Abstract

This article aims at comparing reading reports of undergraduate students to the historical reception of Proust's "In search of lost time". After classifying report and article contents in terms of eight topics and using this classification to discuss differences and similarities between these two samples of readers, I argue that an explanation of the similarities observed might depend on the understanding of the cognitive load involved in reading the novel. I then outline a research program that aims at constructing an empirically based model for the reading of Proust's novel.