I fairly positive there is a lot to take away from Wilfred Santiago’s graphic novel, In My Darkest Hour, but after reading and looking through it several times, I am not sure that I got the half of it (which does make me more eager to hear more about it in class—especially other people’s reactions to it). I’ve only tweeted a couple times about this book because I seem to be left with more questions than answers about what I have read. I was more visually assaulted with this graphic novel than any other one we’ve read so far this semester, as gruesome realism does seem to be appropriately attached this work as well.
I think I kept coming away from panels of this book thinking they were more grotesque than just gruesome. In fact, in some (okay more than some) cases, I could leave the panel almost positive that I have no idea what Santiago drew there. I felt chaotic reading it, like at times not knowing up from down or what to study and what to move on from quickly. The calming colors of Asterios Polyp are far….far……far gone. (Although I do think that it is funny that in the cases of IMDH and AP, I can say the colors are both “washed out,” even if they are in completely different ways.)
Now, with the dishwater yellows, BLACKS (capitalized because of the color’s domination), and antique-y washed out color tones, I feel that visually the images are unstable. The fact that we have drawings, real pictures, and montages of all kinds thrown in for good measure emphasizes that fact and disallows the reader from stabilizing the narrative concretely. Obviously, it would seem, the mental issues that arise in the graphic novel attack the reader visually as they try to make sense of the world they are reading about, just as Omar tries to make sense of the world he is living in. Are things at times just hard to read because mentally they are hard to deal with?
What echoes the whole grotesque or gruesome realism is that I can’t remember anything in this graphic novel being drawn or done in a flattering light. The world is, well…ugly, and in IMDH, it shows. When I got to the part of Bakhtin’s article on “Grotesque Realism” that says “The body copulates, defecates, overeats, and men’s speech is flooded with genitals, bellies, defecations, urine, disease, noses, mouths, and dismembered parts. Even when the flood is contained by norms of speech, there is still an eruption of these images into literature, especially if the literature is gay or abusive in manner,” I felt it to be extremely fitting with IMDH (319). We have copulation and overeating, as sex and being overweight are dominate image themes, and I think this graphic novel seems to be flooded with it as Bakhtin suggests some literature can be. While I may not be able to conclusively talk about everything within IMDH, I can assuredly say that in my opinion, the work, in color and in theme, is gritty realism, if nothing else.
I think you’ve done a good job grappling with the book’s visual style and the general sense it conveys. Looking back at individual sequences (the ones that merit the label “grotesque realism”), I’m finding that some of them come across as powerful, and some of them are just a bit gross. For example, the scene where Omar masturbates on the bench after coming back to Hyde Park with nowhere to stay was very poignant. Conversely, the splash page of the stitched-up female nude with the little crucified Jesus over her vagina, that seems to be a cheap shot at shock value…not that I’m opposed to shocking imagery in art, but like any device, it has to be employed carefully and to good purpose. Of course, meaningless imagery is appropriate with the book’s more nihilistic themes—men are meat sacks etc.
But I’m going to argue that in the case of the Christ-crotch, it doesn’t make effective art because it doesn’t convey a profound sense of emptiness or meaninglessness. There’s a lot you could get out of that image by itself, but it’s not presented as a standalone art piece. It’s a page in a novel, and it doesn’t contribute to the narrative in any cohesive sense. I’m not against the trippy grotesque sections on principle, because, scattered throughout the work as they are, they give an impression of the ups and downs that come with bipolar disorder. Maybe one of the greatest triumphs of the whole book is how as we go along on this ride, the crazy imagery and fonts and disjointed structure gives a general feeling of Omar’s extremely screwed up state of mind—a lengthy recreation of what it feels like to be unbalanced. I just didn’t find a lot of the specific imagery to be carefully chosen and thematically appropriate.
I thought the masturbation sequence was effective because its nihilistic undertones (“fuck meat” etc) weren’t overstated. It’s emphasized by the struggle of the character—his facial expressions reflect loneliness, self hatred. The action is (and this kind of ruins my argument, because the imagery doesn’t necessarily qualify as grotesque) understated, but it’s clear. The photograph isn’t just a mixed-media gimmick—the hazy image of the girl under the words “fuck meat” convey the way Omar is pulling from memory. The scene’s placement, after Omar says “I seek the things I want, things I desire,” and the page with the spiraling logical loop (“the lack of pleasure is what I seek” etc.) gives it meaningful context in the overall scheme of the story. It reveals character while also making us (or at least me) more sympathetic to a largely unlikable character. As far as the explicit photographs go—like some of the random illustrations, I don’t think they added enough to justify their inclusion.
This isn’t related to graphic imagery, but while I’m talking about character…I felt Jimmy Corrigan is an example of a frustrating book with a frustrating protagonist that worked. In that, even if you didn’t enjoy the experience of reading it, you can look back and admit “there was so much there.” Personally, I thought it was a masterpiece, and that you’re rewarded for struggling through with socially inept Jimmy and all the crazy structural forms and OSTENSIBLY nonsensical sequences. IMDH is one of those where the unlikable qualities of the protagonist worked against the piece instead of for it (as with many such works). It didn’t help that Omar’s relationship with Lucinda, which I felt to be the novel’s heart, only occasionally felt authentic and unique. That is, with all the crazy stuff going on artistically, it was the basic failure of the story’s simplest element that precluded it from succeeding. When I finished reading, I looked back and found that it was a struggle in itself to get something out of it.
Jay,
I took the Christ-crotch image as a pretty important introduction to Omar’s sexual abuse (after looking through the graphic novel several times). My first reaction was almost exactly like yours, and some of the other images definitely seem to be random of a sort, or even indecipherable. But I think that that’s because of the abuse as opposed to the bipolar disorder. Though I do think you’re really onto something when you talk about the various types of imagery relating to the clarity of thought that changes because of Omar’s bipolar disorder.
K, I’m not sure if I found the discussion re. the grotesque quite as fitting as you did…insomuch, that in Rabelais, there was a specific purpose and point to all the exaggeration. I was a bit lost trying to find that thrust in IMDH. I kept thinking of Edward Abbey as I read through this week’s blackboard text–whose dark humor I can’t help but think is more in line with the traditional role of the “grotesque.”
In contrast to the traditionally ironic/satirical objectives of a grotesque text, IMDH seemed content to continuously bang that drum of nihilistic “undertones.” I found the beat pretty tiresome, but I hope discussion on Wed highlights a melody amongst the gritty realism that I haven’t heard yet.