Famous First and Last Lines

First Line:

"For a long time, I went to bed early."

Marcel Proust was born July 10th, 1871 in Auteuil, France. He wrote In Search of Lost Time in 1913. Proust died in  1922 at aged 51 from pneumonia and a pulmonary abscess. He was born into the French upper class. His father wrote medical and hygiene articles while his mother was well-read and had a command of the English language. Proust started writing for Symbolist magazines with an audience of Parisian aristocracy.  After an unsuccessful novel, he wrote French translation and annotations for the English art historian John Ruskin.

 In Search of Lost Time follows the Narrator's train of thought as he remembers his childhood. It has a heavy emphasis on memory and how it can be manipulated. It is most famous for a piece of madeleine cake that takes him back to a previously unknown memory. In Search of Lost Time is a series of seven books, with the last three published in drafts, being that he died before they were finished.

I think I might like Proust's series. I read that he writes his narrative with a poetic feel with emphasis on the beauty of nature.

Last Line:

"Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out."

William Makepeace Thackeray was born July 18th, 1811 in Calcutta, British India. He wrote Vanity Fair in  1847-48. Thackeray died at age 52 on December 24th, 1863 from a stroke. He wrote as a columnist for several satirical magazines, including Punch. The very people he jabbed in his satires thought of him as the next Charles Dickens. In 1840, Thackeray's wife became depressed after the birth of their third daughter. Her condition was unstable and she finally went into a detached state. Soon after, Thackeray became gluttonous and alcoholic, causing the stroke that killed him.

Vanity Fair is about the struggle to attach oneself in society. The narration doesn't go into the thoughts of the characters, but only watches what they do and pushes the reader to judge them. In the town of Vanity Fair, all of the characters blindly bow to those who have wealth and material. It focuses on human nature and its conflicts.

I'm not really sure if I would like Vanity Fair or not. The narrative doesn't go into the characters' thought processes, but I like the theme of human nature.