Proust and Beyond

 

Following an internet outage earlier in the week leaving all but my smartphone out of commission, I came across Marcel Proust’s masterpiece A la recherche du Temps Perdu. I had downloaded it several years ago but then had to abandon it in the middle of Swann’s Way. 

Returning to the fray, I needed to get my bearings again.The first thing I noticed on my tiny Kindle was that the estimated reading time was all of 122 hours…  I was reading the book in the original French and was intrigued to learn that the English translation is now In Search of Lost Time which has the advantage of being closer to the French text. This is a recent change introduced towards the end of the last century, but I still prefer Scott Moncrieff’s original rendering of the title as Remembrance of Things Past.

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Concerning the word “text” mentioned above: Before the printing press there was handwriting, and before handwriting? Words had to be “weaved together in a fine and delicate fabric”. The Latin word for fabric is textum.

What about the word “slave? It derives from Slav. In medieval wars many Slavs were captured and enslaved, which led to the word Slav becoming a synonym for an enslaved person.