The Lazy approach to getting to know the contents of this famous novel. Illustrated throughout in colour. References to Eurydice, Chat Noir & Musée Grévin, Japanese water-flowers (and water-houses), Champs-Elysées, The Elysian Garden of Women, The alley of myrtles in the Aeneid, The Allée des Acacias, Dryad in the trees, Diomedes "cruel chargers bloodshot eyes"; like so many writers of a period, it is particularly noticeable that they expect the readers to have been taught the classics of ancient Greece and Rome as they were. Glad to have become acquainted with Proust, especially the Madeleine event that gave the name "Proustian" to a stimulation of unconscious memory. I also enjoyed his invention of a composer, Vinteuil, and that the music was used in the same way. The story illustrated well the social conventions and snobbery of French society at the time. ( )

lovely drawing and detailed condensation of novel to graphic form

So there's at least 3 different aspects of this work that can be reviewed.

1) Proust's original story, which I haven't read. I was hoping for this to be a way of kind of easing into it... Instead, between this and a conversation with a well-read coworker, I think I'll mentally remove it from the "someday, maybe, in my lifetime" list. Boring, mostly; confusing, sometimes. Lots of rambling. Very wordy.

2) The translation, which I guess is good enough? But I'm not familiar with other translations or the original French to accurately judge. I know it bothered me that a certain piece of a song is referred to as a "phrase" when I feel like "melody" (or refrain or something) would have suited better; but again, not being familiar with the source, I don't know if this is accurate to the French, either in literal translation or intended wording.

3) The art, which is technically fine and lovely-- streets and buildings are well-done, and there's some nice pages interposing various senses and memories together, but I couldn't stand the overly-simplified way the people were drawn. Everyone looks either cartoony or sort of ugly. The color palette is a sort of faded, watercolor-y style with stark black lines to outline everything, and that's again, technically fine, but it's not to my taste.

Additionally, I really appreciate when graphic novel artists actually take advantage of the form to add to the story rather than simply attaching pictures to words like a glorified childrens' book. Now, a lot of this story is the narrator rambling on and on and people talking to each other interminably, which could make it hard to illustrate interestingly. And there is so very much narration--which, it occurs to me, perhaps suggests that this just wasn't a good choice to turn into a graphic novel in the first place. Alternately, it commits the sin of trying to stay too close to the original material when it needed, e.g. images progressively more complex to mimic the complex sentences found in Proust's telling. (Maybe some judicious editing to just drop some parts....)


On the plus side, it did have some helpful annotations in a glossary in the back that explained some of the terms or people/places/etc that are casually mentioned in the text, and that was nice. Sort of wish there were footnote markers in-text to make it easier to know when something in the narrative had further explanation, but I can understand why that wasn't done.

All in all, 2 stars, "it was ok." ( )

This is an excellent adaptation which captures some of the essence of the novel. It has lovely pictures and maps and includes quite a bit of the text as well. After finishing reading the novels I wasn't quite ready to let them go, so treated myself to the first 2 volumes of this and I'm glad I did. ( )

This was a book I avoided because I thought it would be over my head. I compromised by reading the graphic novel. Honestly, I thought the graphic novel would be easier. I was mistaken. In my experience with graphic novels, this book had a lot of narrative. The art was not very tight but the intent was clear.
The book is narrated by a young boy, Marcel. He is impressed with his neighbors, the Swanns. Marcel reflects on what his family has told him about the Swann family. In addition, Marcel is influenced by weather and books. The imagery Marcel draws from weather & his books guide his interpretation of the Swann’s every day life. Marcel’s assumptions were interesting and not too far from the Swann’s roots. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. ( )