(you have to say that in your best Monty Python voice--go ahead--click on "Monty Python"! You can hear it! Okay, now come back.)Not too long ago I talked about some of my favorite book genres, and one of those books in the "Women in the Middle East" genre was Persepolis,
which is a graphic novel. I really loved that book, which surprised me. I've never been one for comic books. Well, that's not entirely true--I used to love "Archie" comics, what with all the high drama that minx Veronica stirred up. But that's where my interest stayed--it never segued into manga or anything crazy like that. So liking Persepolis was unexpected.Writing the Literary Obsessions post got me wondering if there were other graphic novels I might like. I started poking around on Amazon and found a couple I thought I'd like, and then some I just wanted to read out of curiosity.
The graphic novel I read out of curiosity was called Black Hole by Charles Burns. It was very good, well drawn and well written. But weird. Very, very
weird. I felt like I'd read something I shouldn't have. It's the story of teenagers who care only about getting laid, getting high, getting drunk, and getting laid. Oh--and getting laid. It's basically a cautionary tale (or tail--ha ha!-- if you read it you'll get the joke) about a bunch of teenagers who don't care about a plague that seems to be causing them terrible, disfiguring wounds, growths, etc., as long as they get to keep having sex. So of course you see the AIDS parallel here. I found it very dark, quite depressing, and it made me think that I was neither young enough nor edgy enough to read graphic novels.
But I wasn't quite ready to give up on graphic novels just yet. I found Maus I: My Father Bleeds History, and Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, by Art Spiegelman. Once again, a genre of books I am fascinated with led to my discovery of these two graphic novels. Holocaust memoirs are unsettling and horrifying and at the same time utterly compelling. Maus tells the true story of Art Spiegelman's father, a Holocaust survivor. The Jews are portrayed as mice, and the Germans as cats. The Poles are pigs, the Americans are dogs, and a child of mixed heritage (i.e. German and Jew) is shown as a mouse, but with cat stripes. When the Jews (mice) are trying to pass as gentile Poles, they wear pig masks. It sounds odd, I know. The animal portrayals make it easy to decipher who is who (a German civilian or a Polish civilian?), and don't detract from the story in any way. I couldn't put it down. I read both books in two days.It's no secret that another of my favorite genres is the whole British thing. And yes, there are graphic novels to fill the bill of..well, the whole British thing. Like a message from above, I came across Posy Simmonds. How could someone named Posy disappoint me in any literary fashion? Well, she didn't disappoint, and I love her work. How did I find her? Well, it's kind of a long story (you knew it would be). I was watching TV, home alone one day, which NEVER happens, and when it does I never watch TV, except for this time, and I came upon a movie called Tamara Drewe (and by the way, one of the main characters is played
[caption id="attachment_1948" align="alignleft" width="203"]
"Friday Night Dinner" cast[/caption]by Tamsin Greig, who played the mother on the very, very funny British TV series "Friday Night Dinners"). I really liked it, and noticed at the end it was based on a book. When I went looking for the author (Posy Simmonds) at the library, they didn't have anything except Gemma Bovery, so I got that one instead.
Obviously you know this is going to be a takeoff of Madame Bovary, and it is. Gemma (like Emma, the other Bovary) is unfaithful and feckless, and meets an end that is retribution for her misbehavior. But it's so good! It's like a comic book soap opera. I finally got Tamara Drewe, and I loved it too! Apparently it is loosely based on Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd, 
which I have never read. But it tells the story of a woman who returns to her childhood haunts, vastly transformed, and a couple (the wife is Tamsin Greig) who run a writers' retreat. The husband is famous in his own right, and the wife is sacrificing and long-suffering, and of course drama ensues. I just love these books! The writing is so great, and then you throw in the drawing as well? Well, I am in awe of Ms. Simmonds. I am looking forward to reading more of her work.Not to be shallow, but something I love about graphic novels is how quickly you can finish them. I read Gemma Bovery in a couple of hours! It's not that I'm trying to get it over with, but sometimes it's nice to be able, in one afternoon, to check a book off your list that you've been wanting to read. As an old grownup lady, I never thought I'd be a fan of the genre, but thanks to these books, particularly the works of Art Spiegelman and Posy Simmonds, I truly am. They are completely different, and I hope you'll give them a try.
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