I enjoyed the book Asterios Polyp. Well, I’ve actually enjoyed all the books we’ve read so far so that really isn’t saying much. Anyway, I haven’t read many graphic novels, but I enjoyed the way the author used panels to show speech and action in the book. For example, whenever a character is talking over someone else their speech bubble (or in the case of Asterios his box) overlaps the other persons. He also used the panels to show how we sometimes drown out others when we’re focusing on something else. An example of this is when they’re at the parade and Ursulas speech is shifted just out of frame when Asterios is looking at something else. I also liked how Mazzucchelli turned characters into their views on life. What I mean is that Asterios was drawn with just circles and squares and Hanna was drawn cross hatched. He used this technique to show when the characters were getting close (i.e. at the party they’re drawing both cross hatched and in circles and lines) and when they’re arguing (i.e. when they’re arguing…). The story was very enjoyable and was told anachronistically.(I love Memento, 500 Days of Summer, and Annie Hall are movies that I love. So this was just down my alley.) While I did get confused a few times—I always do—the book did a great job in using it to tell the story because it could get very confusing and jumbled if not done right. The ending of the book was…depressing. I guess. They’re happy and together, but, you know, dead. Or at least about to die.
2 thoughts on “Lines and circles”
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I’m glad you mentioned the unconventional timeline of Asterios Polyp. This is an idea we should consider more fully: what does the nonlinear timeline add to the story? How would our understanding or experience of the work be different if we encountered it in a strictly chronological order? And also, what does it mean that Asterios’s dead twin is the narrator?
I agree with you on this being a good graphic novel. I actually liked this one the best. It made me laugh on almost every page with its crude and sarcastic humor. I didn’t expect that from this book because the drawing style got in my way at first. I slowly got use to it as I went along. Yeah, I thought that was really cool how he wrote out speeches that were covered up by the other bubble. It really gave the feel of annoyance and tension for the other character, like poor Daisy. I also noticed that when Asterios spoke sometimes there were quotes around his words because it wasn’t the dead brother (narrator) talking. I also noticed the same thing with the way people were drawn. That really bothered me at first, but like you, I noticed how each of the different ways represent different meanings for the characters and their relationships. The ending was my favorite part. If you remember from the beginning where that one guy tells the automotive guy if it was safe to go to work and Asterios makes fun of him for it. Making it sound like it was stupid for that guy to do that and then at the very end where everything was finally right a HUGE meteor is coming down to kill them both. I laughed loud and hard on that one.