Often difficult to determine where something actually began. Ostensibly it all started with a new section of my daily journal, entitled quite simply 'Memories'. Bits of flotsam and jetsam from the past that bob to the surface which I then include as an extension of my daily journal chatter. Enjoyable and keeps the neurons firing.
Recently wrote to a friend and included the text of an article from Time magazine by a favorite author, Alex Kerr. The article, “Retreat to the Past”, was about his home in the remote Iya valley of Japan’s Shikoku Island. Mr. Kerr discovered this hidden Japanese Shangri-La in 1970, when he was 19 years old, and I had also wandered into the magical spot some 15 years before and so I was intimately aware that his flowing poetic prose was indeed based on fact.
Soon found myself rereading sections of his wonderful book “Lost Japan” published in 1996. Encountered a reference to Marcel Proust’s “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu” [Remembrance of Things Past]. A monumental work which I had read many years ago. For whatever reason immediately decided that I would rename my ‘Memories’ section of my journal to “A la Recherche…”, but in Japanese. [One of the marvelous features of reaching ‘geezer-hood’ is that your eccentric and bizarre behavior really doesn’t have to have a reason.] Also a great feature of my newly acquired MS Word 2003 is the ability for me to enter Japanese or Thai characters directly into my journal.
So I began working with my Japanese Word Processor, with its handy kanji character dictionary, in an attempt to translate the French into Japanese. Nothing which I was able to produce seemed plausible, nor completely Japanese for that matter. Couldn’t write to a Japanese friend in Hanamatsu for help in that I lost his email address in a recent computer melt down. So instead I wrote to my email buddy Tony in Australia asking for the e-address of a Japanese friend of his, who happens to live in Shikoku.
Almost immediately he responded with the correct translation in Japanese [which becomes “In Search of Lost Time” ], and was so thoughtful as to even include a small jpg of the Japanese edition of Proust’s “A la Recherche…”.
Goal achieved, case closed. . . . or so I thought.
A week later I decided to have my lunch with a bit of midday news on the telly. Less than exciting, time to find something different. In changing channels I hit the wrong number combination of my satellite TV service and found myself on the American sit-com channel which normally has the most mindless of TV fare.
However today it was a movie in French. At the same moment that I pressed the button for information about the title [“Le Tempes Retrouvé ”], the woman on screen called out, “Marcel, Marcel”. In an instant I knew it was undoubtedly an adaptation of the last book of Proust’s “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu” , confirmed by the fact that it was more than two and a half hours long [I had only missed the first five minutes]. Subtitled, however the subtitles were in Thai.
Within a few moments I knew that I was being treated to cinematic art. A rare treat in this time of endless Hollywood drivel. And although my comprehension of French was a bit rusty, it was sufficient in order to enjoy this unique and beautiful film as the sick and dying Proust experiences his lifetime as one memory merges into the next.
The title of the movie is from Proust’s final book, entitled ‘Time Regained’. And though his work had already grown to more than seven volumes and some 4.000 pages, it was still unfinished when he died in 1921.
Evidently once tweaked, Indra’s web of universal connections keeps vibrating. . .
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