So what? Was this book nothing more than that? These beings to whom I had given more attention and tenderness than to real people, without daring to confess how much I loved them (…); these people for whom I had suffocated and shed tears would never reappear, I would know nothing more about them.”
In this brief but remarkable 1905 essay, Proust revisits his childhood readings. The author's proposal, however, goes far beyond mere autobiography. What is at stake here is an answer to a pressing question: what do we do when we read?