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Summarising Proust: A reply to Stu Woolman
Iain Currie
1 Introduction
I feel a little like I’m about to take part in the All-England Summarise
Proust competition. Fans of Monty Python’s Flying Circus will
remember that contestants had to give a fifteen-second summary of
Proust's À La Recherch e du Temps Perdu, once in a swimsuit and once
in evening dress. No one could do it of course, 1 and they had to give
the first prize to the girl with the biggest ... but I’m digressing. Proust
comes to mind because the immediately striking thing about Stu
Woolman’s monumental ‘Application’ in Constitutional Law of South
Africa is its striking monumentality, which easily defeats any attempt
at summary. Stu begins his Chapter with this warning: ‘There is more,
much more, to “application” than the text [of section 8] might
suggest’. 2 This turns out to be putting things a little mildly. You get
the feeling that it was only the anguished cavilling of the Juta
accountants that contained Stu’s inexhaustible will to expatiate and
that finally brought the Chapter in at only its current thousand or so
pages.
1 Mr Rutherford from Leicester’s attempt: ‘Er, well, Swann, Swann, there's this
house, there’s this house, and er, it’s in the morning, it’s in the morning — no, it’s
the evening, in the evening and er, there's a garden and er, this bloke comes in —
bloke comes in — what’s his name — what's his name, er just said it — big bloke —
Swann, Swann ...’.
2
S Woolman ‘Application’ in S Woolman et al (eds) Constitutional Law of South
Africa (2nd Edition, OS, 2005) Chapter 31, available at www.westlaw.com.
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