The time of their lives

摘要

SITTING 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. From Bali to Paris, the readers in Vero-nique 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.