S
ITTING IN HER pink living room in Tahiti, Natti Tumahai reads in French from “In Search of Lost Time” as her family eats lunch: “I cannot say, looking back, how much of Albertine’s life was overlaid by fluctuating, fleeting and often contradictory desires…” The passage comes from volume five of Marcel Proust’s
roman-fleuve, and Ms Tumahai is the 1,262nd person to appear before the camera.
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From Bali to Paris, the readers in Véronique Aubouy’s huge project, “Proust Lu” (“Proust Read”), have been captured in bedrooms, offices, supermarkets, factories and beauty spots. Farmers, schoolchildren, businessmen, even the French director’s doctor have participated. “It’s a slice of life,” Ms Aubouy says; “a reading about time, in time.” The cast is as diverse as the novel’s, brought together by their own web of connections and coincidences.