In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower

The second volume follows the young narrator as he grows into adolescence in Paris and then at the seaside resort of Balbec. He is drawn to Gilberte, the daughter of Swann and Odette, and learns the pains of first love and friendship. At Balbec he meets the painter Elstir, the aristocratic Saint-Loup and a lively group of girls, among them Albertine. The book is gentle, funny and sharply observant about social ambition, art and the way desire fixes on people before we know them. It won the Prix Goncourt in 1919.