Earlier this week, I posted some thoughts on the English translation of Gilles Deleuze’s Proust et les signes (1964, expanded in 1972). The past couple of days, I’ve begun plotting out all the citations Deleuze makes to the three-volume edition of A la recherche in his study. This 3-volume edition was first published, I believe, in the 1950s and was reprinted and commonly used through the 1960s and 1970s—perhaps later. At least until Tadié’s 4-volume edition published in the late 1980s.
Feel free to track my progress (in a basic Google Doc) here.
You’ll see I’ve also started finding the corresponding English passages in the 6-volume Moncrieff–Kilmartin–Enright translation (first published in 1992). I’ve also made note of a few errors, corrections, and deletions Howard or his editors made in their translation of Deleuze’s citations and footnotes.
Why am I doing this?
I know this project will probably only interest a very narrow margin of Deleuze–Proust readers, but it has been a satisfying couple of days—a satisfaction born, perhaps, from the illusion (comforting to me now) that what I’m doing will save me / others time later, help me / others in some later research. That it might help regain ahead of time time that would have otherwise been lost.
I have my doubts that this table will ever really be useful, but the new fact of its existence and its growth keeps me afloat, for now, in very troubled / troubling times.
Reading on . . .
Sketching a Present 