by David Blake, Fiction Department, Central Library
In Search of Lost Time: Time Regained
Marcel Proust
For those of us who have begun our third act, time is a mystery. We are no longer the same person we were when we were young. Places change beyond recognition. Everyday devices we took for granted, like rotary phones, have disappeared altogether. Over the years, the great bulk of the past grows ever larger, yet becomes less vivid in our minds.
Time Regained, the last volume of
In Search of Lost Time, was, largely, written at the same time as
Swann’s Way, but was only completed posthumously. Marcel Proust’s masterpiece consumed the last decade and a half of his life. He knew it would. In
Time Regained Proust tells us how he came to the insights that led his dedicating all his remaining asthmatic breaths to his work, in a dark room shut up against dust and pollen that could lead to his suffocation.
Time Regained has a simple structure. Like
Swann’s Way, it has three major parts: it is set before, during, and after the Great War. In the first part, the narrator returns to the village of his youth, Cambrai, to visit the love of his youth, Gilberte, and they walk the rural lanes that had great symbolic significance for the Narrator as a boy. In the last, post-war section of the book the sickly Narrator re-enters aristocratic society after many years and is astonished at the changes wrought by time.
The middle portion of the book is given to scenes from World War I Paris. We are accustomed to black and white newsreel images of World War II London during the blitz, but it is a shock to encounter similar images conjured in our minds of a ravaged Paris, which was within artillery range for the Germans throughout World War I. The City of Light was blacked out. Savagery and destruction reigned in the streets. Parisian society was upside down, crass, and made repulsive by war.
By the end of the book, the Narrator, who knew himself to be an artist but who had never found his purpose, is inspired to write about the effects of time. Friends and acquaintances whom he knew to be silly and vain, gain grandeur when apprehended in time. The Narrator, always alert to unbidden memories, comes to understand that the past revealed through unbidden memory is more vivid than original direct experiences because we, especially if we are artists, can infuse these memories with our imaginations. Thus, for example, the whole village of Combrai, as it existed in the Narrators youth, can come alive again with just a sip of tea and the nibbled corner of a madeleine cookie.
Ryan Phillipe stars as Bob Lee Swagger, a marine sniper who
is adapting to civilian life in the States after serving for many years. He is contacted by his former commanding
officer, now a Secret Service agent, who seeks his help after learning that
there is a plot to assassinate the President.
As a patriot and expert sniper, Swagger agrees to assist in thwarting
the assassination attempt, only to discover that he is being set up to take the
fall. The show unfolds as Bob Lee, now a
fugitive, seeks to protect his family, find the real shooter, and clear his
name. The book was also adapted into a
film starring Mark Wahlberg. 
High-school student, Clay Jensen, receives a box of
cassettes recorded by his classmate Hannah Baker, who recently committed
suicide. The cassettes reveal the series
of events that lead up to her death.
Clay discovers that many of his classmates who are mentioned on the
tapes have already listened to them and are paranoid about what he will do with
the information. The sensitivity of the
topic and the quality of the acting make for stunning, powerful, and
eye-opening television. Despite the
disturbing nature of the events that unfold, you can’t wait to watch the next
episode. I must admit that I did have to
pause one episode to regroup before I could continue. 
Harry Bosch, played by Titus Welliver, is a Los Angeles
homicide detective who has a reputation for going the “extra mile” to solve
cases. This gains him the respect of his
fellow police officers, but often lands him in court on charges of excessive
force. Bosch, the son of a prostitute,
has spent most of his police career searching for her killer. His experience growing up as an orphan along
with the time he spent in Special Forces in Vietnam has shaped him into the
tough, complex, justice-seeking police officer he has become. Throw in his love of jazz, his teenage
daughter, and his ex-wife (former FBI profiler and professional poker player)
and this is so much more than a typical cop show. The cases are intense, the characters are
three-dimensional, and the jazz is exquisite. 
