I really think you will appreciate this. I have read and re-read proust's in search of lost time. you make think it ridiculous as many do, but i think this intro. to alain de botton's thought process will corrroborate your experiences which i have found to be true. either way it's 20 min or less and if you happen by chance to read swann's way, proust's first novel in the edition, read it like poetry. it is hard to believe that 4,500 pages can be fuller than emaily dickinson and walt whitman sentence by sentence. to my account, shakespeare is shakespeare but he is no genuius since this is a modern term, merely a playwright who has for certain not so well known reasons, remained the center of our cannon. but i promise you, read swann's way as if it were poetry and then read king lear and all of shakespeare's sonnets, and decided for yourself who is the 'genius.' keep in mind that thousands of plays were written in shakespeare's time about all of this themes, so orgiginality is again a modern notion of shakespeare. proust, on the other hand, well, cannot be defined. to me his multi-volume in search of lost time is humanities greatest contribution.

hope you are doing well!
andrew