In The Shadow Of Young Girls In Flower

In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower—also translated as Within a Budding Grove—is the second volume of Marcel Proust’s seven-volume masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. First published in France in 1919 as À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, it won the Prix Goncourt and established Proust as a major literary figure. The unnamed narrator moves from the social world of Paris, where he is preoccupied with Gilberte Swann, to the Normandy seaside resort of Balbec with his grandmother. There he encounters aristocratic society, develops new ways of seeing through the painter Elstir, and becomes fascinated by a group of young women, especially Albertine Simonet. The novel explores adolescence, desire, jealousy, social ambition, art, memory, and the difference between a person and the image we create of them.