City of Glass
January 31, 2007
Two weeks ago I decided to buy a graphic novel from Amazon.com. The one that I choose was “City of Glass” by Paul Auster, adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli. They previewed a couple of pages online and it looked pretty good. At the least it would be something that I haven’t read before. It was a good read, and an interesting exploration of mixing thought and images.
This book was a project taken on by Art Spiegelman – author of “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale”; a Pulitzer Prize winning work, not to mention other numerous prizes. I have great respect for Mr. Spiegelman, and his work. City of Glass is much like Maus in several ways. One way is that the art is highly stylized; with powerful usage of black and white. This is far from a superhero Trade Paperback. Spiegelman worked on this project like a movie producer, only in comic book form.
I do want to issue a warning that there is some adult content and foul language. It makes the point in the book, and is powerful in its usage; but as a Christian, I feel as though I should warn you as a reader.
I will try my best to describe the story. The main character is an ex-poet, turned mystery writer. He receives a phone call, which leads him to an adventure of him posing as a detective, and taking on a case. This whole investigation reveals the protagonist’s weakness’, and in the end, almost leading him to his destruction. During the course of all of this, there is some extremely well thought out and challenging dialogue that draws you in with its philosophical and mentally transcending narrative. One thing that I thought was clever is that the author puts himself into the novel as one of the characters. I think that I like that and will have to use it in the future. Paul Auster is a somewhat well known mystery writer, and the protagonist meets him in order to seek advice on how to handle the investigation.
The book is about one hundred-thirty pages long. I read it and absorbed the art work in under two hours. If I just read it, I could probably read it in under an hour. It was a really fun read in that I hadn’t read anything like it before. I mean not only in novels have I not read anything like this, but also in graphic novels. I highly recommend this book if you are a graphic novel purist. It is a real quality and fascinating work. It says on the inside cover that it was chosen as one of the 100 most important comics of the century. Truthfully, the way that I found it is that there are several people on Amazon.com that have list of the top ten or top twenty must read graphic novels ever, and this one came up on several list. If you are looking for something new, and are burnt out on comics and their general dreary blended generic reading, check this book out. I think that you will like it.
Two weeks ago I decided to buy a graphic novel from Amazon.com. The one that I choose was “City of Glass” by Paul Auster, adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli. They previewed a couple of pages online and it looked pretty good. At the least it would be something that I haven’t read before. It was a good read, and an interesting exploration of mixing thought and images.
This book was a project taken on by Art Spiegelman – author of “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale”; a Pulitzer Prize winning work, not to mention other numerous prizes. I have great respect for Mr. Spiegelman, and his work. City of Glass is much like Maus in several ways. One way is that the art is highly stylized; with powerful usage of black and white. This is far from a superhero Trade Paperback. Spiegelman worked on this project like a movie producer, only in comic book form.
I do want to issue a warning that there is some adult content and foul language. It makes the point in the book, and is powerful in its usage; but as a Christian, I feel as though I should warn you as a reader.
I will try my best to describe the story. The main character is an ex-poet, turned mystery writer. He receives a phone call, which leads him to an adventure of him posing as a detective, and taking on a case. This whole investigation reveals the protagonist’s weakness’, and in the end, almost leading him to his destruction. During the course of all of this, there is some extremely well thought out and challenging dialogue that draws you in with its philosophical and mentally transcending narrative. One thing that I thought was clever is that the author puts himself into the novel as one of the characters. I think that I like that and will have to use it in the future. Paul Auster is a somewhat well known mystery writer, and the protagonist meets him in order to seek advice on how to handle the investigation.
The book is about one hundred-thirty pages long. I read it and absorbed the art work in under two hours. If I just read it, I could probably read it in under an hour. It was a really fun read in that I hadn’t read anything like it before. I mean not only in novels have I not read anything like this, but also in graphic novels. I highly recommend this book if you are a graphic novel purist. It is a real quality and fascinating work. It says on the inside cover that it was chosen as one of the 100 most important comics of the century. Truthfully, the way that I found it is that there are several people on Amazon.com that have list of the top ten or top twenty must read graphic novels ever, and this one came up on several list. If you are looking for something new, and are burnt out on comics and their general dreary blended generic reading, check this book out. I think that you will like it.
posted by P. Allan Frederick at 8:42 AM
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