From Wikipedia: “An injury in which an object enters the body or a structure and passes all the way through is called a perforating injury, while penetrating trauma implies that the object does not pass through.[2] Perforating trauma is associated with an entrance wound and an often larger exit wound.” Source
This is what I assumed the title of Rutu Modan’s Exit Wounds referred to. I guess given the cover and images of explosions and Israel and my general knowledge of what an “exit wound” is, I made the assumption that there would be some kind of physical trauma. When I reached the end of the book, I’d completely forgotten about the title because it did not seem applicable to my reading until I looked back at it afterward.
Rereading the title suddenly put an interesting framework around the entire story for me: The novel is about the wounds left behind by someone’s exit from out lives. Perhaps this was obvious to everyone else immediately and I’m just a total idiot who wasn’t paying attention, but it really changed my view of the whole piece. In reading the Twitter feed and some of the posts prior to mine, it seemed that many people had a similar reaction to me in that I wasn’t quite sure what the story was about. Like Kelly there didn’t seem to be any closure for me. However, my new-found insight from the title does give me closure.
Essentially the whole book isn’t about Koby and Numi searching for Gabriel and finding him (as others have pointed out already), but is instead about the effects Gabriel’s exit has had on them. The ramifications of his abandonment of his family and various lovers is the central theme of the story. But it is more than just Gabriel’s abandonment, but also Koby’s mother Aviva’s death. The exits of these characters (or are they non-characters since we never meet them?) leave everyone that’s left in a completely different world.
I think the term “exit wound” is appropriate for this kind of psychological trauma, the after effects of the initial entrance wound are often much larger. In the case of Modan’s book, the ramifications of Aviva’s death continue to expand outward, injuring more and more people as Gabriel and Koby’s suffering continues and is projected, creating more and more exits and subsequent wounds. In this context, the ending does provide some closure, since both Koby and Numi choose not to make additional exits. Koby comes back and Numi doesn’t walk away like she says she will. In some ways this potential relationship (though clearly not solidified yet) closes the exit wounds both characters are suffering from.
I think you’re moving towards a very solid point, but I think that the title makes most sense in the world of the story (without looking at the thematic or political elements Lindsey explicated) if you see Gabriel as the bullet which causes the exit wounds in the bodies of those who were connected to him. I think it’s profoundly significant that Kobe leaves before he arrives at the end, clearly keeping the figure shadowy, like a projectile streaking away from you. It’s almost as if Kobe doesn’t want another gunshot wound, and leaves before the oncoming shell can hit him again.
The point about the mother makes some sense, but for me the father bore too much responsibility for his own actions for me to really read it as the focal point of the eponymous wounds.
Phineas,
Fantastic post. After finishing “Exit Wounds,” I was, like others in the class, not entirely sure what I had read. As you wrote, the title suggested at physical violence and trauma, the reviews gracing the covers and first few pages of the paperback edition of the graphic novel suggested at a life-altering narrative focused around two Israelis, and yet Modan’s text was relatively devoid of violence and seemed to focus on a fruitless quest to find an absent father and lover, one who had passed through a number of other lives after having left both of the focal characters behind. Other than Numi’s devotion and drive, there wasn’t much to hold on to, though, as your post suggests, perhaps that is the point: Numi is holding onto hope that finding Gabriel will close an exit wound, but it is Koby and Numi and the relationship they develop searching for Gabriel that eventually starts to heal their wounds.
It’s a beautiful sentiment, delivered in a manner that doesn’t leave a sickly saccharine taste in the mouth, and yet so much of the graphic novel focuses on the absent, wounding Gabriel that the “leap of faith” Koby takes with Numi at the end seems somewhat rushed. The two grow closer throughout the text, then Numi accidentally pushes Koby away, can’t seem to understand the perverse gravity of her “Like father, like son” joke, gets mad at Koby for coming back, but offers to catch him as he jumps. It’s nice, but it felt rushed and forced in a text that didn’t seem to mind taking its time earlier on.
I think your take on “Exit Wounds,” especially how the title is at first misleading and then reframes the narrative, is fantastic, and it helps facilitate a fantastic discussion, I only wish that Modan had done more with the ending of her graphic novel, something to signal an end to the series of exit wounds. Instead we’re left hanging in midair, much like how Noah Baumbach has chosen to end his last few films, “Margot at the Wedding” and “Greenberg.” We get a slight hint that the focal characters might actually be moving in a positive direction, but the film ends before we get any real indication if it is a permanent or passing change. I suppose you could argue that makes “Exit Wounds” and Baumbach’s films realistic, in both senses of the word, but it also leaves one feeling that you’ve witness a significant period of someone’s life, a moment or series of moments when they attempt to change, but are left hanging, sometimes in midair, without any real sense of closure or catharsis.
Phineas and Lars,
You both bring up excellent points about understanding what we’ve just read. As Lars writes, “Instead we’re left hanging in midair…” not sure what will happen with Koby and Numi, or even if Gabriel will actually be returning (he does, after all, have a history of leaving women high and dry). I’ve seen this type of story before and have heard it described as post-postmodernism (a terrible name I know, but not one I came up with, so don’t blame me). One writer who strikes me as especially familiar is Chrstopher Coake, who ends pretty much all of the stories in We’re In Trouble with those types of endings. When I was handed the collection, Professor Miller (of the MFA program) described the stories as like postmodern stories, but without the hyper-intellectual edge. Stories that focused more on the seemingly benign events and stories in a life in a way to better understand human nature and the still very postmodern notions of modern life. I felt this story is very much in line with that movement. What is, on the surface, the story of a failed quest to find a missing person, becomes something much deeper: as you both describe, it becomes the story of what happens when a person leaves, and the wounds it can leave on individuals, as well as families. In this sense, the story is more about painting a portrait of a life than thrilling readers with action-filled plots that follow traditional story structures.
Jared,
I’m going to have to add Christopher Coake’s “We’re In Trouble” to my Amazon wish list.
In many ways, I like what “Exit Wounds” does, but, to bring film into the argument again (apologies), I like how Wes Anderson ends a story, especially compared to the “midair” endings of Baumbach’s last few films (though, perhaps to tear holes in my own argument, I loved the midair ending of “Kicking and Screaming,” Baumbach’s debut, not to be confused with that awful soccer movie). While I enjoy finding significance in the seemingly benign, unimportant happenings of people’s lives, it’s nice when they end on a significant note instead of trailing off unseen. Many people claim that it’s lazy readers or viewers who don’t like those kinds of endings because it leaves them with work to do in order to find closure, though I feel that some of that shadow needs to be cast on the creators, too. Why leave a story like that in midair? Why not give us something, a postcard from Koby to his aunt telling her about Alaska, a photograph of Koby and Numi moving beyond Gabriel, beyond the exit wounds he left in their lives?
Lars, I think you will definitely enjoy We’re in Trouble. The last story, which detracts from his normal style, actually appeared in one of the Best Mystery Stories of 20xx” collections.
I think that the mid-air endings aren’t quite as mid-air as they appear. We haven’t been left with an overburdening amount of work to do to complete the story. The allure comes from not knowing exactly what happens. The normally reserved and adventure-adverse Koby ends the story by climbing a wall, shirking a cactus garden, and jumping into a tree where he eventually jumps into the waiting Numi’s arms. While it’s impossible to say whether they will live happily ever after or not, I think it’s safe to say they will probably make it. We may never know about Gabriel, but this is for the best, as both characters have received their closure. Numi learns that her missing lover is actually a bastard and Koby makes the decision to turn his back on his father once and for all. In a way, I feel that Modan leaves the ending mid-air, but provides the reader with all the clues they need to wrap it up themselves. In a way, these types of stories exist to tell the story of A to B. Our A point is two people searching for the person who left “exit wounds” in their lives. The story ends when they’ve gotten to a point where those wounds are healing. All the rest is irrelevant to that journey. I feel like whether Koby makes it to Alaska is too much of an afterthought.
Like the others here, I really like Phineas’s take on the title, the exit wound being Gabriel’s unannounced departures from the lives of his supposed loved ones. That said, I wouldn’t want to discard the more physical meaning of the title, which evokes traumatic battle wounds—an especially appropriate image, given the novel’s time and setting.
It occurs to me that Exit Wounds is similar to Alan’s War—both are understated stories, sidestepping enormous political events in place of smaller, personal narratives. I wonder if we might read the title as Phineas suggests but also a a telltale sign of a second story underlying the surface narrative. The title itself is an exit wound—where the murmur of political violence in the background of the novel breaks through, rupturing the “love story” inside.