A Work in Progress

Because I can't Help Myself (Library Loot)

Oooh, such a pretty stack of books, don't you think?  My most recent Persephone Biannually just came in the mail in the last week or so and it was a nice reminder that I really need to pick up a Persephone Book soon.  Maybe sooner rather than later now, as you can see. 

It's been a while since I've read one of their books and every year I say I am going to read more.  I had a good look at the book blurbs which are included in the Biannually and realized how many new books have come out since my last purchase.  I had forgotten that my public library ordered in the whole backlist a few years back and wondered if they were continuing to order in each new seasons releases and was so pleased to discover that indeed they are.   So, yes, I went a little crazy requesting the newer titles (and I still have a few more that are in transit to my branch that should be arriving in the next day or so).  I know I will not read them all (not all right now that is), but I thought how nice it would be so take a really good look at them before choosing one to read (and it is time really for me to order one, too, so I stay on their mailing list).

A few other books came home with me as well.  So, from top to bottom here are the library books that have my attention at the moment.

Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong -- I came across this book on one of Book Riot's abundant book lists, in particular a list about mystery novels from around the world.  It piqued my curiosity, a detective novel set in 1990 Shanghai, and as luck would have it it was on the library's shelves.  NPR said "it does what detective fiction can do best: It captures the details, the grit of everyday life . . . a matchless pearl."  Sold!

The Godwits Fly by Robin Hyde -- "A semi-autobiographical novel spanning the years 1910–28, The Godwits Fly is in some senses a bildungsroman: the story of Eliza Hannay growing up in a suburb of Wellington."

Long Live Great Bardfield: The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood -- "Time and the honesty of Tirzah’s words have made this an immensely important document and it is a valuable primary record of a woman who was at the centre of an important group of artists, and who was herself a very good artist in her own right."

Every Good Deed and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple -- Ten stories--this is the companion book to a previous story collection published by Persephone Books.  Maybe this will help jump start my short story reading.

The Happy Tree by Rosalind Murray -- "This 1926 novel begins with the death of a young man during the war, flashes back to his happy childhood shared with the young woman who is the narrator, and then describes how the war – inevitably – took them unawares, destroyed their happiness and has left her, the young woman, emotionally maimed."  Sounds a bit dire, doesn't it, but apparently it doesn't read that way. 

In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear -- I had an egalley copy of this which I didn't finish before it expired.  I have been in line for a library copy for so long I think I might have to just start from the beginning again. It's 1939 so we're just at the start of WWII.  Maisie's newest case (and we're getting back to Maisie as an investigator rather than a spy for which I am actually rather grateful) is "to find the killer of a man who escaped occupied Belgium as a boy, some twenty-three years earlier during the Great War."  I recall that I was enjoying this one very much before I was interrupted.

Cairo: A Graphic Novel by G. Willow Wilson -- I don't recall where I came across this one, but I like the sound of it: "a stolen hookah, a spiritual underworld, and a genie on the run change the lives of five strangers forever on the streets of the Middle East's largest metropolis."  I have also gotten away from my graphic novel reading and hope this will also start (re-start anyway) the reading trend.  It is all illustrated in B&W and sepia tones, so I am very curious if it will really grab me. 

And as always I have a healthy stack of in progress reads that I will tell you about soon and am thinking about my "summer reading" (because you know I love a good plan and a good book lists to go along with it), especially since today it is topping out at 90F.  I knew we would go straight from winter to summer. 

Paper Girls 1 and 2 by Brian K. Vaughan

I grew up in the 1980s, rode my bike, hung out with gal pals, but I must say I was never a badass tweenie like the girls in Brian K. Vaughan's comic Paper Girls.  Maybe given the right set of friends, or a little more courage, I would have been (and don't get me wrong--when I say badass it is more like kick ass girls who don't take any crap from others--um, monsters included . . . ).  However, it is quite fun to read about them and be able to give a silent nod of recognition for small-ish town living ca. 1988 which was very much like my own. 

This is a story that is very 'gulpable' (good thing for a serial comic).  One or two sittings and you will fly through the very wild and weird adventures of a quartet of girls who deliver newspapers at the crack of dawn.  Only one fateful Halloween something strange happens and all of a sudden everyone in the Cleveland suburb of Stony Stream disappears and strange things begin to happen.  Does a parallel universe open?  Time travel?  Aliens from another solar system?  One thing is certain, this story is like taking a snow globe and shaking it up and letting all those silent snowflakes loose.  Time moves fluidly back and forth, and strange dimensions seem to take shape.

But let me go back to the start of the story, such that it is.  First Erin, one of our heroines, has the weirdest dream in which Christa McAuliffe makes an appearance.  A red apple.  And a younger sister is missing.  And Erin has the chance to save her.  Maybe.  Erin is twelve and set to begin a brand new paper route, but on this particular day-after-Halloween morning, boys still roaming the streets from post-trick-or-treating festivities give her trouble.  She is rescued by a band of three sassy papergirls, Mackenzie (Mac), Tiffany and KJ.  They decide power in numbers is the wiser choice, especially when they have super cool walkie talkies (forgive me--they are Realistic TRC-218 CBs, but it is easier to call them walkie talkies) and can split into pairs. 

Okay.  I'm sorry to have to say this again (and I might still yet again before I finish this post) things start getting a little weird.  Is it just high school boys, or are there creepy creatures speaking some strange language none of them have ever heard?  One steals one of their walkie talkies, which is so very not cool, and the girls race after him, following him (they think) into an abandoned house.

And now the refrain, one more time, please everybody:  And then things really start to get weird.

In the basement is what seems to be a rocket ship perhaps?  Something alien in any case.  This is such a wild ride of a story that I am not sure I can even tell you more and make any sense, because two collected volumes in (I think that is something like ten individual comics) and I am as confused as ever.  It's hard to tell sometimes who is on whose side?  Who are the good guys and the not so good guys?  There are these old-timers who look like us, and these creatures who look like us gone all wrong.  There are multiple 'Erins' (imagine meeting your forty year old self when you are only twelve--yeah, I would have been pretty freaked, too).  And then there are these really weird-unlike-anything-you-have-ever-seen monsters.  There is this weird time slip action going on--1988?  2016?  Somewhere and sometime in the future here or elsewhere? 

Sometimes, though, you just have to go with the flow. Suffice it to say, this is one crazy-entertaining-pager-turner of a story and you just have to let it all wash over you and join the ride with an open mind.  I am only sorry that there are only two collections available and this is a story that is in progress.  Number 11 just came out and number 12 is slated for March 1.  Now what?  Am I going to be prodded into buying the individual comics?  Or can I possibly wait until the next five or six are collected into one book?  So many questions.  So few answers.  I am currently contemplating subscribing so I get the forthcoming issues each month (yes, indeed, this is totally appealing to my former twelve-year-old self who did buy Archie comics at the mall at that age, so this is all sort of déja vu to me). 

And just to give credit the creators are Brian K. Vaughan (of Saga fame), Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson and Jared K. Fletcher--whose middle schools photos (were they twelve in those old B&Ws?) appear in the back of the second collected volume.

Snow White: A Graphic Novel, Matt Phelan

I didn't go looking for Snow White, but she managed to find me, and I am glad she did.  Matt Phelan's Snow White: A Graphic Novel crossed my desk at the library a day or so ago and after taking a quick browse at it I knew I had to bring it home with me to enjoy at leisure before sending it on its way back to the library stacks.

What a treat this is.  If you are into graphic novels, fairy tales (especially retellings thereof), juvenile literature or just gorgeous artwork, then you have to go find this one.  It is a delightful read, but more so a visual feast for the eyes.  Let me give you a little peek and tempt you with something just a little different.

This is the tried and true story of Snow White, but with a different spin on the setting and a slightly different twist to the story.  It has all the elements of the fairy tale, but Phelan drops Snow White, rather Samantha White (known to those who love her as Snow) into Depression era Manhattan with perfect noir-ish illustrations.  Phelan uses sepia-washes with just a hint of color for the most dramatic moments to tell a slightly grittier, darker story (though really Snow White is pretty dark all things considered).

The evil (and very jealous stepmother) comes in the form of a beautiful, sinewy Ziegfied Follies star.  She has managed to catch and marry Snow's dad, a successful business man always watching the ticker tape to keep track of his business dealings.  How fitting that it is the ticker tape (a heartless voice of all that is bad about capitalism) that pushes the "Queen of the Follies" into doing her wicked deeds.

The seven are little men who come to Snow's aid, yet are cynical ragamuffins who live on the streets and come from the school of hard knocks.  They aren't willing to tell her their names, so bitter are their experiences.

And yes, there is a red red red apple.  And out of goodness Snow takes it from the old woman.

She falls into a deep sleep and is entombed in a glass coffin. 

If you want to know if and how she wakes up and whether there is a handsome prince or whether they all live happily ever after . . .  I'm not going to tell you.  You are going to have to pick up the book yourself.  It is easily read in a sitting, but the illustrations are worth lingering over.  They tell as much (if not more) of the story as the words do.

This was a very happy find (I was hoping to complement my reading with perhaps some sort of short story or essay about the fairy tale, but I have not had any luck finding something that will match nicely-any suggestions would be welcome).  You can find out more about Matt Phelan at his website (check out the book trailer for this while you're there).  His studio-shed is pretty enviable, too.  It's easy to see how the environment would be inspiring for his work.  Now I am going to have to see what else by library owns by him.

This was just what I needed at the moment and it has put me back into a graphic novel/comic book reading mode.  I already have pulled something else out to read next!

Happy Comic Book Day!

Did you know today is Free Comic Book Day?  I had no idea until a coworker was telling me about it.  There are actually several comic book stores locally, but I am not sure I will get to partake of the excitement as my family is celebrating Mother's Day a little early.  If I can squeeze it in, I might just go to a store close to my work.  It has only been fairly recently that I have started to read graphic novels, my favorite comic book artist/graphic novelist is Rutu Modan and I wish she would write more as I have read all her works available here in the US.

I've brought home a book to celebrate in any case.  One of our English faculty teaches the graphic novel and has a variety of classes and has requested that the library fill out our collection of the Best American Comics series.  I had a stack of them on my book cart yesterday and decided to choose one to read--must get into the spirit of the day, right?  So I opted for the 2012 edition as it has an excerpt from Sarah Glidden's How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, which piqued my curiosity.  Ever since I took an Israeli Literature class I have been on the look out for books by Israeli authors or set in Israel.  And I am sure there will be plenty of other comics of interest there as well.

I have very few graphic novels on my TBR pile, so reading through those 'Best of' annuals might be a place to try out an author and see what I like and which books I might want to borrow or buy.  One graphic novel I do have on hand is Berlin: City of Stones, Book One, Jason Lutes.  It is the first of a trilogy of stories set in Weimar Germany about a journalist and an art student.  I have been meaning to read it, so perhaps now is the moment!

To be honest I am not entirely sure of the distinction (or if there even is one?) between a graphic novel and a comic book.  Maybe the terms are interchangeable?  I have been thinking that a comic is a series of shorter magazines telling a story (in the way that Dickens serialized his novels?).  Eventually they will get collected into a larger bound book like my copy of Berlin.  Though a graphic novel is likely more of a standalone story? 

The idea of a serial comic book story appeals to my bookish sensibilities and I fear I see a whole new reading path rising ahead of me.  It could be dangerous, but I am going to try and sample books from the library.  I know I am wary of vampire or zombie stories or end of the world/apocalyptic stories.  I am probably not much of a superhero reader either, but I haven't actually tried any so I am willing to give the right story a go.  My library will be getting the first few issues of a story called Saga as well as The Wicked + the Divine, which I have heard are both fairly addictive, so I can't wait to check them out (figuratively but maybe literally, too).  And I have requested from the public library the first of a series called The Fade Out, which is a noir story set in the Golden Age of Hollywood.  So, some interesting books/stories to look forward to.

Do you read comics?  If so, do you have any favorites you would recommend to someone who has very little experience reading and choosing them?  I only fear that if I do step foot in a comic book (stress on book) store I will come away with more than I should.

Photobooth: A Biography, Meags Fitzgerald

I think I could easily name this post, 'A Photobooth Odyssey', or maybe 'Everything You Wanted to Know about Photobooths But Were Afraid to Ask'.  I am very envious of Meags Fitzgerald who has written about, in graphic novel format, her lifelong love affair with photobooths.  Photobooth: A Biography really is a sort of odyssey as she recounts not only the history of photobooths but also her own use of them in her artwork and as a collector and the time she spent traveling to document remaining machines all over North America and Europe before they disappear entirely.  Like so many much-loved, at one time wildly popular and much-used analog devices, they are slowly (sometimes not so slowly anymore) being replaced by more efficient (though in some cases far less charming) digital machines. 

Do you remember photobooths?  I remember them in malls (when malls were still popular and even they are disappearing these days, too) and surely at some time in my youth I must have had  my photo taken in one.  It's been ages since I thought about them and it is thanks to Iliana that I came across this book.  It is a hefty graphic novel that I had to get via interlibrary loan (thanks to Fort Vancouver Regional Library for loaning it--you will soon have it safely back home again), but photobooths are such a cool concept and I can see exactly the appreciation and affection Meags Fitzgerald has for them.  Now I wish I could start a collection of photobooth photos, but they are such a rarity where I live the chance is pretty slim that it is a hobby I could pursue.  The author has an enviable collection of photos not only of herself, her family and her friends but of strangers, which were taken throughout the photobooth's long history.

The first photobooth, as we have come to know them, was designed by a Russian immigrant in 1925, whose own life story is an odyssey all its own.  Anatol Josephowitz was born in Siberia, had a most unfortunate WWI experience but eventually found his way to America where he married and spent the rest of his life.  He created the Photomaton, the first one located in NYC and it began this craze.   Eventually the rights were sold in Canada, England and Europe and the machines began popping up all over the place and by WWII everyone, rich or poor (and photobooths were a great social leveler as everyone-more or less-could afford to have a strip of four photos taken in one of the machines) were flocking to the booths to have their portraits taken.

And, of course, one good idea leads to another and one sort of machine to another.  At its most popular, the photobooth was ubiquitous and they were used not just for entertainment but for official documentation, even for mugshots and there is a darker footnote in history as they were offered for use in Europe to keep track of the identities of prisoners of war.  During the war people were apt to take their pictures as a memento for those going away to war, and for those staying behind.  By the 1950s their use began to decline without that feeling of uncertainty that comes with wars people simply didn't worry about having their pictures taken.  Prosperity in peacetime has a way of making us lax and by the 1970s disposable cameras and Polaroids had arrived on the scene.

The other problem facing photobooths was the use of chemicals to develop the images in minutes, which have been deemed to be unsafe for the environment.  Fewer and fewer companies were making the chemicals or the photopaper and innumerable photobooths were simply destroyed as a matter of progress.  I guess the machines were seen as no longer popular and were becoming obsolete.  The book was published in 2014 and the author notes certain dates (by the end of 2015 and 2016) when materials are/were likely to have run out, so I wonder what the current state of affairs has become in terms of supplies for the original chemical-bath, dip and dunk machines.  Many of the machines have been turned into digital photography booths, but for purists, it is a little sad to think the original-old fashioned photobooths are quite literally numbered.

This book is such a wonderful idea, and it is such a clever and very fitting format turning it into a graphic novel.  One of the reasons it came about was as a thank you for the people who were supporting her travels.  In order to afford to go on the extensive journeys Meags Fitzgerald undertook in order to chronicle the photobooth saga she had to come up with creative ways to earn money.  And I am so glad she did.  So the book is a mix of history, memoir and even travelogue.  Interspersed between chapters are drawings of the various styles of machines and where they are located.  So this book is quite a compendium and a wonderful resource for photobooth enthusiasts.  Fitzgerald is a true photobooth aficionado.

And to think not long ago I had the perfect opportunity to have my portrait taken in a vintage machine.  My favorite movie theater recently screened Amélie as their members select film.  If you've seen the film, you'll know the photobooth plays an important role in the movie.  They brought in a photobooth for movie-goers to take their own pictures.  It sat in the lobby for several weeks, but it was January and it was cold and I walk (and so had not been walking so much at the time) and I missed my opportunity sadly. 

There is a thriving business, however, for rental of these machines (as you see).  And if you want to find where some of the original machines live, there is an extensive website that is chock full of information on vintage photobooths.  According to the website's locator there is a mere 'one' machine in Nebraska with a permanent location.  It is in a local pub/concert venue, which means it might be interesting to try and go in and use the machine (and it is only steps away from my favorite movie theater), so maybe I'll find an opportunity to have a strip of four portraits taken sometime. 

Books Read in 2015: A Catch Up Post

Once again time has completely gotten away from me when it comes to writing about the books I've read, so a catch-up post with a few brief mentions is going to have to suffice.  I have set aside three novels that I really do want to write about and will get to those in the first week or so of the new year.  So there will be more tidying up in 2016 before I am ready for a fresh 'fresh start'.  I never feel completely satisfied when I have finished reading a book until I have in some way written about it or shared my experience. Unfortunately in a few cases too much time has passed for me to do more than give a very very brief mention, but better a mention than nothing at all.

With Jamilti and Other Stories I have now read all of Rutu Modan's graphic novels (published in book format that is--she has some other comics online that I have tagged in my mind to read at some point).  Jamiliti is Modan's first book and her earliest work.  It is a collection of  seven short stories--all interesting, some a little quirky--dealing with family and identity, relationships and love.  The stories seem to be presented chronologically, so it's cool to see how Modan's work and style developed over time.  The first story, the titular "Jamiliti" is quite brief and almost a little bit simplistic in the way it is drawn and presented.  But by the last story,"Your Number One Fan" the comic is recognizably mature Rutu Modan.  It's almost curious to me how very descriptive those latter comics are in the way they are drawn.  You almost forget that this is a comic and those are not real people.  I am eagerly awaiting another book by Modan!  And in case you're wondering--Jamiliti is an Arabic word meaning "beautiful one".

Edna Ferber's So Big was my choice for the 1924 Club, which I enthusiastically picked up even knowing I wouldn't likely finish at the time everyone else was reading and writing about their 1924 books.  I've always wanted to read Ferber and have long had this book on my reading pile.  Not least I wanted to read an early Pulitzer Prize winner.  If I am entirely honest with you--I am glad I read the book, but it was a story I enjoyed reading when I was reading it, yet I was not as enthusiastic about reaching for it as often as I should have.  It is a completely satisfying story (and I put down my reaction mostly to just timing and the wonky reading year I have been having) of one woman and her desire that her son- Sobig, would have a better life than she had.  Selina Peake is the daughter of a gambler who ends up as a farmer.  It's not the life I expected for her.  I thought it would be more elegant or easy perhaps.  But she ends up marrying an immigrant farmer who then dies young and so she continues on, and she manages to make more of a success of it (willing to take more risks) than he ever did.  I'd like to give her books another go.  They were hugely popular and many were adapted to film.  I think I was expecting something light and maybe even a little frivolous, but then there is a reason she won a prestigious award--popular she might have been but she crossed over that line from entertainment to literature.

I wish I had written about Anne Wiazemsky's My Berlin Child right when I finished it.  I think I was conflicted about it and so put it off, though I did share a teaser while reading, which has a brief description.  It's based on a true story of a Frenchwoman (the daughter of Francois Mauriac) who was an ambulance driver during WWII.  It is a fictionalized biography of her experiences during the war and after and about the love affair she had with a Frenchman of Russian birth.  It was another story I struggled with. While I liked the use of letters and diary entries as part of the narrative, I found Claire's 'voice' hard to warm up to.  Maybe someday I will try and tackle it again and a second reading will be more satisfying.

Oh, Winston Graham's Ross Poldark, A Novel of Cornwall 1783-1787 was a delight to read and maybe eve more of a delight to watch on PBS.  Now the two--book and film have become inextricably linked in my mind.  The Adaptation actually tells the story of the first two books in the series of novels, though I only managed to read the first.  This is a historical saga that you can really sink your teeth into (and how nice know to have such attractive visuals).  This is a story that has it all--drama, love, revenge, unrequited love, new love, adventure and sweeping visuals of Cornish countryside (oops--thinking as much of the film as the book on that note).  In case you haven't read the books or seen the adaptation--Captain Poldark returns home from the War in America only to find the love of his life (the one thing that kept him going when he was at war) about to be married to his cousin.  His home is in ruins and now he must start from scratch.  He is a decent and admirable man, or as much so as any 18th century man would be.  He takes in this ragamuffin of a girl, who had been dressed as a boy, and over the years they end up falling in love.  Cut to the next book, which I still look forward to reading (even though I have seen it and know how it ends).  Typically . . . now that I am thinking of the story again I am in mind to pick up the next book.  I wonder if there will be a new season of Poldark next summer?  And how many books were there in this saga?  (Quite a few I think).

I think Giorgio Bassani's The Garden of the Finzi Continis was the first classic I read this year.  I was off to such a good start--not only a classic but a book translated from Italian and one set during WWII.  What happened.  I jinxed myself by not writing about it apparently, because it's been a poor showing this year in terms of classic literature.  This is a book I would like to read again some day.  It is a melancholy story for a number of reasons--a war story told from the perspective of a Jewish young man who falls in love with the daughter of his rich neighbors, a love which is doomed to fail.  Of course you know what's coming but you watch as this way of life comes to an end.  It's one of those perfectly told stories that grasps you around the middle and you can't turn away and don't want to but are left feeling bereft in the end even when you expected it.

I've got three more books to tell you about (and a further two or three more that I am finishing up this week), so there will be a few more loose ends to tidy up and maybe next year I will manage to write about my books in a more timely manner?  Or there is always wishful thinking.

The Property by Rutu Modan

I'm not sure why I am surprised really . . . but I find it most intriguing and even a little surprising that graphic novels can tell such a good and satisfying story.  I mean one which is done really well feels so complete, not like an episode in something that you expect to be much longer (am thinking, I suppose, of comics I read as a kid which were just serializations).  I love Rutu Modan's writing and her illustrating.  I loved Exit Wounds, and I think I like The Property even more.   It really is a little curious that I find her characters so compelling and real in their way.  But why not, really.  I feel that way when I read a novel, but in this case there are illustrations that go along with the story and help tell it.  The expressions of the characters, all the little visual details, just flesh (sorry, am not trying to be punny here) it out a little more. 

Once again Modan tells a story that has a mystery at its center.  Maybe it is better in this case to say a secret that will be revealed over the course of the novel.  It is a secret that goes back to pre-WWII Warsaw, Poland.  It's a story that is about one thing on the surface but something a little more private underneath.  The story takes place over the course of one week as a woman and her granddaughter return to Warsaw, ostensibly to try and get back a piece of family property that was lost during the war.

Regina Segal is not a Holocaust survivor.  She relocated to Israel, then Palestine, before the war and never returned but left behind people she loved.  So many years later, after the death of her son she returns with her granddaughter Mica.  Regina is a tough-minded sassy older woman and Mica an independent younger version.  There is an obvious affection between the two but it's easy to see that Regina is holding something back from Mica.  As Mica sets off to sightsee and try to find her grandmother's former home, Regina has another agenda entirely.  One that is heartbreaking as she sifts through her memories of her life as a young woman in Warsaw.

As Mica navigates her way through modern-day Warsaw she is followed by a family-friend also traveling to Poland supposedly to attend a convention but he keeps Mica in his sights.  She in turns falls in with a Polish tour guide who more than once saves her from the social snare of her fellow Israeli compatriot, who has his own hidden agenda concerning the Segal women.  Yes, lots of criss crossing paths here and each with its own hidden agendas.  It's as if each character holds a part of a snapshot, tells a little bit of the story from a different angle. 

As Mica falls for her tour guide, and he almost seems too good to be true (a few of his own missteps threatens more confusion to untangle), Regina discovers that not everyone she loved and expected would be gone is actually lost.  It throws her for a loop both physically and psychologically and lays her low.  And Mica is none the wiser, at least in understanding why.  The reader works it all out just as Mica does, a journey we all take together. 

I thought this was such a clever and entertaining bit of storytelling.  I am not sure graphic novels are the sort of work I might return to again later, but in the case of Rutu Modan's books, they are most definitely keepers.  Two entirely different stories but they are signature Rutu Modan-style.  There is a lot of wit in her storytelling, a nice amount of realism to imagine the characters stepping out of the book and into real life.  Apparently the story is based on or inspired by events in Modan's family history so maybe the reverse is true--the people, the stories or inspiration step out of real life and into the pages of her books.

I wish she would publish more.  I have already ordered Jamilti and Other Stories, which is a collection of her shorter works ordered and eagerly await its arrival in my mailbox.  She has a couple of juvenile storybooks that look like easy-readers for young children.  Otherwise I think I will have to dig around a bit online to see some of her other work, like War Rabbit which appears in the 'Graphic Lit' section of Words Without Borders (there is quite a lot of graphic works there which might be a good place to get a taste of other artist's/writer's works).  There are also a number of shorter works by Modan that have appeared on the New York Times website as well as in the New York Times Magazine.  I am especially interested in the works appearing on the website as they are also about Modan's grandmother who fled Warsaw before the war--though I am not sure if she is the same 'character' as Regina Segal or if Mica makes an appearance.  I would happily read more about any of the characters from the two books.  A complete list of her work is found on her Wikipedia entry.

I'm not sure if I will squeeze in anymore books by Israeli authors this year, but I will most certainly have a few lined up in 2016.  After Jamilti I will have to look for a new graphic artist to try.  Someone recommended Adrian Tomine, whose work I am sure I have seen in the pages of the New Yorker.  Any other suggestions?  If you are familiar with Rutu Modan, someone working in a similar vein (different subject matter of course but similar storytelling styles perhaps) would be of interest.  Closest to hand at the moment, however, is French Milk by Lucy Knisley, which sits right next to my bed.  I think its time has come.

Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan

There is lots to like about Rutu Modan's graphic novel Exit Wounds (translated from Hebrew by Noah Stollman).  Aside from the fact I am always pleased to read a work in translation, in this case (even more pleased) to read a work of Israeli fiction, I have finally gotten around to reading a genre that is high on my list of types of literature to explore but I never seem to get around to. I've only read a very small handful of graphic novels and I always forget how very cool they actually are, especially with one like Exit Wounds that is so very well done.  This is a story I fell into quite easily and became curiously wrapped up in.  Even if this is literally labelled as a comic (Entertainment Weekly called it the "best comic of the year"), it felt in no way fluffy.  How strange to think I came to feel very sympathetic towards a comic book character, but I did.

The story is set in modern day Tel Aviv, and while it is very much an Israeli story, the feelings the characters are dealing with are universal.  In 2002 (the year of the Second Intifada when there was so much violence and many suicide bombings) Koby Franco is contacted by a female soldier.  A suicide bombing had taken place in Hadera and one of the victims remains unidentified.  Numi, the soldier, is sure the unidentified victim is Koby's father, with whom he has been estranged for a number of years.  Koby is dismayed and annoyed to hear this, particularly since Numi is not forthcoming about what she bases her claims on.

This is almost a mystery really, with the problem to be solved the discovery of the identity of the victim of the bombing.  The one clue is a scarf found at the site of the bombing.  A scarf well known by Numi and belonging to the dead man, the man she is sure is Koby's father, and the man with whom she had been having an affair.  Koby eventually agrees to help Numi on her quest to find answers.  A simple blood test is the only thing that needs to happen, but it turns out that the murdered man has already been buried so the quest takes on a different hue when they must go and ask questions.  Sometimes the answers reveal hard truths to both searchers.  For Koby--why did his father leave him.  He seemed to just disappear from his life.  And for Numi, what happened to her lover.

You get a real sense of what Koby and Numi are like.  Koby, living now with an aunt and uncle and driving a family cab is angry and resentful.  And Numi is a woman spurned by her much older lover.  Numi is an especially sympathetic character.  The daughter of wealthy parents, her sister and mother are beautiful and popular and Numi is tall and gawky.  Her fellow soldiers jokingly call her the Giraffe.  The two personalities come together and clash and collide and click and then part.  This is in a sense, a very unusual love story, yet a very realistic one.  The characters aren't beautiful, they are often angry or sad, and this search both brings them together and pushes them apart--very much like real life wherever you live and whatever language you speak.  The mystery is solved in an unexpected yet wholly satisfying way. 

I won't tell you what happens to Koby and Numi, but I will give you a little virtual nudge to go find a copy of Exit Wounds for yourself.   The illustrations are great and there is a Q&A at the end of the book which is very illuminating.  Modan was inspired by actual events, a suicide bombing victim which was never identified (how is it possible that someone can go missing in such a way, that no one can claim knowledge of them), yet she fleshed out the story with pure invention.  Now I want to read her other graphic novel, The Property.  I really like graphic novels and hope not so much passes once again before I read another. 

Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman

I rarely pick up graphic novels to read, but when I do I almost always very much enjoy them, so I really must reach for them more often.  One of the interesting things about Ari Folman and David Polonsky's Waltz with Bashir is that it came about as a result of the movie that was first made, but then follow this circuitous thinking--the film was inspired by the graphic novel genre.   Also interestingly, whereas Art Spiegelman's Maus was the first proper graphic novel, I believe Waltz with Bashir was the first documentary animated film.  The former Holocaust literature and the latter about the Israeli-Lebanon War.  It all feels sort of tied together for me.

I really liked the graphic novel but I loved the film.  Obviously they are telling the same story but the film felt more fleshed out and most definitely is a much more powerful way of telling this story.  It begins as an exploration of one man's experiences as a young soldier in Lebanon but eventually the focus tightens on the massacre of Palestinian civilians by Phalangist (Christian Lebanese) troops which the Israeli army (at least initially) turned a blind eye upon.

Ron Leshem's Beaufort tells the story of the end of the Lebanese War when Israel was pulling out in 2000, and Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir goes back to the beginning of the conflict in 1982.  Folman tells his story from the vantage point of more than twenty years on.  He's put the past behind him, but when a friend tells him of a disturbing dream he has over and over about his 'job' during the war (the friend couldn't/wouldn't shoot people so it was his job to kill the dogs guarding villages and alerting Palestinians who were on the most wanted lists), which opens a Pandora's box of repressed memories for Folman.

He's mostly forgotten about his experiences in the war.  He was only nineteen when he was sent to Lebanon.  This is a war that was unpopular with Israeli Society and not seen as a defensive war-at least not after the first invasion meant to suppress terrorist attacks.  Folman recalls the Yom Kippur War when his own father went off to fight and everyone focused on supporting the troops--life at home came to a stop.  But with Lebanon it was if the soldiers were forgotten and criticized.  Life went on back home while soldiers were dying. 

Most of the story is about Folman's search for what happened in Lebanon.  He interviews friends and fellow soldiers he fought with as he tries to piece together what happened on the border and in Beirut and then later in the villages of Sabra and Shatila.  'Was I there', he asks each in turn.  Yes, you were just beside me the whole time is the reply.  What the book becomes is a mosaic of experiences these young men had, which are eerily reminiscent of the Vietnam War experiences of US soldiers.  In many ways the experiences are parallel though separated by time and distance. 

This is such a fascinating and effective way to tell a story.  It doesn't feel like a documentary in many ways as the story is so gripping, yet it is very much a documentary in the way the 'characters' speak and tell their stories.  At one point he even talks to an expert on PTSD and combat trauma and there are some interesting ruminations on memory and how humans can 'fill in the blanks' of what we think we know and remember and how we perceive our own pasts.   What really happened and what didn't is the question.

As the conflict deepens Lebanon's recently elected President Bashir, a man idolized by his followers, is assassinated which is the impetus for the massacre.  The Phalangist troops seek their revenge and the Israeli troops offer support by sending flares into the sky lighting it up; the soldiers not realizing at first just what is happening below.  And Folman was there.  Eventually his memory wakens and it all becomes vividly clear just what happened.

The film has a bit more story than the book.  The visuals are striking.  It is not a flat animation like you see in cartoons, but the scenes have a three-dimensional depth to them that you don't quite get from the book.  This is a story with a moving, climactic and sobering end.  I can read about wars in books, but I have a harder time watching war films, but this is one I very much recommend.  I was riveted.  The war may be particular but the experiences of soldiers tend to be pretty universal in many ways.  This one certainly offers much food for thought. 

I'm finishing Shani Boianjiu's The People of Forever are Not Afraid now, which is a series of interlinked stories about young female Israeli soldiers, which is a different and interesting take on army life.  My class is about contemporary Israeli literature and is broken into different genres.  The Boianjiu is the last one about army life and war and then we'll be moving on to a new topic.  I read so many interesting and impressive books last semester and this semester seems to be equally good.  More about the Boianjiu next week.  

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If you like foreign films, by the way, there are two I recently saw at the theater.  Zero Motivation is a satirical and humorous look at female Israeli soldiers who mostly have mind-numbingly boring desk jobs.  I went with my class to see it as part of our army/war segment. 

Purely by chance I also caught another Israeli/French film short.  It has been nominated for an Oscar.  Aya is an intriguing film that gives you just enough information to make you curious but lets you fill in the blanks.  A woman is waiting for someone in the airport.  A man holds a sign waiting for a passenger he will drive to Jerusalem.  He gets called away momentarily and asks this woman, Aya, to simply hold the sign until he gets back.  It's one of those truth is stranger than fiction moments, as she 'agrees' to drive him.  It was the longest of the 'live action' film shorts--I saw the whole group of them and was pleasantly surprised by how good each one was.  I don't usually watch the Oscars, but this year I have seen a number of nominees so I might have to pay closer attention to just who wins.

Visualizing Literature: Maus I & II

I love the idea of graphic novels but for some reason I rarely read them.  When I discovered that my local art museum not only has a quarterly bookclub, Visualizing Literature, that crosses art with books and that they were reading Art Spiegelman's Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to read along.  I'm so glad I did--both to read a classic of the genre as well as a prize winning story (Spiegelman won the Pulitzer for the second book--the first graphic novel to do so) but also to compare the book with artwork that is on display in the museum.  How cool be able to enjoy and appreciate two things I love most.  And as art and literature are in so many ways related and intertwined anyway the experience of both is all the more rich. 

The group met last week and as it has turned bitterly cold here so quickly, there were only a few readers in attendance but the discussion was a good one.  Maus is such a groundbreaking book (rather set of books) in so many ways.  Spiegelman began the comic strip in the late 1970s.  I believe he published a shortened version of his father's experiences during the Holocaust in comic book format in order for him to come to terms, to try and understand what his father went through as well as try and understand his own emotions.  It seems as though Art had a somewhat rocky relationship with his father, and that is quite apparent from the 'characters' in the story.  Is this purely biography?  That is how it seems to be categorized, but with so much nonfiction I think surely there must be other fictionalized elements in the storytelling as well.   I say characters, but they are based on actual people, but using animals to depict the various groups of individuals.

The comic strips were serialized and published as an insert in Raw and then later published as a book and then a sequel in the 1990s.  I think it must have been one of the first graphic novels--and perhaps one of the first to be used as a text in schools.  Now graphic novels are commonplace and are a thriving genre of their own.  It was noted in our discussion as we were looking at the artwork on display that graphic novels differ from comics in that the story is complete in itself.  It tells a full story, whereas comics are serialized with each brief story ending in a cliffhanger in order to draw the reader back again and again.

I suspect I am coming to these books very late in the game and many of you will already have read the novels or be familiar with them.  Maus covers the period just before WWII and as the war began.  His father was born in Poland and had a thriving business when war broke out.  He was married and they had a child, a son.  For some time they were able to continue their lives but as the war continued it became increasingly impossible for Jews to live any sort of life.  The Spiegelmans tried to hide but eventually were caught and sent to concentration camps. 

In Maus II the years they spent trying to survive in the camps and their lives after are the subject.  The telling of the story by Art is part of the story, his search for answers to what his parents went through.  So this is almost a story within the story.  He captures everything so well--his own confusion as the son of a survivor, and the son of a man with a difficult personality.  The two often clashed.  And I don't think I am giving anything away--Art was also trying to come to terms with his mother's suicide.  He captures it all so very well--those uncertainties, the horrors of the war, how his parents managed to survive against all odds.   He moves between past and present, telling the story of how he tried to learn about his parent's history, his writing of the 'cartoons' and the struggles he had with his father. 

It must have been an unusual way to tell a story of the Holocaust when it first came out, but it is also a very accessible way as well.  The visuals add to the storytelling, and it's all the more telling in the animals he choose to represent the people--the Jews as mice, the Nazis as cats, non-Jewish Poles as pigs and so on.  Those visuals tell a story in themselves.  It's a perfect book to choose for a bookclub as there is so much about it to discuss and think about.  The lady who led the discussion had read parts of MetaMaus: A Look Inside the Modern Classic, which is the story behind the books, which added to the discussion.  Now, of course, I have to get my hands on that book as well.

I suspect it was planned, but the discussion coincided with a current exhibit that just opened at the museum, Bam! It's a Picture Book: The Art Behind Graphic Novels.  I took more pictures (I stopped by the museum over the weekend to spend more time checking out the whole exhibit) than I can share here, but I do have a few highlights.

All the graphic artists in the Bam! exhibit are great, but I have to share Jarrett J. Krosoczka's wonderful Lunch Lady series of books which feature a crime fighting lunch lady and as you can see in the upper photo, one of the stories takes place in the school library.  I thought you would appreciate that one! (You know I'll be checking these books out).

Next we moved on to some works in the permanent collecting starting with John Steuart Curry's 1931 painting "The Manhunt".

And compared and contrasted it with Grant Wood's very idyllic 1930 "Stone City".

And then on to a sculpture I have walked past many, many times but must admit have never stopped to look at properly, Solon Borglum's 1901 work "Our Slave".  (I think I have always thought this one was so painfully sad which is why I don't stop to spend time with it).

And finally to Roger Shimomura's 1985 "Untitled", which I believe is a fairly recent acquisition and is one of my favorite (and I have several and often go "visit" them) works.  We talked about how each related in different ways to Art Spiegelman's books--either because of theme and subject matter or style and technique.  

It was such a different way of reading a book and thinking about meaning and how an author expresses him or herself and how it relates to our culture and beliefs and ideas.  Needless to say I really enjoyed this experience!

The museum has all sorts of excellent cultural events and I try and take part in them as often as I can.  In March the bookclub will be reading Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollack by Henry Adams and I will definitely be reading in anticipation for the next discussion.  I've been looking for a way to incorporate my interest in art with my reading and this seems a perfect way.  I might even look for other 'extracurricular' books to read in the interim.

Have you read any good art-related books lately?