Osamu Dazai is an icon of Japanese literature, including No Longer Human (1948) and The Setting Sun (1947), neither of which I have read even in transOsamu Dazai is an icon of Japanese literature, including No Longer Human (1948) and The Setting Sun (1947), neither of which I have read even in translation, except now both as manga. No Longer Human is intense, bleak, and like The Setting Sun details life in post-war Japan, devastated by American bombs, in defeat and economic turmoil. Both, written by a depressed author who took his own life, capture the ennui of life in that country and in that period.
So you have thus been warned, but I found both to be powerful stories, devastatingly sad as some people’s lives surely are. No Longer Human has a manga master adapt Dazai’s story: None other than Junji Ito, who knows horror as a genre, and captures it as real life horror.
Cocco Kashiwaya’s adaptation of Dazai’s The Setting Sun (2020, but translated into English 2024) is not the work of a master, by any means, but if you want to know whether to read this story, it’s a good start. The art is spare, the telling straightforward, but both are solid and respectful to the original work’s intentions, as far as I can tell. Dazai was born into aristocracy, so this story of an aristocratic family destroyed by WWII may be something he knows about.
The focus is on Kazuko, who had a stillborn baby out of wedlock from an alcoholic artist she fell in love with; her brother Naoji, who became an opium addict during the war in all its horrors, and her mother, who was raised not knowing how to manage money or anything after her husband died.
Okay, so it is a grim story, but humane, as you get to admire Kazuko and her mother’s attempts to keep Naoji alive. You admire her determination to make a decent life for herself, something Dazai must have attempted--and finally failed--to do, fundamentally. Maybe Kazuko represents Dazai's reaching for hope, in the way of he closing line of Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar: "I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am."
One memorable moment in the novel is the mother’s sudden--post husband’s death--fear of snakes, an image that recurs slitheringly through the tale. Horrors in the daily life of some people in despair, but some people surely include many in post-war Japan.
So this is a good introduction to Dazai’s novel, and it’s good for that at the very least. But as the world changes for so many people on the planet, including endless war trauma, it might be good to read for insight into and empathy about that....more
A Drawn & Quarterly production of a first and ambitious graphic novel by Sig Burwash (they/them) about Drew, aka Vera Bushwhack, a non-binary person wA Drawn & Quarterly production of a first and ambitious graphic novel by Sig Burwash (they/them) about Drew, aka Vera Bushwhack, a non-binary person who decides to move by herself to outback Novia Scotia and build a cabin. She adopts a dog named Pony and periodically plays with Pony as if they were becoming a dog. Vera learns how to use a chainsaw from a neighbor and then has fantasies about riding a horse in (publisher's description) "assless" chaps brandishing a chainsaw.
Many of her fantasies seem humorously and/or admirably aggressive and fun until we learn through cell calls to a friend that they have had some bad relationships with men, so some of this kooky power fantasy tripping just may have to do with anger. And yes, increasingly it is. Mental health and the need to heal is a central theme in this book, for sure.
But in many ways it is also a fun, even often joyful story of developing independence where Vera have to navigate between mansplaining and/or verbally assaulting men and their need for help from/dependence on the good'uns who just want to be good neighbors. But it is no easy road they are on.
Very unique and complicated and concerning and fun and beautifully illustrated....more
A wordless picture book by Mel Tregonning, who died at 31; highly influenced by Shaun Tan, he helped complete this last project based on her extensiveA wordless picture book by Mel Tregonning, who died at 31; highly influenced by Shaun Tan, he helped complete this last project based on her extensive notes toward completion. This is the story of how small things, maybe dismissed as molehills, develop into overwhelming mountians for some people suffering from anxiety. The focus is on a smart and sensitive kid who get bullied, is isolated, and drowns in worries.
Who can relate to this?! Just kidding. Answer--almost everyone today? This one focuses on a young person, so the psychological needs of kids are given priority, and the book can be used for discussions with kids of all ages, but whole families, and communities, too. Signs in the book are given to possible help from connecting to others, reaching out to others. In crises in my life, I have certainly benefitted from helping others, thus helping myself, too. You feel less alone if you realize others also feel alone.
Great artwork in the manner of Tan, including some echoes of his magical realism/surrealism....more
I saw this at the library and picked it up because I have now read more than ten picture books by Júlia Sardà, and saw she was the illustrator. I had I saw this at the library and picked it up because I have now read more than ten picture books by Júlia Sardà, and saw she was the illustrator. I had found Louise Greig's Night Box to be inventive, too. Sweep is terrific illustration that is much better than the story or them of the book. Not that the theme isn't important in this time of raging emotions, and when kids have temper tantrums, as a boy in this story is raging.
So what kind of metaphor/analogy for anger might one use? Fire? Flood? Snowstorm? Sardà uses an increasingly cascading pile of leaves, overwhelming the town, his world, the world. Everything is disrupted, and each page is gorgeous in conception and color. Can these leaves be swept away? ("Raked" would be a better verb for leaves, but the fact that you can be "swept away" by emotions makes some more sense except that the boy sweeps the leaves with a broom instead of a rake. . .).
So the boy gets over his "bad mood" and for some reason gains control of the cavalcade of feelings.
I like the poet's use of language much better in Night Box than here. I'd say it was five star illustration in a two star story. I highly recommend you check out Sardà's work by looking at 4-5 of her books from the library....more
The last volume of one of the great manga horror series of all time, completed with a sense of catharsis and healing. I see at a glance that there is The last volume of one of the great manga horror series of all time, completed with a sense of catharsis and healing. I see at a glance that there is a graet difference of opinion about this work, but I will say it has to be his most personal, to date, a point made clearly through two (electric, concerning) letters by the author appended to two of the last volumes. Oshimi makes it clear here that this work is about his relationship to his own smotheringly over-protective and (probably) mentally ill mother.
I'll agree with critics that the series is best when focused, as does the first half does, on images of psychological horror, a boy raised by a mentally ill mother who may have attempted to kill her nephew. These pages are amazingly drawn, with few words, and all the horror happening in us as we see what it might be like to be raised by such a person. It's breathtaking.
Then the second half gets more verbal, and we begin to get lots of answers to what has been going on. The first half is psychological HORROR and the second half is more PSYCHOLOGICAL horror, as things get spelled out much more and lots of action--including an actual murder and the deaths of both hsi father and mother. It's very dark, but in part because of the letters I admire the obvious courage in the work. And most horror ends in catharsis, in a kind of hopeful resolution.
This has not been released in English officially yet, but a friend sent a digital copy to me of the last volume, which I found powerful. Again, if I were just looking for horror manga, I might have preferred it ended much earlier, with little information--I prefer my horror spare--but knowing what I know no about its being autofiction, I am glad to read that Oshimi wrote this out of his troubled relationship woth his own mother, that he is all right, and that he brings it to some kind of resolution with his mother, who did so much damage to him as he grew up. ...more
Published late July 2024; read early through Net Galley early July.
I think I first encountered the work of Vincent Van Gogh when my parents took me aPublished late July 2024; read early through Net Galley early July.
I think I first encountered the work of Vincent Van Gogh when my parents took me and my sister on yearly trips to Chicago, always visiting the Chicago Art Institute. My mother's favorite area was the museum's great Impressionist works, where I would see Van Gogh's paintings--his angular bedroom, his self portraits, his fields and flowers and so on. Then in high school there was Don McLean's "Vincent": "I could have loved you, Vincent; this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you."
I also in high school read Irving Stone's popular Lust for Life about him and over the years read much about him, many biographies; I have collections of his art work, and as I still live in the Chicago area I go there from time to time. When I was in Amsterdam in the seventies I visited the Van Gogh museum for the first time. I was, as millions have been, intrigued, fascinated by his story of genius and madness. At one time I read a selection of the Theo-Vincent letters.
So I wasn't expecting to learn anything new here, just dipping into a familiar story. Simon Elliot draws on works he cites in the appendix, including a biography of Jo, Vincent's loving brother Theo's wife, an unassuming English teacher who became forever known to and thanked by the art world for promoting Vincent's art work in Europe and the US. The story is told from her perspective, showing us the familiar aspects of his life--his massive production in spite of his life being cut short by suicide and impeded by psychiatric struggles, religious obsession, crazy fixations on various women, connections to other artists, and especially, his close relationship to Theo. Theo also died young, heartbroken about his brother's death,. They named their son Vincent, who joined his mother in promoting his uncle's artwork everywhere.
This is not a graphic novel, but a beautifully illustrated biography, straightforward story, great painting of a painter's life.
Thanks for the early look from artist and author Simon Elliot (nice work, man!), the publisher Frances Lincoln/Quarto and Net Galley. The book's official pub date is August 4, 2024....more
The quietly powerful penultimate volume of this series I had been identifying as psychological horror with the emphasis on horror, as the mother, SeikThe quietly powerful penultimate volume of this series I had been identifying as psychological horror with the emphasis on horror, as the mother, Seiko, is clearly traumatizing her son over a long first arc. A close-up of son Seichi's eyes in the early volumes shows the terror of a young child raised by a mentally ill mother. But now I am focusing more on the psychological, not without empathy for her. True, as is not uncommon when mental illness is present in a household, an unhealthy co-dependency sometimes takes place, bringing the "less ill" person down with the most ill. And that has happened here. Seems unforgivable, in a way. But can Seichi do that?
In the second arc we find out more and more about moments on the hill where nephew/cousin Shige was first pushed over the cliff and put in a coma, and in a later incident, killed. In this volume we get a confession, after the fifteen-volume back-story of Seiko's traumatized life. Sei had been suicidal, and his mother is now unable to fully take care of herself, wants to die as well, but (mild spoiler alert) the turn from horror/tragedy to some kind of equilibrium happens in this volume as the son becomes the parent, as is a familiar turn in life. Forgiveness? Not quite. But Sei makes a conscious attempt to end his own decline and be there for a mother who had really never been there for him.
The real drama in this series takes place is in the afterwords; now there's three of them after the final volumes, and I expect one again after the series concludes. More and more I see that these afterwords are not fiction but revelations that the author is making about his own traumatized relationship with his mentally ill mother. I can tell you I cried a few times in this volume, including in my reading of the afterword, his letter to himself and his readers. If this had been just a story of psychological horror fiction, I could have been satisfied with a horrified close-up of Sei in the midst of madness. Boom, sad, awful, perfect!
But since I now strongly suspect this is auto-fiction, I congratulate the manga-ka for his courage, and his coming to terms with his past in this way through his fiction. This penultimate volume goes back to his strategy in the first arc, to have few words, and page after page of images, only now there are images of healing, no longer terror and emotional abuse (though there are still some images of madness and surrealism). One of the best manga/comics series ever, especially given the premise and the autobiographical link....more
Somber blue covers for 13 and 14, blue for Seiichi’s depression, 36 years into his screwed up life, more than 20 years since he left home for Tokyo. TSomber blue covers for 13 and 14, blue for Seiichi’s depression, 36 years into his screwed up life, more than 20 years since he left home for Tokyo. The drawing, always precise and sharply etched in the first twelve volumes, has gotten much looser at times to reflect the greater edge of madness Sei approaches. Sometimes the images of Sei are blurred, smudged.
In this volume he talks (in his head) to the cousin he murdered, who invites Sei to join him in death. Effectively horrifying. More evidence of his slide into madness.
At the conclusion of volume 13 Sei had seen his former girlfriend--that relationship, only chance for love, ruined by his jealous mother--Yukio Fukiishi, so we expect a meeting between them in this volume.
But nope, it’s mommy dearest, who meets him, care of the police who find her wandering the streets, with his address and a photo album in her hand. But she doesn’t initially recognize him. The police leave her in his custody, where he has to pay her six months back rent. Then she realizes it is him, and apologizes. Too late, mom.
But by far the most disturbing thing in the whole series, especially if true (spoiler alert?) is the letter to readers Oshimi pens at the end to make it clear the whole series is essentially an auto fictional tale based on his own screwed up relationship to his mother.
“The more of this comic I draw, the more I suffer.”
I don’t know if this is true or just laying on the horror, but I have a feeling it is! If so, hang in there, man! ...more
The thirteenth volume of this psychological horror manga series (with four more to go). As the back cover announces, The grand preface is over--and noThe thirteenth volume of this psychological horror manga series (with four more to go). As the back cover announces, The grand preface is over--and now the real story begins! A 12 volume preface?! But with manga Shuzo Oshimi, you read on, of course! And this is not the first time he has taken us years forward from youth to sad adulthood; in other series, he's taken a big jump forward. It's almost as if he were asking us to look at older, sadder people we see on the street and imagine how it is they got there.
So how's Sei doing? Depressed, twenty years forward, working in a Tokyo bakery, drinking, his apartment a mess, with the echo of his mother's last words of rejection still ringing in his ears. Why is the depressed and lonely still alive? Apparently because of his Dad's still being alive, who he sees periodically. And his Dad also hasn't seen his wife in twenty years. So, his Dad, who was barely a blip on the radar in the early volumes, has an important thing to say to his son, then. . (well, spoiler alert), is gone (meaning: dead). So Sei has no reason to live anymore, though in his last letter to him his dad did give Seichi his mother's address.
And then, in the last pages, Seichi sees old girlfriend, Yukio Fukiishi, with her daughter, at the cemetery when he is delivering his father's ashes. Who knows where this might lead, but this volume came to more drama than I expected....more
The Festival of Shadows: A Japanese Ghost Story is a project by the French team, Atelier Sento, or Cécile Brun and Oliver Pickard. It’s beautiful, honThe Festival of Shadows: A Japanese Ghost Story is a project by the French team, Atelier Sento, or Cécile Brun and Oliver Pickard. It’s beautiful, honoring Japanese culture and traditions and the way yokai (the supernatural, ghosts, monsters) are an accepted part of life for many in Japan.
The Festival of Shadows takes place every summer in a remote Japanese village. Each villager assists troubled souls, or the "shadows" of those who died tragically to come to terms with their deaths and find eternal peace.
Naoko, a young girl born in the village, is given a year to save the soul of a mysterious young man, so that’s the span of this graphic novel in the manner of Studio Ghibli. Naoko becomes attracted to her shadow--a handsome young man, an artist--but he seems troubled by some secret from his past. She has a year to figure out how to help him or he’s lo0st forever. The ordeal she agrees to takes her from the village to the Tokyo art world and the uncovering of the grief and trauma of the young shadow. Complex plot moves near the end--I had to slow down in confusion at a couple places--but ultimately satisfying YA fantasy graphic novel.
At the opening we are in a place I know well, an optometrist’s office, where a young woman, Miss Odette Biset-Yu, is told she has a jellyfish in her lAt the opening we are in a place I know well, an optometrist’s office, where a young woman, Miss Odette Biset-Yu, is told she has a jellyfish in her left eye. Okay, so you haven’t read THAT sentence before, right?
On the next page of wordless panels, a tiny flying jellyfish floats in the air around her. And these jellyfish become two and multiply.
Odette was just told by the optometrist to “deal with it,” though I have a hard time believing that, given my own experience, but okay, maybe I got lucky. A friend suggests the same, deal with it. Apparently it comes out and floats around from time to time. You know “floaters”? This seems to be kinda what they are, these jellyfish, but they don’t go away, they proliferate.
Odette works in a bookstore, has a pet rabbit and a crush on a girl, trying to gain independence from her parents as she lives alone, has friends. . . but what is this jellyfish stuff all about?! Is this like Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”? Unlike Gregor Samsa, Odette tries eye drops, no luck.
And then I realize, when I see a sign in Odette's ophtholmalogist’s office for macular degeneration, that Odette and I have the same thing, though I am bring treated monthly for injections in my right eye for it, and she is not being treated, for reasons unclear to me. Millions of people now have it, a blind spot that essentially makes you blind in that eye, most of the affected are older, all the people I see in my doctor's office are older, like me, but I also know you can get it at any time.
This is a a powerful queer novel about a woman going blind, who needs to realize what she has more than what she does not have, and learn to accept help from others, though blindness is of course devastatingly serious.
I loved the poetic way of representing this condition, and all the pages of wordless panels to help us see and feel more what is going on. A great book, with a great, lovely ending, so much shown, yay, and almost no dialogue, yay. I like it a lot, in part because it is personal for me, though I have questions, given my treatment options. I guess some people may not be able to be treated, or it’s too late? Poignant story with terrific cartooning.
I want to thank the author of Jellyfish, Boum, and Pow Pow Press, for the early look at this graphic novel....more
A collection of nine stories the author illustrated relayed to her by adults with developmental disabilities such as adhd and asd. The sad thing aboutA collection of nine stories the author illustrated relayed to her by adults with developmental disabilities such as adhd and asd. The sad thing about the stories is that so few family members or teachers were supportive of these individuals as they grew up. Some 0f this may have to do with perfectionist, mono-cultural Japan where everyone must try has hard as they can to be successfuly at everything they do. Little tolerance for differences.
Most of the authors confess they often blamed themselves for failing to meet standards set by teacher sand parents, but the bullying by peers and teachers and parents was just maddening, devastating. One father with obvious disabilities fails to support his own daughter who exhibits similar traits. Such societal struggle to be to be tolerated, to be understood. So much depression and anxiety in so many as a result and not surprising.
But another thread is the resilience of those who shared their stories. Meds helped many. Some found a single counselor or teacher or family member who supported them and tried to work with them instead of constantly against them. I am reading this with a young person close to me, recently diagnosed, sometimes bullied, much supported and loved in his family but misunderstood and under-appreciated by others over the years. But we are working especially hard to create safety nets for him as he approaches adulthood....more
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adapted and illustrated by Andrzej Klimowski. I ordered it because I had just read Klimowski's The Secret, which I foRobert Louis Stevenson's classic adapted and illustrated by Andrzej Klimowski. I ordered it because I had just read Klimowski's The Secret, which I found haunting. Then I saw the cover; well, you don't want to frame that one and put it in your bedroom if you already have trouble sleeping. But it is a slashing of the story, reducing it mostly to talk about dualism, how we have dark and light selves, good and evil, and isn't it tempting to give in to the dark side? The dark side is here represented by strip clubs and violence: Depravity.
The story is kind of consistent with a late nineteenth-century Western trend to explore one's dark side, painfully knowing one's self ala Freudian psychoanalysis, and then there's all the ghost stories that emerged during the Victorian period, and a dabbling with the occult. Frankenstein. What doe it mean to be human? A setup for the century that followed it, kind of reminding me of the Jack the Ripper story, also heralding the twentieth-century of serial- and other kinds of mass-killing.
But aside from a few scary visuals, this doesn't get us deep enough into the story. ...more
I am not always sure why I keep reading the horror story that is Kabi Nagata's life, laid out for us in what she calls diary comics--I expect it may bI am not always sure why I keep reading the horror story that is Kabi Nagata's life, laid out for us in what she calls diary comics--I expect it may be serialized in Japan?--but comes to us in thr west as a memoir of a particular aspect of her troubled life: Lesbian, lonely, mentally ill, eating disorder, alcoholic, socially anxiety, and internationally known manga artist chronicling all of it. Her first (?) published work, in her late twenties, documents in somewhat sensational fashion, herself as a lonely and sexually inexperienced woman visiting an escort service: My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness.
My Pancreas Broke continues her struggles with alcoholism, leaqding to severe bouts of pancreatitis and hospitalization. The book agonizingly and with brutal honesty details her "slips' on the road to health. At the close of the book it appears she has been sober for awhile, and in an appendix she urges others with addiction issues to seek the medical help she shows herself resisting for much of the book. We are sympathetic about Nagata's struggles, though our hearts also go out to her paranets, who continue to seek ways to love and support her. At one low point in the book, her father says he sees her as a "treasure," which is very moving.
So why read this horrific train wreck of a life?
1) Because Nagata helps us see herself clearly, in all her struggles, and helps us to see the state she is in; she is honest and writes clearly; this can only be helpful to those millions with similar struggles; 2) Because Nagata is not a "train wreck," but a human being suffering as may today are; 2) Because Nagata is a very fine artist, who manages to entertain even as we agonize for her; I never feel like I don't want to read; I read it in one sitting; 3) I have family members (and students) with mental health and addiction issues, and I am sometimes impatient, lost about what to do, facing the limits of my empathy. I look to Nagata's parents for guidance, just parents who don't know how to help their kid, but do what they can. 4) I have gall bladder issues, and her discussion of eating with pancreatitis is actually relevant for me. ...more
Book ten of the psychological horror series focused on a boy, Seiichi, raised bya controlling, mentally ill mother and a clueless, naive father. What Book ten of the psychological horror series focused on a boy, Seiichi, raised bya controlling, mentally ill mother and a clueless, naive father. What are the ripple effects of growing up this way? How might this affect a child's own mental health? We now know that Sei's mother is in custody, having confessed to the crime of an attempt to murder her nephew Shigeru. So, finally he can extricate himself from her, right?
Part of Sei's healing involves his returning to school, which does not go well thanks to the predictable bullying he encounters. But there he also meets Fukiishi, the girl from whom Sei's mother cruelly (and Oedipally; Sei must stay with me! No girls!) separated Sei from. They get together and bond over negligent mothers, but then at night Sei is visited by Shigeru, who wants him to go to the cliff with him. This is a pretty crazy manic scene with Shigeru identifying with Sei. I'll call it a nightmare, where Sei confronts (in his mind) his mother. Psycho-sexual images abound.
After my admiring so many slow-burn volumes where images tell the story, so much (verbally) unsaid--lots of scary/horrified facial expressions--Oshimi has Sei speak a lot, tell his truth. This is powerful in a way, but I say it uses too many words. Oshimi abandons subtlety and ambiguity for an explosion of spoken grief and anger. I would have preferred less than more. I might have wished it ended with this volume and an uncertain future, not that we can imagine a happy future for Sei at this point....more
A raw, wrenching, rough and visceral account through diaries and memories of Karina Shor's troubled coming-of-age, in a supportive family. It's a lot,A raw, wrenching, rough and visceral account through diaries and memories of Karina Shor's troubled coming-of-age, in a supportive family. It's a lot, and almost never disturbing. The family emigrates to Israel, where Shor spins into a downward spiral maybe instigated by sexual abuse into more sexual abuse, addiction, depression, madness. And now recovery and art, inspired by her artist father.
Made me think of the also complicated descents into madness and addiction and sexual dysfunction of Kabi Nagata, Charles Forsman, Jesse Reklaw, Simon Hanselman, and I have as of today reviewed 153 books in a catergory I named GN-Psych. A lot of trauma out there.
It is about growing up, and she describes her teen years, but I hesitate to call it YA....more
I was a psychology minor in my undergraduate college education, and I worked in a psych hospital in the seventies, when Freudian psychotherapy was alrI was a psychology minor in my undergraduate college education, and I worked in a psych hospital in the seventies, when Freudian psychotherapy was already waning in its influence. On the other hand, has anyone in the history of psychology ever approached his influence on an understanding of the world, especially the way we think of the past as a way of understanding identity? Did we even have a sense of what identity entailed before Freud? I think therefor I am , Descartes wrote. And Socrates famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And now in the age of memoir we are examining away! I certainly have a few of his books here, most of them ones he wrote later in life. You can try to dismiss him for various things, looking back (ha!) but you can't deny that he had useful things to say to shape contemporary thinking.
This book, Through Clouds of Smoke: Freud's Last Days, is not about any of Freud's main ideas. I think it is written for students of Freud who already know his work. Otherwise, why would you care about an old psychologist in th last years of his life? I thought maybe it was because 1) of the irony that he was in denial about the causes of his cancer, his refusal to change, his smoking of cigars (and yes, I can't resist: Sometimes a cigar is not only a cigar; sometimes it is a suicide weapon. Why else keep smoking as you endure more than thirty surgeries on your mouth? You see the Freduian analytical move I did there?!
But again, who except Freudians would care about a narcissistic (check!) old man so stupid as to keep smoking himself to death when he knew it was killing him?! Most people would just say: He thought he was so smart, but he was finally as stupid as anyone else, refusing to acknowledge dangers, just another denialist?
The other interesting sort of "poetic" point of the book is that Freud fought two cancers/wars: 1) Mouth cancer (and who among his contemporary thinkers used his mouth to articulate ideas? Irony?), that deteriorated his jaw, and 2) the cancer of and war against Nazism. His work was denounced by Hitler and Nazi Germany, as was "decadent" art of the period. They burned his books as all fascists do! But we don't go into that connection too deeply.
As a once student of Freud I sort of enjoyed this book though thought the focus on his smoking and cancer went on longer than necessary. I might have liked some greater mention of his ideas so a general reader might care about death.. This book was thoughtfully and well-illustrated. I liked it, but found it a curious artifact in some ways. Congrats to the authors for taking this one aspect of his life and focusing on it. Contemporary students of Freud may be grateful....more
Tender is a graphic novel set in Chicago about Carolanne, a woman who like many people sets goals for her life. Her goals include a house, husband, chTender is a graphic novel set in Chicago about Carolanne, a woman who like many people sets goals for her life. Her goals include a house, husband, children--the perfect life! why not me?--and sure enough, there's a sweet guy, who loves her! One piece of the puzzle! But when things begin to unravel, and hard things happen to her, as they will, her mental health unravels as well, and a carefully-paced and well drawn sad story evolves, complete with body horror. I thought it was a really well done sad/scary story which maybe (because it is a woman with rather conventional domestic goals), maybe speaks to feminist themes (on the expectations for women, or the expectations they set for themselves)? I thought it was--because it is psychological horror--somewhat disturbing, which is also to say well done for what it sets out to do....more
Roz Chast is a kind of national treasure. So you know, even though I almost never recall my dreams and don’t relish morning renditions of dreams by otRoz Chast is a kind of national treasure. So you know, even though I almost never recall my dreams and don’t relish morning renditions of dreams by others (just jealous, I know), I of course raced through this for the laughs. And there are laughs of course. This is Roz Chast.
Chast frames the book as research, citing various experts on dreams, and I know all that from my own previous explorations (I kept a dream journal to help me kick start my dream recollections, hoping to mine them for fictional ideas, but alas, not much came of it; I have dusty books here on dreams by Freud and Jung and so on), so I zoomed through those sections (the Kabbalah says. . ) to get to the jokes.
Chast organizes the book into different kinds of dreams she has: Recurring dreams, lucid dreaming, dreams of celebrities, cartoon/comics-idea dreams, nightmares, and tells funny stories of dreams about Ted Lasso, her body, teeth, green beans, messages from God.
She dreamed that a new word for penis was "sharon"?!
There are serious dreams, too, such as one where she gets a call from her crying (deceased) mother. Yeah, some are a bit disturbing, sad.
Short book, pretty fun, a foray into the absurdity of dream logic. Maybe time to restart that dream journal. ...more
I guess I would say I preferred this story when it was like a lyric poem, a series of images where we as readers had to invent the story from the gapsI guess I would say I preferred this story when it was like a lyric poem, a series of images where we as readers had to invent the story from the gaps in it. In the first long arc we had a very disturbed, controlling mother, Seiko, and one little boy, Seichi, her son, who was traumatized by her, and then an attempted murder of a nephew/cousin. This story is largely conveyed through images, painstakingly drawn, psychological horror.
In this volume, after Seichi, many years later, has buried his father, and seeing little reason to go on living, he is called to visit his mother, to hear her story, never told to him, about why she is the way she is. And we see that she herself had been traumatized as a child, unloved, emotionally abused; she doesn't know how to love herself, or others, though she initially tried to love her son Sei in a way she had never been loved. But we also get the clear impression that she is a psychopath; what reason would she have to want to throw children off a cliff?
Again, I didn't need any of this back story to appreciate the horror of this tale; if anything it takes the edge off the terror in its telling. Ithhurt ones hurt others is an old story. But the reason I can justify it, I think, is that the endnotes of this and the previous volume seem to make it clear that for the author this series is painful auto-fiction, reflecting the agonizing and damaging co-dependent relationship that developed between his own mother and him.
in his own story and his fiction, the author makes it clear that the far greater damage is inflicted on the incredibly vulnerable sons. I do not yet know for sure if these endnotes--these two letters to his readers--are fiction or confession, but either way they up the ante for anxiety about an already stressful story. Almost done. We'll see. Either way, it's still a powerful and sad story....more