The Years Book

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The Years covers a similar period to Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. His work explored a fity year period, from the 1870s'the early Swann/Odette sections'up until the 1920s.
In both works, the action, if it can be called action, revolves around privileged people often seen in drawing room settings. There is a character in The Years, Lady Lasswade, who bears a remarkable resemblance to the Comtesse de Guermantes'we even see her in her opera box at one point. Another character is described making a phonecall for the first time, later seeing an aeroplane rising above rooftops, also a first. There is an uneasy relationship with a faithful family servant who is retired off when the family have no need of her. Taboo subjects such as anti-semitism and homosexuality are skirted around rather than addressed directly.
The biggest resemblance however is the ending. Proust closes his Recherche with an evening party at which many of the principle characters are seen and where their destinies are finally revealed'with many surprises, and the effects of age and time passing are examined. The Years also ends with an evening party at which all the principle characters gather. We find out what they have all become'there are also some surprises'and Woolf writes some fine paragraphs on ageing.

I also noted a comparison between how these two writers gathered their material. Proust was well known for picking up inspiration for his Recherche at his friends' soirées. Woolf did the same thing. Around the time she realised that she shouldn't add any more scenes to The Years but should be preparing it for printing, she wrote in her diary:
If I go to Edith Sitwell's cocktail this evening I shall only pick up some exacerbating picture: I shall froth myself into sparkles; and there'll be the whole smoothing and freshening to begin again.
She spent so much time smoothing and freshening the manuscript that she grew entirely sick of it. Near the end she wrote: I wonder if anyone has ever suffered so much from a book as I have from The Years.
Actually, I think Proust probably suffered more. (hide spoiler)]