate plot. I also hope the guide will tempt Proust-curious new readers to put their 'toe in the water’ and to see that this funny and entertaining novel is still relevant in the twenty-first century. Finally, I hope that my book will prove a useful aide-memoir for fellow Proustians.

而在作者另一篇 How I came to write my book 'Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time' http://www.proustguide.com/PAGES/Evolution%20Page.htm
則特別提到了他讀 Proust 的經驗…

My wife and I moved to France in 1972 and fell in love with nineteenth century French literature. We read everything by Balzac, all of Zola and we worshipped Flaubert. But we could never understand the appeal of Marcel Proust. After just a few moments holding one of his heavy volumes and struggling through a dense and convoluted sentence which appeared to wander aimlessly and endlessly, I would finally put the book back on the shelf, mystified. Despite several attempts I never succeeded in getting past the first thirty or forty pages.

I was in my forties before I reached the section on Aunt Leonie, early in Swann's Way.  Aunt Leonie "never spoke save in low tones, because she believed there was something broken inside her head and floating loose there, which she might displace by talking too loud;" and suddenly I discovered that Proust was actually a very funny writer. After that I could not stop, and reading Proust became one of my major pleasures. Nonetheless, the pressures of jobs and family meant that I did not finish reading the final volume till thirteen years after I had started the first. To celebrate finishing the whole novel, my wife bought me a new translation and I started reading all over again from the beginning. Since then I have read the novel several times, and each time have discovered new and deeper pleasures.

如同作者 Patrick Alexander 的閱讀經驗，我很希望曾經滿懷希望但目前還在遲疑、躊躇、徘徊而無法一親”追憶似水年華”芳澤的有志之士，能夠鼓起勇氣從書架上拿下來唸個 2、3小時，我相信你(妳)們一定進得了這個窄門。


「耶穌對眾人說、你們要努力進窄門．我告訴你們、將來有許多人想要進去、卻是不能。」---路加福音十三章24節

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