In 1992, when a new English edition of Marcel Proust’s literary masterwork was published, titled In Search of Lost Time, the novelist AS Byatt admitted, without being boastful, that she had read Proust twice. This happened at a party thrown by the sociable biologist Lewis Wolpert, who raised the topic as a Proustian two-timer himself, though a viral buzz through the party could find no others.
More impressive still, when our paths crossed a couple of years later, Antonia remarked to me: “Make that three readings now. But this time in French.”
