I feel like I should throw myself party, finally having finished "Time Regained" -- the final volume in Marcel Proust's magnum opus "In Search of Lost Time." Like other volumes, this book was alternated between brilliant and maddening. No one can make an observation that so fundamentally demonstrates the human character like Proust; and I'm fairly certain no one can go on and on about such strange and small details, such as slipping on a flagstone.

In the final installment, our narrator attends a party after decades absence from the social scene to find with shock that they have all aged considerably, and hence so has he. He spends much of the novel trying to reconcile his vision of these people with the differing characters they are now.

Even though "In Search of Lost Time" was very challenging and slow going for me, I am so very glad to have read the series. It is certainly deserving of its reputation as one of the great modern novels.