(Since few essays on Proust resist the temptation of a personal anecdote, [Somebody can make me a liar but I do believe I resisted that temptation] I will add that, having over-ambitiously started the novel on three separate occasions in my teens and early twenties, in which I got no further than the aforementioned dinner party scene, my first full reading of In Search of Lost Time, according to the note I left on the last page of my copy, took place over the course of nine months when I was single, childless, largely unemployed, unable to afford other entertainment, and not on social media. What got me across the finish line was a severe depressive episode.
Charming personal anecdote, Ruby.