Ever since someone said that phrase to me in the lobby of the Living Computer Museum in Seattle (a place that offers many such moments for anyone who’s worked in high tech), I’ve been on the lookout for a chance to use it myself. Thanks to Reading Like a Writer, I now can. In the first chapter, where the author is defining “close reading,” she mentions that her French lit classes used an equivalent term: explication de texte. 

And what a delicious Proustian moment it was, to read that phrase. I was swept away, swooning, to a wine-soaked summer French Intensive at UC Santa Cruz–so many, many years ago. Thank you, Francine Prose.