Crumb's illustrated Genesis is quite an amazing illustration accomplishment, but I'm afraid it's NOT quite a success. The artistry certainly is eyeball-boggling, but Crumb is so overly respectful of the source material that he doesn't add anything to it. There's no breath of life to it at all. My honest opinion is that it lacks in personality, just as the Bible itself does (for me). Now why is that...?
I think it's because the book of Genesis is itself an adaptation of oral tradition and suffers from ancient storytelling conventions. A large part of it is the language, which in antiquity would have been in repetition and verse: "And the Lord said..." "And so-and-so answered..." And this... And that... And then... This narrative would work around a campfire for unlettered people, but has no spontaneity on the printed page, no matter how well illustrated. I couldn't help thinking how much better the stories would work if Crumb had dropped most of the "ands" and many of the descriptions and just showed people talking to one another. It becomes oppressive. (I have similar issues with other ancient texts taken from oral tradition, like Beowulf and The Iliad. Always with Dawn's rosy-colored fingers, The Iliad -- where has Dawn been dipping her fingers?)
The "begats" are still a mind-number, for instance. For ancient people, I think those lists of names must have had resonance, they were all the names of leaders who became patriarchs of various tribes that surrounded them; and the "begats" establish heirarchy. Perhaps in the days before mass media and popular entertainment, folks had more interest in tracking genealogies and histories of this sort. It is amazing how much work Crumb puts into livening up the proceedings, with very human portraits of all the begotten individuals, but it's still quite anonymous to the modern reader, and he leaves intact all the tedious campfire cadences and recitations. Of course, the reader has to keep in mind that the "begats" and half the stories of biblical patriarchs swindling for birthrights or paying (in infinite detail) for fields or caves or wells are all ancient arguments to establish the legitimacy of the Israeli claim to the lands they took from the Canaanites. Still, it becomes somewhat of a blur.
This is true, also, in my opinion, of the big-name patriarchs and matriarchs of the stories. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob's personalities are pretty much interchangeable, as are Sarah, Rebeckah, Rachel -- tough authority figures playing the same power games with each other. I didn't really get a feel for any personality outside of maybe God, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, and then Joseph at the very end. The rest was all a litany of "he (Abraham or Isaac of Noah or Jacob) sojourned here, found that wife, passed her off as his sister, knocked up her handmaid, committed some pretty big moral lapses and was still the chosen of God." These characters all look quite a lot alike, too -- especially the females. Crumb just doesn't do anything much to bring it life outside of the Bible text because he doesn't stray at all from Bible text.
So what is it, in the end? A guilt-ridden Catholic boy trying to atone for the excesses that made him famous in the first place? ]]>
Rtriptow
read and liked
Sarah's
review of Need More Love: A Graphic Memoir:
"I was enthralled by this woman but then also tired of her. Her self-deprecating humor is only funny so long, especially when you know she is also incredibly vain. "
"I was enthralled by this woman but then also tired of her. Her self-deprecating humor is only funny so long, especially when you know she is also incredibly vain. "
Rtriptow
read and liked
Janejellyroll's
review of Need More Love: A Graphic Memoir:
"Her personality wears incredibly thin over the course of an entire book. "
"Her personality wears incredibly thin over the course of an entire book. "
Rtriptow
read and liked
Melanie's
review of Need More Love: A Graphic Memoir:
"A memoir of the quirky life of the artistic, adventurous Aline Ricky Goldsmith Kominsky Crumb - pioneering cartoonist and wife of cartoon artist Robert Crumb. A unique book that combines short essays, photographs, paintings and comics to reveal the n...more "
"A memoir of the quirky life of the artistic, adventurous Aline Ricky Goldsmith Kominsky Crumb - pioneering cartoonist and wife of cartoon artist Robert Crumb. A unique book that combines short essays, photographs, paintings and comics to reveal the n...more "
Aline Kominsky Crumb's cartoons are incredibly crude, but I've always found them funny, possibly because she's so "out there" with depictions of herself and her family that are very unflattering and, apparently, bluntly honest. Sadly, this memoir — with text explaining the stories behind the cartoons, and photos of some of the nice-looking people that she draws as monsters — doesn't support that impression of blunt honesty. She often states that her stories are all true. But are they real?
After a while, the egocentrism of Aline's narration reveals a writer who sees the world only on her own terms, with very little insight into others. And reading a lot of her cartoon stories in a row shows an "ahtist" with little or no drawing ability; a writer with no sense of drama, irony, or compassion; and someone without much interest in the world beyond her own horizons. She eventually comes across as quite a bit of a brat — pushy and grasping and convinced of her own importance. "Am I genius or what?" she says of herself in a self-portrait labeled "Yoko Buncho." The answer is: No, Bunch, you're not.
It's all about herself as the heroine of every situation — and a certain degree of hypocrisy becomes evident. For example, she calls her mother "Blabette" and draws her with a mouthful of fangs, depicting her as self-centered and out of touch with the needs of her husband and daughter, more interested in the "faaabulous" decor of their '50s house and her clothing. Yet it's a different attitude completely when Aline decides on her own to move her family to "faaabulous" France and obsesses on her own '20s decorating schemes and spends shitloads of her husband's money on haute couture.
Even more telling is Aline's shameful portrayal of Trina Robbins, one of the founders of the Wimmen's Comix collective, who gave Kominsky her first opportunity to publish. The germ of truth in their conflict is obliterated by the nasty personal insults of Trina by Aline (and her friend Diane Noomin) over a difference of opinion that is now more than 35 years in the past. They criticize Trina as self-obsessed and strident, claiming that she's incapable of good cartooning, a "queen bee" whose friends are mere "minions." They mock the way she looks, the sound of her voice, the sincerity of her beliefs — and they do this in print, page after page. I've known Trina for over 20 years and had arguments with her myself, and I'm here to say that she is NOT the person Aline describes. I've never heard Trina bad-mouth Aline that way; she's not so mean-spirited. Calling Trina a poor cartoonist and ridiculing her physical characteristics is utter hypocrisy on the part of Aline Kominsky Crumb, especially after all her whining about being fat and unstylish and having her "aht" criticized.
The nastiest hypocrisy about Trina was calling her a former "groupie." (Trina is one of the "Ladies of the Canyon" in the Joni Mitchell song and used to run a boutique and made clothes for stars like Donovan and David Crosby, which doesn't exactly make her a groupie.) But Aline herself admits to having slept with all of her art school professors; to having left Tucson because she'd slept with all the men she knew there and the women all hated her; to having slept with half the male cartoonists in the heyday of underground comix; and to pursuing her husband-to-be, whose reputation is the only reason Aline's cartoons have been published after those first issues of Wimmen's Comix. Who's the groupie, Bunch?
I've met Aline a few times and liked her. She can be very charming. But now I think Need More Love is aptly titled, but not because she needs more love from the world. She needs to love others more and herself a bit less. ]]>
Rumer Godden wrote the gripping 1939 novel Black Narcissus about a group of Anglican nuns who attempt to establish a convent school in a former harem palace in the foothills of the Himalayas, the result of which is failure, insanity, and death. Thirty years later Godden returned to the subject of nuns with In This House of Brede and explored it without much of the popular-fiction melodrama. The book was a best-seller anyway because it is fascinating, but it's less of a novel and more of a profile of the cloistered life. Godden researched the book by spending three years in an abbey herself.
In This House of Brede is primarily the story of Philippa Talbot, an extremely successful businesswoman and leader, a widow in her 40s who startlingly gives it all up to become a Benedictine nun. The challenges she faces as a postulant detail for the lay reader just how difficult it is to leave the active "outside" world to start a new life in a reflective order. Yet Philippa can never leave the past completely behind. It affects how she fits into the monastic order and the roles she must play, sometimes reluctantly, and she continues to be haunted by the loss of her family in the war. The final revelation of how she lost her young son is astonishing, horrifying, and very moving.
Ultimately, however, In This House of Brede is the story of the entire community of religious women, their interactions and characters. A very satisfying read on that level. ]]>
I started reading Girls Like Us because I was interested in the three women it writes about and because I wanted to see what it had to say about my friend Trina Robbins, who is one of the Ladies of the Canyon. The book turns out to be one of the best "showbiz biography" books I've ever read -- because it's much more than that. It's a sociological study of the women's movement, a chronicle of the evolution of alert, active, creative women as our culture changed from the '50s through the '60s to the '70s and beyond. Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon are merely the three women at the pinnacle of the music scene who very nicely represent many western women. They're the three Graces, the Furies, the Fates... and three archetypes of feminity: the waif (Joni, in the beginning), the matron (Carole, at first), and the sexpot (Carly throughout her life whether she was aware of it or not). Of course, each woman embodies all the archetypes and is fascinating individually.
It's not very often I find a biographical-type book to be a page-turner, but this one is. The author, Sheila Weller, is brilliant. ]]>
"Peanuts" was a fixture of my childhood and teenage years. I learned to read from the strip when I was 3 years old and read it every day from then on. In school, I was the art kid who counterfeited the strip for everyone's campaign posters. I know the work intimately.
Sorry to say, but by 1967 it was over, as far as I'm concerned. "Peanuts" had achieved monster success, which led to it becoming self-conscious and precious. We'd had 17 years of Charlie Brown's self-pity; and Snoopy, no longer a funny dog, was now a fantastical creature and the star of the show. Schulz sold out (those MetLife ads and A Charlie Brown Christmas were the kiss of death). It took a few more years for this to become really painfully obvious, but by now there were no surprises and no laugh-out-loud jokes to come. "Peanuts" became predictable and, later, preachy. Still, in 1967 it was enjoyable and superior by newspaper strip standards and had a way to go before it hit rock-bottom (Woodstock the bird; Snoopy's brother Spike; Peppermint Patty and her girlfriend Marcie).
The best way to read "Peanuts" is in these collections, absorbing a multitude of strips in one sitting, because small subtleties of Schulz' running gags become more apparent and sly and more amusing than if you read them one strip at a time on a newspaper page. The volumes collecting the strip from 1950 through 1966 have been great fun. The graphic layouts of these hardbound collections are also quite wonderful.
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Elizabeth Jolley was recommended by a fellow Shirley Jackson fan. I've read Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is a favorite author of mine. Elizabeth Jolley is no Shirley Jackson.
Jolley's editor obviously insisted upon a teaser at the beginning of the book about central events of the book, and I can see why. The reader then has to plow through 70 pages of tiresome exposition and poorly drawn characters before anything happens. Finally, almost halfway through the book, an event: repeated word-for-word from the 6-page teaser at the beginning; and the protagonists suddenly behave out-of-character and, sadly, out-of-sympathy. Because, by then, I no longer cared about them. They're annoying.
I also think the author rather lazily based her characters' personalities on the actors she fantasized playing the parts in a movie adaptation. By now, though, Jessica Tandy is deceased, and Nicole Kidman is too old for her part. (The book was published in 1986.)
There may be a plot to The Well, but who has the patience to find it? ]]>
I needed to refresh my memory of the Pandora myth for a project of my own — then just got sucked into reading this entire book because Rex Warner does such an excellent job of retelling the Greek myths in modern English.
Warner changes nothing about the originals, yet still somehow makes the stories live, a technique that comes to fruition with his collection of all of the stories related to the Trojan War in a big section of the book. This was probably the first time I'd enjoyed reading it just as literature.
Warner's presentation makes the book something like a profile of a culture instead of just a string of stories.
Naturally the Pandora myth was the one story that didn't appear in this volume. Just my luck. ]]>