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Feb 25, 2008

Lilburninbean rated it:

I don’t know where to begin describing this book. When I first read about it, I was so excited to get my hands on it because it sounded so intriguing. And with all the excellent write-ups people have given it, I was hopeful it would offer a)an insightful account of a travel/work experience in North Korea and b)a narrative that was somewhat self-aware and unlike so many travel logs by douche-baggy Westerners who have a superiority complex yet claim not to be racist. I’m so utterly disappointed More...

17 comments like (23 people liked it)

May 06, 2008

Jayme rated it:

This book is a true account of a French animator (Guy Delisle) who travels to North Korea to oversee a cartooning project. Since North Korea is one of the most closed nations on earth and is run by a totalitarian government, this insight into North Korean life is amazing and somewhat shocking. This is a graphic novel and Delisle’s drawings are simple but fun. The lack of freedom is at times heartbreaking, but there are plenty of humorous moments. Delisle also throws in some facts about the world More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 01, 2008

Christopher rated it:

I have a real interest in the very secretive communist country of North Korea and this illustrated book was a very original and suitably quirky way of providing the reader with an insight into the life of a foreign worker in NK's capital city Pyongyang.

The book was really easy to pick up and read, although a little hard to put down with a lack of clear chapter divides. Considering that photographs and reports of the country are so heavily censored and restricted, Delisle very creativ More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 18, 2007

Alexander rated it:

Part of what's amazing about this book is that it very much had to be a graphic novel: the story of a French animator who travels to Pyongyang, North Korea, in order to oversee an animation project, because, and this I didn't know, much of the animation that's done in the films we all watch here in the west is done there, in North Korea. The artists there fill in the movements between the major art cells, needed to do the laborious moment by moment cell replication that most artists do not want More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 19, 2008

Clickety rated it:

Reading this about the same time I read Persepolis 2 got me thinking about the differences between the experiences each author had traveling/living in another country. In Persepolis 2, the characters are a hodgepodge of flavors; in Pyongyang, there are two types: foreigner and native.

Delisle seems blissfully unaware of his own prejudice and selfishness, which was what really made the book ring true. I mean, honestly - everyone thinks that his or her own belief system and way of life More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 16, 2008

Katie rated it:

I really think that graphic novels are a new and wonderful art form that capture the fragmented nature of life and selfhood in a way that traditional narratives cannot. Like when Virginia Woolf invented stream of consciousness to describe the way people were feeling in reaction to the first world war--that's what graphic novels are attempting to do: move beyond old forms, move beyond words into the new territory where drawing provides the subtext to the words. And it's so fucking good.

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1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 31, 2008

angela rated it:

I have to agree with some of the other reviews that call Delisle on his racism and misogyny. It wasn't even the kind of over-the-top, look-at-how-ridiculous-I-am-being, poking-fun-at-racism kind of racism that I've come to expect from so-called comedians and authors today. It was plain, old boring thinly veiled racism and misogyny. Objectifying women, calling them bitches, calling Korean children "monkeys", generalizing about "these" countries and all of Asia as if there is n More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 13, 2008

Isaac rated it:

It's on a pretty rare occasion that someone from outside the country gets to live, work and travel in North Korea for a period of time, let alone writes a graphic novel about it. All he really gets to see is what he is allowed to see by the officials who show him around, and much of the time he is confined to writing about his experiences in one of the three Pyongyang hotels that cater to foreign businessmen. Even inside the country, he is limited to viewing things from a distance. Despite th More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2008

Rick rated it:

In the fashion of Marjane Satrapi’s superb graphic memoirs of life inside Iran, Delisle takes us inside the very closed and bizarrely Orwellian world of the two Kims. The author-illustrator is a French-Canadian cartoonist who joins the tiny contingent of foreign aid-workers, businessfolk, and diplomats who work in the North Korean capitol. Apparently animation work is farmed out to North Korea, replacing Japan and China in providing cheap production work for Western animation companies. It is a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 04, 2007

Mateo rated it:

When I was a little kid, we read comic books like Archie and Jughead or Dennis the Menace--innocent reads for innocent kids. Later, we--wait. I just have to interrupt myself to say this: Is there any way that Archie and Jughead were not totally gay? I mean, totally, completely, flamingly homo gaius maximus? Because, look, here you have two incredibly well-chested hotties in Betty and Veronica, walking around in miniskirts and hippie beads, and meanwhile A. and J. are hanging out with each o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 16, 2010

Alex rated it:

PYONGYANG: A JOURNEY IN NORTH KOREA BY GUY DELISLE: This is another book -- recommended to me -- in a growing genre of what I guess can be called "illustrated journalism" or "illustrated memoirs": writers telling their stories of real life through the medium of graphic novels. Of course, another big author in this genre is Marjane Satrapi, with her greatest achievement being Persepolis, and her story of living in Iran when the Shah was overthrown and the country went through More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 04, 2007

Louis rated it:

This is Guy Delisle's story in cartoon form of his time as an animator for a French company working in North Korea. The style is sparse, almost merely sketching, which actually enhances the story. The view he gives of North Korea is a harsh one. As a westerner, he is restricted to the parts of North Korea that the government wants him to see, and there are several humorous episodes as his handlers find themselves working very hard to keep him on track. He sees many absurdities along the way. The More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 14, 2007

Linda rated it:

This graphic novel gets 5 stars for unputdown-ability. Thanks to liberrian Jill for responding to my purchase request for this. The Canadian author spent some time in North Korea supervising an animation project (a lot of this work is done in Asia where there is expertise and the labor is cheap). The author's North Korean translator and guide accompany him everywhere in the world's most horrible country, such as anti-imperialist rallies, enormous garish buildings and monuments that were not eve More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 16, 2007

Brendan rated it:

Guy Delisle, a French-Canadian animator, is expert at invoking the odd, the unexpected, even the surreal, all of which Pyongyang predictably provides in abundance. How wonderfully strange, for instance, that of the 50 floors in Delisle’s hotel, only a single floor is lit, and only part of that floor is occupied. Much of the regime’s power, it seems, is mere artifice.

To his credit, Delisle’s method is often elliptical enough that a second reading is necessary to fully appreciate the t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 18, 2007

Pete rated it:

I don't remember much about the movie "Lost in Translation," but what I do remember is that it did do a good job of capturing that mixed sense of loneliness and exoticism found through travel and exploration. That's the same thing that I really like about "Pyongyang."

Written through from the perspective of a visiting French-Canadian animator, this book gives you a sense of his daily life there, what he's allowed to see and not to see. As an American, this acco More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2008

Michalyn rated it:

This was one of the funniest and saddest graphic novels I've read. There's something both absurd and strangely fitting about the fact that cartoon animation is one of the few "thriving" industries in North Korea. One thing that's obvious from Pyongyang is that there is a constant proliferation of images upon images upon images. It's like the harder things become for North Koreans, the more images the regime creates. I've never quite understood that quality of dictatorship and the place More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2009

Michael rated it:

This is the (cartoon) story of an animation specialist working for a few months in North Korea. Guy Delisle depiction of a modern North Korea reveals an astute observer that goes over the obstacles of a closed-off regime. A people subject to terror and mind-washing propaganda, a pyramid game benefiting only the country's potentates, a cult of personality that leads to the first communist hereditary tyranny, all lead to "from here, China looks like a heaven of liberty."
If you con More...

0 comments like

Dec 20, 2011

Ricardo rated it:

North Korea is one of [if not] the most secretive regimes in the world, little is known of it, except for what the Regime's news agency publishes and what some visitors as the author, Canadian Guy Delisle, adventure to tell/depict.

In this book he exposes from his very personal [and Western, of course] point of view, with a simple but compelling style his experiences during the two months he worked there as an animator for a French company. His sense of humor might touch some nerves for More...

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Dec 12, 2011

Mark rated it:

French-Canadian cartoonist Guy Delisle's Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea chronicles his two-month stay in North Korea, supervising animation work for a Francophone children's TV program. As a foreigner, severely restricted in where he may travel, much of Delisle -- or Mr. Guy, according to his guide -- account centers on official landmarks devoted to the state and its glorious leadership. Even a trip to the railway station requires several days' prior notice, and the pocket guide counsels st More...

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Oct 16, 2011

Amy rated it:

Interesting to see which foreign nationals are visiting North Korea, for what commercial ventures. There's been more foreign investment in silly projects (like massive hotels) than I'd realized. No insights into what life is like for North Koreans. Even when the author slipped away from his minders (which he did mostly by accident), there was only so far he could go. He's not a journalist, and even if he were, nobody would talk to him.

The author puts on a sophomoric attitude (at le More...

0 comments like

Aug 17, 2011

Crista rated it:

This is awfully long-winded. Sorry about this.

My grandparents escaped China during the Cultural Revolution. Much of my understanding of that period of time is based on their first-hand accounts; sometime later, this was supplemented by history classes, movies, and books. But, of course, my memories of my family's stories are the clearest--and not just because of obvious biases. To hear about 1960s and '70s China from a real person is not something every kid growing up in America get More...

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May 19, 2011

Kerrilyn rated it:

Pyongyang is a graphic novel that serves as a sort of diary for Guy Delisle for the two months he was living in North Korea for his job. I read this in one sitting and really got a sense of Guy's isolation while he was there: hardly able to go anywhere by himself, only able to see exactly what the government wanted him to see, impossible to not view everything as government propaganda.

I have always been intrigued by North Korea, especially in terms of how it has some really over-the-to More...

0 comments like

Mar 08, 2011

Stella rated it:

As someone completely alien to North Korean history, culture and language I was pretty excited when I saw this at my local library. And Pyongyang reads very quickly & frankly - you really get a sense of his frustration to being constantly restricted and monitored and his desire to try and get a peek at a bigger picture of North Korea then what he's presented with. Unfortunately, the narrator is never able to really overcome his outsider status. He seems to make no serious attempt to learn the la More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 18, 2011

Mary rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jan 11, 2010

Jason rated it:

Here's my whole take on this one. We have a semi-autobiographical story about when Delisle comes to North Korea to be an animationist. He is a swell, dopey man with a positive attitude and a wish to have fun and enjoy himself despite the circumstance. He's not oblivious to the poverty and deprivation that surrounds him, the outlandish facade that Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il have set up in Pyongnang to make Westerners feel like it is a magnificent city.

On the contrary, he is keen More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 12, 2009

Caroline rated it:

A lot of interesting observations, but not much insight, in this comic-book-memoir. Guy Delisle was a French-Canadian cartoonist, working for an animation company in North Korea. As a rare Western glimpse inside that country, the book is valuable, and Delisle's spare cartooning creates a feeling of other-worldly bleakness. But as a story, there's not much to it, and Delisle and his European friends come off as bitter, smug jerks who joke constantly at the expense of their Korean guides and in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 23, 2009

Nicholas added it

"http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1245320.html[return][return]I very much enjoyed Delisle's book about Burma, but was disappointed in this. Some of the oddities he describes (cavernously empty restaurants with fictional menus and crap service, frenetically alcoholic international NGO workers) are entirely familiar to me from my time in the Balkans and could happen anywhere in the world where there is or has recently been a crisis. His description of the Koreans he actually meets is patronising More...

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Jan 09, 2012

Grace rated it:

It was ok. The subject matter and observations were pretty fascinating. But I LOATHED the artist's tone, and it was distracting. I found him to be disrespectful and xenophobic. Yes, I said disrespectful and I meant it. Sure, the North Korean government is responsible for some of the worst human rights violations in the world, and they deserve to be criticized. But the author chose to go there, chose to do business with them, and chose to allow the money he is getting paid for his work ther More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 18, 2010

Zach rated it:

This graphic novel is the autobiographical story of Canadian Guy Delisle's visit to North Korea, where he worked for two months as a consultant for an animation company. It's a very interesting view into this famously closed country, even if his experience is carefully controlled by the regime.

Delisle approaches everything with a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. The narrative takes frequent side trips to offer historical context, commentary, and pictoral musings.

More...

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Feb 07, 2009

Gabriel rated it:

This book will make you say "Oh my God..." at least a dozen times. The kinds of police states dreamed up almost exclusively in dystopian science fiction novels is apparently alive in North Korea. But far from the depressing fog that coats those novels, Delisle fills the book with humor, as we watch him struggle to understand the insane world in which he's found himself. His artwork is simple but efficient, and matches the story's quick pace well. You won't feel like you're there, b More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)