A second bite of the madeleine

In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way. By Marcel Proust. Adapted and illustrated by Stéphane Heuet. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Gallic; 206 pages; £19.99.

MARCEL PROUST is a tough read. His seven-volume “In Search of Lost Time”, published between 1913 and 1927, is known for its long, winding prose and its many ruminations on time and the slipperiness of memory. For those who have never plucked up the courage to give it a go, Stéphane Heuet’s adaptation of the first volume into a graphic novel is welcome.

Mr Heuet’s illustrations are simple, on the whole. The narrator’s face is reduced to a dozen or so lines, the grass a single shade of green. The text is translated from the French by Arthur Goldhammer, a Harvard academic who will be known to many readers for his translation of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. Mr Goldhammer’s text is concise and unfussy. A child could read this book.

Just occasionally, Mr Heuet lets his pen run wild, to dramatic effect. The most famous scene in the original book—when the narrator’s eating of a madeleine cake dipped in tea provokes a rush of memories of his childhood in the village of Combray—is afforded a wonderful two-page spread, with images of waterlilies in a river, his Aunt Léonie sitting up in bed and the waft of the steam from the tea superimposed on top of it all.

Clever the comic may be, but can it match the richness of ideas that Proust achieves in the original text? It is only just over 200 pages long, after all, and the story zips along at quite a pace. On these grounds Mr Heuet’s work has received mixed reviews in France.

Still, even diehard Proustians will enjoy many parts: the face of Charles Swann, a wealthy womaniser, as his opinion of one particular lover gradually slides from indifference to helpless infatuation; or the nervous posture of the young narrator as he tries to befriend Gilberte, Swann’s daughter, in a public garden. Mr Heuet also provides a map of Paris, pinpointing important landmarks—Swann’s residence, the Opéra Garnier and the house of the Verdurins, who host salons for the well-to-do bohemian bourgeoisie.

On top of this, the layout of the pages often makes it difficult to know the order in which the drawings are supposed to be read—from left to right, or up to down? As in the original book, the reader is thus encouraged to view the plot not as something that evolves chronologically, but as an experience of fleeting, sometimes confused images. A graphic novel this may be, but it captures the essence of Proust beautifully.