21st Century Literature discussion

This thread is for discussing the book as a whole. Comment on visuals, narrative, characters... whatever moves you.

I'd been interested in reading some of Chris Ware's work for a long time--my brother is a big fan and was always advocating for him. The complexity of the physical structure of the book and the tiny print put me off though. But when I heard it had been selected here, I was looking forward to giving it a try. I've been wanting to find a door into graphic novels and had been picking up a few here and there--this one, Maus and Persepolis seem to be three of the better known literary efforts (and I liked both of those other two), and was hoping to find a similar experience with JC.

In the end, I can't say that the book resonated with me as much as those others, but I did appreciate the technical aspects of how Ware uses the medium to tell a story. Thinking of almost any page at random and trying to imagine what lengths a novelist would have to go to in order to impart the same information was an interesting thought experiment. I think that's one of the reasons Ware is thought so highly of--the story itself is simply told, but by repetition, slight variation, and wordless images, I think we get to see facets of some of the characters that would need entirely different techniques in a novel.

It was rather relentless in it's particular view of the world though.

The structure/composition seems more imposing than many other graphic novels. It's almost like a puzzle the reader has to put together both in terms of how to read through the pages and how to put the story together. At the same time, unlike straight text, it somehow feels closer to the way the human brain thinks. This was probably the first graphic novel/comic* I read where I felt like the form really capitalized on the ability to play with time (compressing or stretching it, as well as jumping between past, present, and future) and reality (easing so readily between reality and fantasy in the same way that one's thoughts might drift off in the middle of a conversation with someone else).

"... the story itself is simply told, but by repetition, slight variation, and wordless images, I think we get to see facets of some of the characters that would need entirely different techniques in a novel."
Somewhat reminds me of music in terms of visuals repeating in a type of motif with subtle variations (the bird, the silhouette cityscapes, etc.).

In terms of it not resonating as much with you as the other works you mentioned (both of which, I also enjoyed), do you think that was more about the way Ware tells the story or the story itself (the other two you mention, while also very personal stories, are set against more interesting historical/cultural contexts)?

*Member should feel free to use these terms graphic novel(s) or comic(s) interchangeably throughout these threads for the sake of convenience.

Marc wrote: "In terms of it not resonating as much with you as the other works you mentioned (both of which, I also enjoyed), do you think that was more about the way Ware tells the story or the story itself ..."

There's something off-putting to me about Jimmy's interaction with the world. I understand he is severely handicapped when it comes to emotional response and that he himself feels trapped, and would like to be different. I think there are probably many people who can relate--I can relate, when it comes to that (though admittedly, Jimmy's problems seem to be on a much grander scale than most people's, thank God.)

But in the view we get, I think that aside from the handicap, we see a person who is completely self-absorbed. (I sat across from you for six months, and you never noticed me) Though the ending suggests maybe he's coming out of that to a degree, over the course of the novel, I felt that it was wearying.

I think "wearying" is a great word for it, Bryan. This kind of self-absorption does feel like it is on a scale that is unrelenting and obsessive. Not necessarily unbelievable, but as you stated, his problems perhaps create an internal struggle "on a much grander scale than most people."

Having a main character who is so withdrawn and talks so little is also daunting. He's almost like a blackhole in terms of sucking the light/attention away from everything else (e.g., there's a fair amount of history and commentary about life/existence weaved throughout a lot of this book).

I don't want to be too negative--I think Ware accomplished what he set out to do, and did it in an inventive and original way. I have a friend that compares me to the Venetian Doge in Candide, always picking something apart--but in the end, it was a lot of uncomfortableness to absorb at one time.

I guess this would be considered the spoiler thread--what did you make of the fact that Jimmy's sister was actually a third or fourth cousin? For Ware to add this detail, I assume that he planned for something to accrue to it, but I'm not exactly sure what. Perhaps a kind of social commentary? We see a snapshot of Amy's family tree--is it meant to be contrasted with Jimmy's? I'm not sure.

I just started reading the book entire. My previous experience was reading this in a local weekly newspaper almost 20 years ago. I frequently thought I must have missed an issue, as the the current installment seemed such a non-sequitur. I also thought I had missed the beginning. Reading it now, I was wrong both times. Knowing this is the intended structure helps me get a better grasp on the whole thing.

It's just as sad and depressing as I remembered, though. Even reading it in small weekly doses, the awkwardness and defeat in both the big and small things of life radiated from every installment.

Ah, 'tis hard to accept that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds! :D

Innovation and originality don't necessarily equate to enjoyment or satisfaction from a readerly perspective.

Pretty sure I actually missed that Jimmy's sister was his 3rd/4th cousin (was reading late in low lighting so not sure if fatigue or poor eye-sight did me in). I was actually wondering why there was so much detail for her family tree! But now it makes sense--the family tree confirms/carries-to-logical-conclusion the earlier brief panel sequence where child Grandpa Corrigan take the trash out and runs into the fired maid in the snow who seems to carry a "burden." Seems like another intricate connection adding to the complexity of family, as well as the history of racism and philandering among the generations of Corrigan men. It doesn't seem like this info is revealed to the characters, does it?

Marc wrote: " It doesn't seem like this info is revealed to the characters, does it? ..."

I don't think so. I thought some more about this question after I asked it--I do think it's a counterpoint to the systemic racism offered up by Jimmy's grandfather. Whereas the grandfather saw a natural gulf between himself and African-Americans, the reality was there was no gulf.

Also a kind of parallelism--the grandfather and Amy's grandmother (or great-grandmother--I didn't stop to count the generation) were brother and sister, and Jimmy and Amy were (adopted) brother and sister.

As background, here's a PDF of the "Preface" pages. I found the actual printed pages very tiring to read, and being able to expand and rotate the PDF made it much easier.
Jimmy Corrigan "Preface"

As an included blurb from the L. A. Times Book Review observes, "Nearly impossible to read." He must be proud of that, to include the blurb.

Finishing that book was certainly not your traditional bit of Christmas cheer.

Reading it in a couple large chunks was very different from reading it in weekly installments. I loved the layout and the way the story flowed into dreams / fantasies and back and forth in time. I had missed that Amy was Jimmy's cousin as well, but it certainly fits with the overarching theme of generational trauma. Amy, somewhat ironically, seems to be the most well-adjusted of the Corrigans.

I liked that there was some remission in the largely unrelenting pathos in the end, with Jimmy at least able to talk to his new co-worker; even it's questionable that he'll take the hint and ask her out for a Thanksgiving dinner.

My favorite lighter moment was Amy obviously regretting her efforts to get Jimmy to open up about about his interests.

Given your rating, I don't think I need to warn you off of Rusty Brown, Mark, but much of the font in Ware's latest book, is even smaller. I know I'm getting older, but tiny font doesn't usually bother me despite my worsening vision... Was wondering if the heavier paper they used absorbed a little too much ink or something.

Speaking of lighter moments (thank you, Whitney!), I felt like I saw less humor in this upon a second reading, but more beauty and that this visual beauty kind of works against the sadness (a kind of calm, glorious changing of the seasons, the blanketing of falling snow, the bird resting on a tree branch, an appreciation for architecture, etc.).

As a reader, how did you react to breaks in the narrative (e.g., special foldout sections or intricate diagrams)? Did you read the entirety of the back of this 12-panel page on glorious local architecture?


Curious how others reacted to Jimmy--did you feel sympathetic, annoyed, amused... ?

I did read all the fine print on the 'stamps' or whatever they were. I don't know if it was actually worth the effort--I mean, it was satirical, and there was a chuckle or two, but by golly, it was physically hard to read. At some point, it would have been easy to get a little angry at the mind behind the idea of doing it this way.

How did I feel about Jimmy? I'm going to think a little more on that question and answer later

Hmmm, part of my reaction was perhaps from diving into this right after A Gentleman In Moscow, as diametrically opposite in tone and character as possible. To make matters worse, my library's copy was in large print, so the transition from 14pt to 6pt was even more shocking. Y'all know about the micro printing on US currency, right? I was telling a 10-year-old about it, and he looked at the line I was pointing to and read it directly. THOSE days are far behind me.

I did read the section on the outstanding midwestern architecture., and most of the fold-out material. I waited until I had my contact lenses out to read the tiny print, since I'm super near-sighted. I love Ware's droll, impassive style, but it can be a little frustrating when holding a heavy book at an uncomfortable angle and straining to make out tiny or cursive writing.

I like the description of Jimmy as an emotional black hole. Certainly understandable given his and his family's history.

I struggled to read this graphic novel as I am not used to American graphic novels (I am well trained to read Japanese comics or manga, though). I remember I struggled with his "Building Stories" and had no idea what to take from this very artistic experimental book. I blamed myself for being too much story-oriented.

Anyway I found the story getting coherent as the book progresses. The heart-breaking stories of father-seeking Jimmy and his wish-father-were-dead grandfather James make the book memorable.

I really enjoyed Chris Ware's drawings, especially the cityscape. If I had read this book prior to my trip to Chicago, I would have tried to take some photos of the Administration Building for the Chicago Expo in 1893.

I'm afraid I responded negatively to Ware's reader-hostile font & panel alignment choices. While I haven't read widely in the genre, books such as Persepolis and Fun Home manage to tell mature stories without Ware's baggage.

Kangsoon, I think most American graphic novels are more similar to manga in both format and approach to storytelling (aside from the left-to-right format) than Ware's work is.

As reading in paper form is both a tactile and mental experience, I don't think format should ever be dismissed or excused, especially with something so visual that relies heavily on it. It strikes me that Ware demands a fair amount from the reader who is already forced to puzzle the story together somewhat in parallel to Jimmy's doing so. On top of this, if the size/shape/weight of the book provide challenges along with text that may be illegible to some of us, that's a lot of hurdles for a reader to overcome.

I'm still trying to find a good sequence or page that represents this, but one of the things that has always impressed me the most with Ware is that his work sometimes comes closest to working the way we actually think/process information--it sometimes feels like his form is communicating in a more direct, almost subconscious way with my brain than straight text would ever be able to do (kind of tapping into the parallel processing capabilities of the brain). Apologies in advance for not explaining this very well--I do think I need an example to make what I'm talking about more concrete.

The precision, linear perspectives, obsessive details, and even tiny font feel like an attempt to control/contain this sort of immense feeling of loneliness/abandonment (a pull away from the "black hole" as if the perfect visual rendering could somehow prevent the crushing gravitational forces of loss/sadness).

Thanks, Marc. That's a great analysis of the way that the form is part and parcel of the content. I think that many of us who are used to primarily reading text-based books may tend to neglect the visual elements of graphic novels, or look to them to be simple illustrations of the story rather than part of the story in themselves. And when we're naturally looking for the next text element, Ware's style can be frustrating. It's easy to see it as somehow hostile rather than an intentional story element.

This is making me more sympathetic to people who complain that books with big words are somehow hostile to readers. It's a similar problem of lack of exposure and failure to adjust expectations.

My last comment was about a week ago, but I've actually been turning over in my mind the question about Jimmy's character. It's not easy to pin down, in my mind, because I'm partly sympathetic, and partly not, though I can't seem to decide which is justified by the text, and which is not.

When we see Jimmy as a boy, there's really nothing in the scene that would suggest he's having trouble adapting to life. Nothing that struck me, anyway. As an adult, he is a social cripple. What caused that? An absent father, an overprotective mother, and perhaps a succession of seeing his mother's lovers? That seems a little thin, but I can't say that that wouldn't be traumatic. Otherwise there's something else that happened, but that would be extrapolating something that isn't there.

I feel that Ware wants us to feel sympathetic toward Jimmy--that's where his talent really shines. In almost no words, he's created an emotional pull towards his character. (When he does use words, they're hard to see!) But is Jimmy worth sympathizing over? Maybe that wasn't Ware's goal at all.

I feel that Jimmy wants to be part of the world around him, but is unable to, for whatever reason. Yet Ware takes great pain to show us a view of that world that really looks cheesy and cheap--I'm thinking of his 'stamps' of the town, with their tiny print on the back. Is Jimmy paralyzed between his desire to join in and his rejection of the mediocrity? I don't know...it didn't seem that way to me. If he ends up rejecting it, I would think it had more to do with the idea that he didn't feel like he could have it anyway.

I don't know if I feel sympathy toward Jimmy any longer or not. If the story is about anything, it seems to me it's about the inability of people to communicate with one another in any genuine way. Maybe that's true in a relative sense, though these characters exhibit it in orders of magnitude. I'm under no illusion that ours is the best of all possible worlds, but Ware's landscape is especially bleak and lonely, and his characters ruled by fear of contact between one another. It's almost like the suicide of the man in the Superman costume was a kind of allegory for how Jimmy felt about leaping out into the unknown of human interaction.

Well, I haven't really settled anything in my mind about Jimmy. How much of his paralysis is beyond his control? That's the aspect I can't quite settle on.

Jimmy feels like a severe case of arrested development to a certain degree. I've also gone back and forth about the degree to which I'm sympathetic.

It does indeed feel bleak, although it feels like that bleakness is very character-centered (maybe not everyone's life is this bleak... just Jimmy's and his family... ?). The seasons, the other urban citizens, etc.--they all just seem to keep in motion. Maybe not happy, so much as functional/progressing (every time I try to choose a word, it feels too positive).

That's a pretty huge question in general--how much of Jimmy's (or anyone else's) paralysis is beyond his (their) control?

Having just reread this book after reading his latest, Rusty Brown, I'm more aware of and amused by Ware's treatment of white male, heterosexuality his characters seem to either be lecherous old men bordering on rapists/abusers, or young, insecure boys/guys wanting to be good, but unable to stop their fantasies and simply embarrassed to have these urges/feelings).

Whitney, I'm glad you brought up expectations as it relates to struggling with different reading experiences (or, really, any artistic experiences). Some forms/approaches require more exposure/support than others. Sympathy seems like a recurring theme here (both in this book and with regards to other readers)!