I adapted War and Peace for five year olds. Proust is…
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I adapted War and Peace for five year olds. Proust is harder
I’m a French filmmaker and for the last two years I’ve been making picture books of great classics for 4-7 year olds. *Monte Cristo*, *War and Peace*, *Hamlet*, *Romeo & Juliet*… around ten in English now.
My rule is basically: if the book seems easy to adapt, I’m not interested.
And now I’ve arrived at Proust.
I thought *War and Peace* was the hard one. I was wrong.
The problem is simple: all the others have a story a five year old can follow. Proust… not really. The real subject is memory, lost time, the past coming back. And a five year old doesn’t have much of a past yet. They have yesterday.
There is Combray, waiting for the mother’s kiss, the madeleine obviously has to be there… but I always end up with a cute little story that doesn’t really feel like Proust and, worse than all, that is quite boring. I know because I tried telling it to my kids and they never asked for it again.
So: how the hell would you do it?
Has anyone ever tried adapting *À la recherche du temps perdu* for very small children, in any language? Even a bad version would interest me at this point.
(Not selling anything, I genuinely need ideas!)
#entertainment
source
I’m a French filmmaker and for the last two years I’ve been making picture books of great classics for 4-7 year olds. *Monte Cristo*, *War and Peace*, *Hamlet*, *Romeo & Juliet*… around ten in English now.
My rule is basically: if the book seems easy to adapt, I’m not interested.
And now I’ve arrived at Proust.
I thought *War and Peace* was the hard one. I was wrong.
The problem is simple: all the others have a story a five year old can follow. Proust… not really. The real subject is memory, lost time, the past coming back. And a five year old doesn’t have much of a past yet. They have yesterday.
There is Combray, waiting for the mother’s kiss, the madeleine obviously has to be there… but I always end up with a cute little story that doesn’t really feel like Proust and, worse than all, that is quite boring. I know because I tried telling it to my kids and they never asked for it again.
So: how the hell would you do it?
Has anyone ever tried adapting *À la recherche du temps perdu* for very small children, in any language? Even a bad version would interest me at this point.
(Not selling anything, I genuinely need ideas!)
#entertainment
source
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