This book describes the development of Prousts treatment of material objects from his earliest work Les Plaisirs et les jours to his mature novel la recherche du temps perdu. It examines the literary influences on Prousts way with objects in the light of certain critical texts and reconsiders the significance of Ruskin. As the movement from unreflective and spontaneous representation to a metanarrative of consciousness is traced some questions as to the banality of the banal object arise. The metanarrative finds resonance in a peculiarly Proustian pictoriality which has been largely unnoticed. It resides in descriptions where objects appear simultaneously or at different times as things in paintings and in the real. By exploring connections between Prousts pictoriality and his reflections on matire and surface the author suggests a radical approach to the modernism of la recherche du temps perdu.