She wore a white hat, that sat a little too highly on her head. Her scarf seemed handmade. There was a moment of eye contact, but it was by no means flirtatious. Rather, it was the eye contact people give to me because they want to make sure that the crazy wild-haired giant that suddenly appeared in front of them can be trusted in such close proximity.
She was reading Proust's "Swann's Way" in English. She was laughing. I did not think of Proust as an author who provoked laughter. So I kept watching. I've only read excerpts of his work. Then, somewhere around 42nd Street, she switched to a French copy of the same text. I was impressed, and I thought maybe she was laughing at the translation errors between the two texts. That's when I had to take a picture, to remember to find out more about this.
Turns out it is the first book of Proust's major work, "The Remembrance of Things Past", which I come to find is now being translated as "In Search of Lost Time", which provokes many different connotations to this English ear. So I kept looking for information, but the Internet Bible (Wikipedia) was unclear as to whether the text contained humor or not... so as I fall asleep tonight I am no closer to finding out whether or not the text itself is funny, or the translation is funny, or both... can anyone help me with this?
