Not your mother's Proust

I just came across this the other day had no idea that A La Recherche du Temps Perdu had been translated into graphic novel format.  This is Volume One, not sure if any more are out.  It's a highly labor intensive work.

I thought it probably caused an outcry in France when it came out, but in fact I find it a really good idea. Those of us whose misspent youth involved reading the original in French, swimming happily in the prose with only the least notion of the architecture of the work, are thankful for this version.

It makes the underlying structure very clear and much more comprehensible, all to the good.  And the graphics are very sensitive to the meaning and movement of the work.  It's amazing how well this works.  Very high level graphics, very good translation.  I really recommend this if you haven't come across it yet.

And, to jog your memory, this is the novel where Marcel Proust tastes the madeleine 

and his entire limbic brain opens up to cascades, waves, oceans, of memories triggered by the sensation and the taste.   

But there are also some amazing observations of nature and relationships, which you have to stop and think about.  

This is why the original is so hard to get through, because it keeps on stopping you dead to think before you can turn the page to go on.  It's the milk train of novels.  Then when you get back on the train, you are a bit disoriented about where you are in the journey.

Awaiting my reading pleasure, Muriel Spark, Frances Brody, all good company. But first to finish the journey of Proust.  You may have noticed that my own drawing is in abeyance for just now. Not for lack of trying. But it takes more emotional stamina than I have right now, because of dealing with the loss of Marigold.  But in a few days, it will return.  I will feel right again once I can draw.