It does sound kind of prosaic now that you point it out but I think thats why titles are so often changed in translation. The French Rechercher apparently is a

It does sound kind of prosaic now that you point it out but I think thats why titles are so often changed in translation. The French Rechercher apparently is a stronger form of searching/seeking chercher similar to English research but without the narrow somewhat technical connotation the English has, so I’m not sure what word would be better to express searching strongly. “Lost time” falls particularly flat to my ear because it sounds like some trivial day to day time, not a lost era or lost memory. I would prefer “time long past” but I tend to err on the side of sentimentality, like the great 19th-early 20 translators, though the modern trend seems to be avoiding injecting anything not original even at the risk of sounding totally boring and ordinary.