I was kind of at a lost as to what to write about in terms of Exit Wounds. Like discussion on the Twitter shows, I just wasn’t sure why this graphic novel received such mass amounts of praise, recognition, and awards. Upon finishing the book I was at a complete loss as to what made people think it was such a substantial piece of work. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the story, and I didn’t have the desire to put it down out of boredom once; however, it also didn’t strike me as something that would be on Time Magazine’s best graphic novels of 2008 list. I just didn’t think the love story or the mystery story were that original, or that amazing, and the art left something to be desired.
Maybe it’s the subtlety with which Modan goes about conveying themes and meanings that made me sort of miss the triumph of the book on the first time around. After reading the interview and some others’ blog posts, I can see I missed a lot of the successes of the book. For instance, I automatically assumed when characters were talking about suicide bombings that they were directly referencing the Palestinians, but as Joe Sacco points out, they are never actually mentioned. In some ways, my assumption is exactly the point Modan is trying to convey: this conflict is so very everyday to those who live in Israel/Palestine, as well as those of us who watch CNN or BBC.
I also didn’t really bat much of an eye at the fact that we don’t meet Gabriel the entire book. I guess it was another assumption I made that plot-wise Modan would either choose to Gabriel discovered (in one way or another) or make him end up being dead. It wasn’t until John pointed out that his absence is “haunting” the text that I put anymore thought into it. That, combined with Phineas’s post about the title pointing out that people are scarred by others’ exits, and therefore absences, made me realize that Modan could never actually let the reader see Gabriel in order for the love story between Koby and Numi to have weight.
In the end, I find a lot more to be impressed about by Exit Wounds, but I guess I still take issue with so much of the brilliance being in what is left out, than what is actually there. I think this is why I was generally unimpressed to being with: what we are presented with is a fairly average story. What Modan actually shows us and gives us isn’t this spectacularly brilliant thing until we realize that something is missing, that this is unusual, unique, and brilliant because it is somehow out of the norm of the way real life is.
What is real life? I think one of the things Modan does so well is show that the definition of real life is completely dynamic and unique because every person’s circumstances differ. I touch on this a bit in Phineas’s post, but it’s a post post modern style that I love, for many of the reasons you list. The lack of information, stories that don’t end with complete closure. Modan does an incredible job of showing how a seemingly average story can really provide the reader with an enormous amount of information about people and relationships. And as you say, upon closer inspection, it turns out to be pretty brilliant.