Echo de Paris
Sir: From his book, Mr Tylden-Wright strikes me as too amiable a man to be pleased by the Strabolgis' childish rudeness (Letters, 5 January) on his behalf, but perhaps they are now ashamed of it themselves. I know about the multiple origins of M de Charlus, of course. When I spoke of Mr Tylden-Wright 'referring an English reader to a French bibliography,' I meant just that, not that he had included French studies in a bibliography of his own. The book contains no bibliography of Anatole France's own works.
It is some weeks since I read and reviewed Anatole France (29 December) together with Messrs Haylock and King's translation of Philippe Jullian's Montesquiou, and I threw away the re- yiew slip on which I had listed page-references as I read. However, Mr King's letter of 5 January demands a reply. Turning the pages now, I have failed to rediscover the 'sensible' I then noted, but I can provide two 'abusive' mothers, on pages 82 and 173, and 'mundane' distractions on page 183. Respectively, 'possessive' or 'domineering' and 'social' would have been better in these contexts (but 'mondain' and 'mondanite,' which they corn-
SNIP monly translate 'worldly' and 'worldliness,' have bothered Messrs King and Haylock elsewhere). An example of 'misinformation in footnotes' occurs on page 33. M Jullian here refers only remotely So Hugo's poem. The reference is to a passage in Sodome et Gomorrhe II, Chapter 3, in which Charlus recalls Swann describing a passage towards the end of Balzac's Illusions Perdues as la Tristesse d'Olympio de la pederastie.' Messrs H and K trans- late this as 'the Olympio-like sadness of paederasty,' which is odd since one of them had at least heard of Hugo's poem. (If they want it, the Balzac page- reference is Pleiade IV, 1019, or 709 Gamier.) I am delighted to think that Mr King must now give /5 to a deserving charity. Must it be 'the nec benevolent fund' (always supposing that such a fund exists)? Does Mr King think I work at the sac? I did for a while, but am now casual labour like himself. I'd suggest rather some fund for the liter- ally blind.
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