Tag: illustrated novel

Curiouser and curiouser…

The Curious Sofa: A Pornographic Work by Ogdred Weary
Book #29 of 2009
I took a break from reading In the Company of the Courtesan first, as I dropped by Mall of Asia after work to hit Book Sale, and get my stash of “carmel”-cheddar popcorn from the Chicago Popcorn Shops (yum!) with my sister.
So I got home around 10 and stretched out on the padded divan with The Curious Sofa. When I picked it up at Book Sale, I actually recognized Edward Gorey’s illustration style instantly, so it was a cinch to figure out that Ogdred Weary was a pseudonym, an anagram of his name.
To those who don’t recognize him, Edward Gorey is an artist/writer known for his macabre pen and ink illustrations and over a hundred books, the type that blur the line between adult books and children’s books.

The Curious Sofa instantly caught my attention due to the subtitle (a pornographic work), so of course I had to buy it, haha, I thank my lucky book-scavenging stars that it was only P25 (Squee!).
The book is about a young woman named Alice, who meets the well-endowed Herbert in the park, and they hop from place to place and are joined by more and more “well-endowed” people, and they all do, erm, “naughty” things together.

“Naughty” is in quotation marks because Gorey leaves it to the reader’s imagination. The picture book is actually as just as pornographic as you think it is, because while it makes a lot of suggestions, it doesn’t actually contain anything overtly pornographic, and the characters could all be twiddling their thumbs or having wild wild sex, depending on how much fun you want to have with the book.

Curiously (pun intended), the book reminds me of one other book on my shelf — Audrey Niffenegger’s The Three Incestuous Sisters, which is about six times the size of this book. I got my copy at the National Book Store cut price sale, for P299.

The Three Incestuous Sisters is in full color, albeit a muted palette and sepia undertones, painstakingly created using watercolor and a technique called aquatint, where a pattern is scratched through a layer of wax on a zinc plate. The plate is then submerged in an acid bath. The acid erodes the zinc where the pattern is scratched and creates grooves for the ink to fall into to create a print. No wonder it took Niffenegger 14 years to finish the book! The paintings are haunting, and bizarrely beautiful at the same time.

Niffenegger (author of The Time Traveler’s Wife), calls it a novel in pictures. It tells a twisted story of three sisters who lived by the sea: Ophile, the smart one; Clothilde, the talented one; and the youngest, Bettine, the pretty one. When Ophile and Bettine fall in love with the same man, the storyline goes off on a surreal tangent, as tragedy after tragedy strikes, and the sisters’ relationship is never the same again.
Both books employ the noir style and surrealism, although The Curious Sofa was some three decades ahead, copyrighted in 1961. They differ in tone, though, as Gorey’s work is cheeky and humorous while Niffenegger’s is evocative, and deep-seated in emotion.
I lean more towards Gorey though, as I felt really drained after reading The Three Incestuous Sisters, as if I’d absorbed all the emotions flying around in the book. And also because I’m not a big fan of the surreal; there’s just a point where it becomes hokey to me.

***
My copies: The Curious Sofa, hardbound; The Three Incestuous Sisters, hardbound

My rating: The Curious Sofa, 5/5 stars; The Three Incestuous Sisters, 4/5 stars

Ahh, Casablanca…

The big 2-0!

Book #20 for 2009: The Tattooed Map by Barbara Hodgson

After my first illustrated novel of the year turned out to be a dud, I was wary of reading another one, lest it turns out to be a disappointment again.

To my pleasure, I warmed right up to The Tattooed Map, a beautiful squarish book full of maps, photos, scribblings, and other ephemera.

The Tattooed Map is the journal of Lydia Usher, a Canadian traveler who explores North Africa with her friend and former lover Christopher.


She wakes up in their hotel room one day to find what she thinks is a cluster of flea-bites on her hand. Days pass and she realizes the marks have formed into a map spreading from her hand to her body like a tattoo.

Lydia suddenly disappears and Christopher takes up her journal in the hopes of finding her, or at least a clue to her whereabouts. He soon discovers that it is no prank of Lydia’s, and as he is drawn deeper into the web of mystery, he realizes there are strange forces at work.


I really liked this book because it was the right blend of travelogue, art and mystery. Lydia leads such an enviable life. Her research takes her to exotic places, she takes off at a moment’s notice, and never seems to run out of pocket money. Her compulsive habit of taking scrupulous travel notes take you right there with her, and her candid observations allow you to visualize the places she goes to and the people she meets.

The other half of the journal is continued by a befuddled Christopher, up until the tumultous ending that makes you want to cry out “Sequel! Sequel!” after reading that last sentence.


For a first novel, The Tattooed Map doesn’t disappoint, and I am eagerly adding Barbara Hodgson to the list of authors whose works I am collecting. It’s good I have one more book of hers in my TBR: Hippolyte’s Island. I think I’ll save that for a time when I’m in dire need of a good read.

***
My copy: hardcover, about P140

My rating: 4.5/5 stars

My best book for 2008

2008 was a landmark year for me and my books – my books tripled in quantity (thanks to BookMooch), my to-be-read stack (TBR) reached crazy heights (now I have a separate shelf for TBR) and was able to read a total number of 230 books.

This month, my book club, Flips Flipping Pages discussed our best and worst books for 2008.

It was challenging to pick out my best book, as I had a lot to choose from, including:

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Ptolemy’s Gate by Jonathan Stroud
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (reread)
The BFG by Roald Dahl
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Daughter of Venice by Donna Jo Napoli
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

After much deliberation I decided to choose a book that blew me away:
The Arrival by Shaun Tan.

From the moment I held the book in my hands, I was awed by how beautiful it was, and how it seemed to elicit from me a sense of reverence as I turned the pages. Turning the book on its back cover, the critical acclaim is staggering – it is all praises from an all-star roster of authors and illustrators: Art Spiegelman, Marjane Satrapi, Jeff Smith, Jon J. Muth, Brian Selznick, Craig Thompson, and David Small.

You might be surprised to learn that my best book for 2008 is wordless – The Arrival is told entirely in pictures, in a series of breathtaking pencil sketches that silently convey so much emotion.

The Arrival depicts the story of a man who starts a new life for himself and his family in a foreign land. Tan perfectly captures the emotional roller coaster ride the character goes through: sadness at leaving his family behind; the stress of a long journey; the relief of reaching the destination; the bewilderment towards a new way of life; the slow acclimatization to a different culture; and the joy of being reunited with family.


Surrealism isn’t ordinarily my thing (see my review for The Republic of Dreams), but I loved how it is used in this book, especially in the new country. Everything is strange and outlandish– from the landscape to alphabet, alien creatures (the origami birds remind me of the paper birds chasing Haku in Spirited Away and the pet-like animals remind me of daemons in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy), food, customs, and transportation – and creates a perfect metaphor for the immigration experience. It also makes a grown-up theme simple enough for a young reader to understand without making it childish.

The book exemplifies the power of imagery – it’s pretty hard to “read” this book and not feel the emotions wash over you, and its cinematic quality makes you feel you’re watching the events unfold right before your very eyes. It made me smile and laugh and sigh, and as I turned the last page, I wanted to burst into applause.


This is definitely a book to treasure, and a must-read for illustrators.

***
(The Arrival images from www.shauntan.net)

My copy: hardcover

My rating: 5/5 stars

Voila!

The Houdini Box by Brian Selznick
Book #13 for 2008
+
Houdini: The Handcuff King by Jason Lutes & Nick Bertozzi

By sheer chance, I now have two Houdini books in my possession, both from Book Sale, and although I read them a few months apart, I thought they’d go together nicely in a review.

Last year I found the hardbound Houdini: The Handcuff King at the Glorietta branch, in excellent condition, for about P170. It’s a graphic novel presented by the Center for Cartoon Studies, America’s premiere cartooning school.

And then, a few months later, en route to a Christmas party in December, we happened to make a stop (bathroom break) at Cherry Foodarama, where there was a tiny book sale booth, and there I found The Houdini Box, for P60.

While both books are about the famous escape artist, Houdini: The Handcuff King is biographical, while The Houdini Box is about a boy who idolizes Houdini.

I like both books because they offer a rich visual experience.

Houdini: The Handcuff King is a graphic novel, in vintage style, done in a monochromatic pen and ink, tinged with blue shadows. I like the way the visual narrative plays out, as well as the interesting perspectives the panels take on — of course, since it’s a CCS publication, they know what they’re doing.

I also like the back portion of the book, where key details of the novel are discussed, shedding light on their context: Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1908; locks of the time and how Houdini picked them; Bess Rahner and Harry Houdini’s love story; the hat-wearing American society; advertising and journalism in 1908; anti-semitism; public address systems and American college rivalry.

The CCS ad on the back page is great too, visually outlining the cartooning process from idea to production.

The Houdini Box, although not strictly about Houdini, has a charm of its own. The story is about Victor, a boy who idolizes Houdini. When he runs into Houdini at a train station, he begs the escape artist to teach him his secrets, and the answer comes a few weeks later, in the form of a mysterious box. The story is short, funny, and engaging, and captures the magic of Houdini.

The Houdini Box comes before the Caldecott-winning The Invention of Hugo Cabret, but it is clear that Brian Selznick has his own magic in storytelling. His trademark pencil drawings come alive on the page, and his skewed proportions add character to the art.

Houdini is one of the most interesting personalities of the 20th century, and both books certainly do him justice.

***
My copy: The Houdini Box, trade paperback; Houdini the Handcuff King, hardcover

My rating: The Houdini Box, 5/5 star; Houdini the Handcuff King, 5/5 stars

The Republic of Dreams: A Reverie by G. Garfield Crimmins

Book #7 for 2009

I’ve always been fascinated with illustrated novels, and when I came across a copy of G. Garfield Crimmin’s “The Republic of Dreams” on bookmooch, I was eager to add it to my growing collection.

I had high hopes as I first skimmed the book, delighted to find that the contents were intact, even the detachable ephemera — maps, a passport, telegrams, a license card, and a whole set of postcards.

But as I read the story, my initial excitement deflated, replaced with that horrible, hollow feeling I get when a book that promises so much turns out to be a big disappointment.

The novelty of the illustrated novel is in seeing two different media — the written word and visual art– meld together in a visual narrative. My beef with The Republic of Dreams is that while the book is lovely to look at (and it must’ve cost a fortune to publish the book too), the story leaves so much more to be desired.

I found the story hard to follow, with a contrived hedonism that made it cheesy.

The author G. Garfield Crimmins finds himself in La Republique de Reves (The Republic of Dreams), where he is known as Victor La Nuage – the alter-ego of his waking self. Victor realizes he is a citizen of the Republic of Dreams, and he was sent on a mission to the “real world” to combat the Republic’s greatest enemy: The League of Common Sense, a movement bent on stifling imagination and pleasure.

(It reminds me of something out of a Jasper Fforde novel except it’s not funny because Crimmins is serious about it, which makes me think he was either a) horny (haha I had no idea this would turn out to be erotica!) b) high c) very very drunk or d) all of the above while he was creating this).

I get the feeling Crimmins wanted the Republic of Dreams to be a place everyone would want to live in, but I think he was trying too hard. He was overzealous in the exposition — “The Republic of Dreams is the true home of every dreamer, noncomformist, artist, eccentric, lover, and poet — all those who have an instinctive dislike of the narrow limitations of common sense. Its citizens love love, youth, old age, beauty, splendor, wisdom, generosity, music, song, the feast, and the dance. The weather is ideal and festivals occur daily” — and that is just in the flap of the book.

He goes on to devote 16 pages (out of 95) to a “visitor’s guide” to the Republic, and it pushes the envelope already.

Adding to the cheese factor are the bad puns throughout the novel — the national ID is called “Licence Poetique,” Madame Ricochet’s salon is a date hotspot located at the intersection of Avenue of Quivers and Shudders and Sweet Tongue Lane (there is also a Street of Sweet Escape); the capital city is Polis Poeton (city of poets) surrounded by Lake Eros — everything was just really hokey to me, too over the top, and it doesn’t help that you can’t make heads or tails out of the story.

I guess I’ll be keeping the book, just for the heck of it, at the very least it would look good (literally) on my shelf, hahaha, but I don’t think I’ll be reading it again.

You don’t believe me? Read the excerpt here http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall98/crimmins.htm, and you’ll see what I mean.

***
My copy: hardbound, mooched from the US

My rating: 1/5 stars

Photo courtesy of wwnorton.com (http://www.wwnorton.com/cover/004633.gif, http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall98/images/rep10.gif)