when i say "cere", you say "bus", cere!, bus!, cere!, bus!

"Cerebus", Dave Sim, 1987

So Michael Chabon writes a coming of age story surrounding comics, I click links on Wikipedia, end up seeing the "Graphic Novel" is becoming considered the newest form of "literature", real art, become intrigued, see "Cerebus" cited, see "Cerebus" is some 6,000 page narrative the author calls the longest in human history, see it contains political and religious satire, sounds good, sounds grand, buy volume one, here's what I think:

The first of ump-teen Cerebus collections is noted for its crude art and silly humor. But more than once do I see foreshadowing of what is promised to me by so many admirers and critics: the dark comedy and satire! It's first realized when a group called the "Pigts" take Cerebus the Aardvark in, believing he is a god. "Tarim, Ashtoth, these were gods...They brought war, pain, they killed without reason or apology...", Cerebus ponders before the statue of the idol so closely resembling himself. Then he tears it apart, and on his adventures go.

Cerebus's adventures lead him all over the map. As he goes, we find him switching allegiances on a dime (once protecting the bureaucratic leader Lord Julius (famed for his likeness to Carlo Marx), next trying to take over his city of Palnu with a group of barbarians), running into comic book spoofs I had to research to understand (Red Sonja and Elric from the Conan series, The Cockroach spoofing Batman and Captain America this time around), all the while searching for gold and ale.

What's the point? Fun, I suppose. Apparently the long-term narrative had not yet been decided on, so Sims had no intention of this thing being a 300 issue massive work yet. Still, it's hard not to laugh at the ridiculous chants of The Cockroach as Bruce Wayne, moaning day and night and killing without cause for his parents, or the snappy one-liners of Lord Julius the bureaucrat (ex, after the torturing, something GWB should know a thing or two about: "Isn't that just like a prisoner...? You invest a good hour and a half breaking them on the rack. And they up and die on you."). Then my favorite had to be Cerebus's view on chivalry from a small school in the wetlands..."Of course he's had many adventures...Why he's probably saved simply thousands of women from death...Haven't you?", to this Cerebus replies, "Actually NO. Cerebus did use one for a shield once, though." This, of course, brings up the accusations of Sims as a misogynist, but I think, perhaps, it points at the knowing of smart men, that too many women just want to be saved by men regardless of their feminism. And that is not good, it's terribly unfortunate, especially if you want to be saved by Cerebus! Anyhow, it's funny, the comics becoming more witty, more inventive as the issues go by (especially in the psychedelic "Mind Game", where Cerebus is in a parallel consciousness manipulating religious fanatics, a wonderful comment on how two opposing, fundamentalist factions can be so easily manipulated by their beliefs, like a Sunni/Shiite conflict). And knowing Lord Julius as well as the Cockroach are mainstays, but that the story develops into a more cohesive plot -- more fun and additional commentary to come!

Good thing I just retrieved "High Society" from the post office yesterday. I'm reading about three books at once right now, but I think I can find time for the little aardvark amongst the amazing tales of The Lost Boys and the occasional Portable Atheist reading. Won't be an issue.

Notes: I just read, while looking for my footer images, about where Sim REALLY started to be called a "misogynist" -- issue 186, something they referred to as READS. Sounds fascinating, especially where Sim begins to argue against the current Marxist-feminist society. I'm sure my views are caught in the middle somewhere, but I respect this man's art now, so I'll stay tuned for where he will take it. Also, publications continue to talk about the first issues as just some funny animal book, but I feel like that died much earlier than they give it credit for, especially when we meet Lord Julius and talk about bureaucracy, aristocracy, etc. Should dovetail seamlessly with a novel called "High Society", now shouldn't it?

maggie cassidy

"Maggie Cassidy", Jack Kerouac, 1959.



Look at that cover. You'd think Jack was writing about encounters with escorts in France, not an adolescent heart-breaking love affair that the author looks back upon with sadness of days/pages turned. How awful.

So first I must say what "Maggie Cassidy" is not:

1) A book about horny.

Now I will move on to say my piece/peace.

Like The National Matt Berninger, Kerouac is having a secret meeting in the basement of his brain. Suppressed emotion of anguish in young love lost. It is seriously never like that I again, I do believe it.

From meeting Maggie Cassidy at a New Year's dance in high school, to having her over to big NYC for a prom at his new prep school, then the bitter and self-eating ending that shows you can overwhelm with emotion sans extreme sexual commentary. Yessir, this one hurts. Maybe myself moreso, moreso right now, because I feel stung by so many women whom I could've married. But I didn't want to. Or maybe I did, but I didn't really know. He didn't either. We're so lost in late teens, early twenties.

Every stupid review I write of Jack Kerouac talks some of automatic writing. It shouldn't, it is his known style for many a books, but this one is so completely successful in the vain of "Tristessa" in that of so many fragments of thought it creates this dancing poetry in novel form. On page 184, near the end, he concocts a speech from Maggie that is half a page, tons of "-", and from it emerges a sentiment that'd haunt Kerouac throughout his search for that ultimate big feeling, "You'll burn yourself out like a moth jumping in a locomotive boiler looking for light". She continues after a minor pause, deriding Jacky for his new big city being.

I see her like so many girls of my own life. With family I met in passing. With cities I met in passing. With a culture I know too well, couldn't be. It's so confusing to say what could have been, especially when what would ensue develops the intellect and awares us of what is.

In the end, the horny prevails, but not the horny, the dastardly and the sinister. Here's the last paragraph, but since nobody reads this, I can't ruin it:

"She laughed in his face, he slammed the door shut, put out lights, drove her home, drove the car back skitteringly crazily in the slush, sick, cursing." Post-revenge-fuck tortures, n that's it.

This from the book that took so many nostalgic and sentimental looks at old home town in a lost era. Kerouac's frequently bitter endings reveal such disappointment he had of his life -- starting in a good hometown Lowell, Mass then to Columbia, before life a military man and wanderer. The roamer, the writer, the antsy part-time recluse. Who started "Maggie Cassidy" with these wickedly sublime visions of winter back East, with the gang, with an easy life of the high school athlete and his little women, and fun.

Like so many of his books with the tinge of bitter ending accompanying this relentless for people and life, the evocative quality runs into your belly only when the pages begin to run out. Then you really can see the images of the indoor track and the little Lowell boy beating the great track star in the 30; the big father entertaining the guests in the back of the house during son's bday party with a dirty joke; the beautiful young lady of us falling into our pseudonym's arms and begging begging begging scared to be loved. Upon reflection, you realize how perfect awesome his writing was.

Now for the only "Maggie Cassidy" cover I know...

two big trees grow in (maybe not brooklyn, but) new york city

"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", Michael Chabon, 2000

Been a while since I finished, but reading and thinking about reading has taken a back seat to gearing up for work, taking care of new kittens, and writing devastating socio-love poetry. Now I digress to write a quick word on this fantastic coming of age novel.

"The Amazing Adventures" should be what "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" has become in annals of American Literature: a novel that peaks in the most human ways to the monstrous desire in all of us to spawn something great in this world. Where Francie had to overcome incredibly poverty and a sad family life in the poorest neighborhoods of Depression-era Brooklyn, we have Josef Kavalier escaping (in the most honest of definitions) from the Holocaust and Sam from sexual repression. Where Francie leaves us with a sense of undeniable hope, however, Chabon strikes the aching truth of a halfway ambiguous close (though Josef, whom it could be argued is Character 1A to Sams 1B, comes out OK nearly on the level of Francie). In the end, however, "The Amazing Adventures" strikes many of the same coming of age nerves that "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" does, with struggles, set-backs, and indeed, amazing adventures.

The Pulitzer Prize winning novel is so sprawling, and so magical in each part, from the young men becoming comic book pioneers, to Joe's torn love affair and need to exact revenge on Hitler, to his eventual return to the city to see the child and lover he left (whom, in an interesting twist, Sam is taking care of in his absence), it's hard to describe the episodes. With every turn, though, Chabon aims for the fantastic image, the plain face of anguish and the awe of dangerous adventures (emotionally and actually/physically). It's prime for a film if the writer(s) can adapt this huge 600-plus page and-worth-every-word book into the lavish and enticing scenes Chabon conveys with his words. With its emotionally taut scenes, brilliant internal and external conflicts (Sam v. His Homosexuality; Josef v. Third Reich; Josef's love for Rosa Saks v. His Need for Revenge; Sam v. Comic Industry; on and on), it's got the perfect story arch for many academy awards noms.

N that's what I think. Now maybe I should get to reading "Maggie Cassidy".