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Abstract
Raymond Queneau's 1959 novel Zazie dans le métro has been adapted into two text/image versions, by Jacques Carelman in 1966 and by Clément Oubrerie in 2008. Carelman's version is strongly inscribed in the fidelity discourse, while Oubrerie advocates a process of complete appropriation of the source text by the adapter. This article will explore how the three interrelated aspects of approach to adaptation, text/image combination and readership and reader's experience, shape the transposition of the source text into two strikingly different text/image versions by Carelman and Oubrerie. Focusing on the transposition of the literary voices of the source text, it will discuss the differing manners in which the adapters use the specificity of their chosen medium to make the characters of Zazie dans le métro speak in text and image to their new readers.
Keywords: Raymond Queneau, Jacques Carelman, Clément Oubrerie, Zazie dans le métro, adaptation, fidelity, appropriation, voice
Zazie dans le métro, Raymond Queneau's 1959 novel about a young girl's eventful weekend in Paris, has inspired two strikingly different bande dessinée adaptations, which will be the focus of this article: the first, little known, by Jacques Carelman in 1966, and the second by Clément Oubrerie in 2008 in Gallimard's Fétiche collection, which publishes bande dessinée adaptations of texts from Gallimard's catalogue.1 Queneau's novel is perhaps most famous for its innovative treatment of language through what the writer coined 'néo-français' [neo-French], which implied a reform of spelling, syntax and grammar of written French based on spoken French.2 This article examines what processes of transformation the literary voices of Zazie go through when they are transposed from this quintessentially linguistic world, to a medium that combines text and image, in 1966 and in 2008.
Zazie was famously adapted to the screen by Louis Malle in 1960, in a film that has undeniably shaped the visual representation of Queneau's text, and that is an important intertext for these two bandes dessinées adaptations.3 This 'inverse' influence of the film adaptation on the novel exemplifies the 'reciprocally transformative model of adaptation' between adaptation and source text as analysed by Kamilla Elliott.4 As Carelman and Oubrerie adapt Zazie into bande dessinée, they engage in intertextual dialogue not only with the source text but also with Malle's film, and...