An engrossing marriage of literature and pulp.
Following the acclaimed 1994 graphic-novel adaptation of City of Glass, adaptations of the remaining books in Auster’s experimental noir trilogy now join the first in this complete collection, each illustrated by a different artist: comics legend Mazzucchelli, New Yorker cover artist Mattotti, and cartoonist Karasik, who also art directed all three.
In City of Glass, a traumatized mystery writer finds himself playing detective. He becomes embroiled in a case involving a femme fatale and her deeply troubled husband, who had been inhumanely raised by a mad professor in an attempt to rediscover “God’s language.” Ghosts—presented mostly in picture-book format (one large image above a chunk of text) rather than the sequential panels of the other two stories—follows a private investigator who stakes out the apartment of a man who seems to do little other than write and read. As the investigator (named “Blue”—all characters’ names are colors) compiles reports of his mundane observations, he comes to question exactly who is observing whom. In The Locked Room, a hack writer inherits the literary legacy (and wife and child) of his vanished and exceptional childhood friend, attaining a blissful life—until he can’t resist trying to track down the friend, who forbids being found on penalty of death. Themes of identity run through the books, as do literary references and contemplations on the writerly life—particularly the idea that a writer does not have a life of his own. (“Paul Auster” also appears as a character.) The stories resist easy interpretation, but opaque moments, like characters’ descents into madness or explanations of complex theories, receive rich visualization from the talented trio of artists: Mazzucchelli’s crisp, confident lines; Mattotti’s sumptuous shading; and Karasik’s inventive paneling.
An engrossing marriage of literature and pulp.Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780553387643
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
A not-very-illuminating updating of Chaucer’s Tales.
Continuing his apparent mission to refract the whole of English culture and history through his personal lens, Ackroyd (Thames: The Biography, 2008, etc.) offers an all-prose rendering of Chaucer’s mixed-media masterpiece.
While Burton Raffel’s modern English version of The Canterbury Tales (2008) was unabridged, Ackroyd omits both “The Tale of Melibee” and “The Parson’s Tale” on the undoubtedly correct assumption that these “standard narratives of pious exposition” hold little interest for contemporary readers. Dialing down the piety, the author dials up the raunch, freely tossing about the F-bomb and Anglo-Saxon words for various body parts that Chaucer prudently described in Latin. Since “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “The Miller’s Tale,” for example, are both decidedly earthy in Middle English, the interpolated obscenities seem unnecessary as well as jarringly anachronistic. And it’s anyone’s guess why Ackroyd feels obliged redundantly to include the original titles (“Here bigynneth the Squieres Tales,” etc.) directly underneath the new ones (“The Squires Tale,” etc.); these one-line blasts of antique spelling and diction remind us what we’re missing without adding anything in the way of comprehension. The author’s other peculiar choice is to occasionally interject first-person comments by the narrator where none exist in the original, such as, “He asked me about myself then—where I had come from, where I had been—but I quickly turned the conversation to another course.” There seems to be no reason for these arbitrary elaborations, which muffle the impact of those rare times in the original when Chaucer directly addresses the reader. Such quibbles would perhaps be unfair if Ackroyd were retelling some obscure gem of Old English, but they loom larger with Chaucer because there are many modern versions of The Canterbury Tales. Raffel’s rendering captured a lot more of the poetry, while doing as good a job as Ackroyd with the vigorous prose.
A not-very-illuminating updating of Chaucer’s Tales.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-670-02122-2
Page Count: 436
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
PERSPECTIVES
Immensely enjoyable.
The debut graphic novel from Mohamed presents a modern Egypt full of magical realism where wishes have been industrialized and heavily regulated.
The story opens with a televised public service announcement from the General Committee of Wish Supervision and Licensing about the dangers of “third-class wishes”—wishes that come in soda cans and tend to backfire on wishers who aren’t specific enough (like a wish to lose weight resulting in limbs falling from the wisher’s body). Thus begins a brilliant play among magic, the mundane, and bureaucracy that centers around a newsstand kiosk where a devout Muslim is trying to unload the three “first-class wishes” (contained in elegant glass bottles and properly licensed by the government) that have come into his possession, since he believes his religion forbids him to use them. As he gradually unloads the first-class wishes on a poor, regretful widow (who then runs afoul of authorities determined to manipulate her out of her valuable commodity) and a university student who seeks a possibly magical solution to their mental health crisis (but struggles with whether a wish to always be happy might have unintended consequences), interstitials give infographic histories of wishes, showing how the Western wish-industrial complex has exploited the countries where wishes are mined (largely in the Middle East). The book is exceptionally imaginative while also being wonderfully grounded in touching human relationships, existential quandaries, and familiar geopolitical and socio-economic dynamics. Mohamed’s art balances perfectly between cartoon and realism, powerfully conveying emotions, and her strong, clean lines gorgeously depict everything from an anguished face to an ornate bottle. Charts and graphs nicely break up the reading experience while also concisely building this larger world of everyday wishes. Mohamed has a great sense of humor, which comes out in footnotes and casual asides throughout.
Immensely enjoyable.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-524-74841-8
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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