BEFORE THE BEGINNING

There are books that seem to follow me, to be part of my thoughts or at least my experience, without my ever having read them. Mostly this is because of dictionary references. In the Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Words, for example, frequent mention is made of 'Darconville's Cat' by Theroux about which I know no more than I have just written - and yet I have heard of it often.

Another book, often referred to in Brewer's 'Reader's Companion' (a book that no one, save me, seems to have heard of these days), is 'Gil Blas'. A few days ago, I knew nothing of Gil or his exploits, and still don't, but I know a little more of this book that I could not formerly have placed within three centuries (1720s), nor guess at its author (Alain-René Lesage) until a few days ago.

Now, courtesy of eBay, I have a handsome if worn copy in front of me - a nineteenth edition of a translation of this long adventure, by Smollett - and I have to say I look forward to it immensely particularly after glancing at the jaunty style of the opening page, indeed the opening sentences:

"My father, Blas of Santillane, after having borne arms for a long time in the Spanish service, retired to his native place. There he married a chamber-maid who was not exactly in her teens, and I made my debut on this stage ten months after the marriage. They afterwards went to live at Oviedo, where my mother got into service, and my father obtained a situation equally adapted to his capacities as a squire. As their wages were their fortune, I might have got my education as I could, had it not been for an uncle of mine in the town, a canon, by name Gil Perez. He was my mother's eldest brother, and my god-father. Figure to yourself a little fellow, three and a half feet high, as fat as you can conceive, with a head sunk deep between his shoulders, and you have my uncle to the life. For the rest of his qualities, he was an ecclesiastic, and of course thought of nothing but good living, I mean in the flesh as well as in the spirit, with the means of which good living his stall, no lean one, provided him."

How good is that for an opening? But I'll have to wait to discover whether I am really reading Smollett or Lesage. And also whether I am the only person who has never come across this book where all others read it years ago and have moved on.