Clara Reads Proust

Marcel Proust is one of those authors everyone has heard of, but few have actually read all of his monumental In Search of Lost Time. If ever there was a novel that would inspire you to read Proust, it is Clara Reads Proust by Stéphane Carlier. The book was written in French and published in 2022, but this year has been translated into English. It is an utterly charming novel! I seriously didn’t want it to end.

Clara is a hairdresser and works in a back-alley salon with an eccentric boss. Her boyfriend no longer charms her and she feels trapped in a life that brings little satisfaction – the salon’s highlight of the week is when a good-looking repair man comes to fix a display cabinet. Then, one day in the salon, she finds a male customer has left behind a volume of Proust and she decides to give it a try. As a result, Clara’s life changes forever: “As she reads these pages, something verging on magical happens, making her think for the very first time that books might be better than real life.”

It is a quirky coming-of-age story about the power of literature. It’s very short, but the pages rapidly pull Clara into your heart. You rejoice in the changes her reading brings about and savours her insightful understanding of Proust’s words. This is Carlier’s 8th novel and the first of his works to be translated into English. He was born in Argenteuil in 1971 and now lives in Burgundy. I hope more of his books will soon be translated, as Clara Reads Proust has been hugely successful in both French and English.

If you love books, France, and a feel-good story, this is a novel you will love. And you may even be inspired to read the 500 pages in the 7 volumes of Proust’s masterpiece. I read it all some years ago and am so glad I did. While this is a book you could love without having read Proust, a familiarity with the work will greatly enhance your enjoyment of this truly delightful novel.

Have you read this book? Or even all of Proust? Let me know by leaving a comment.