In Search of Lost Time Volume IV Sodom and Gomorrah (Modern Library Classics);

Sodom and Gomorrah opens a new phase of In Search of Lost Time. While watching the pollination of the Duchess de Guermantes€s orchid, the narrator secretly observes a sexual encounter between two men. €œFlower and plant have no conscious will,€ Samuel Beckett wrote of Proust€s representation of sexuality. €œThey are shameless, exposing their genitals. And so in a sense are Proust€s men and women . . . shameless. There is no question of right and wrong.€

For this authoritative English-language edition, D. J. Enright has revised the late Terence Kilmartin€s acclaimed reworking of C. K. Scott Moncrieff€s translation to take into account the new definitive French editions of  la recherch© du temps perdu (the final volume of these new editions was published by the Biblioth¨que de la Pl©iade in 1989).