Note: This post originally appeared on my discontinued website maartensity.com. The published date and time has been adjusted to approximate the original.
What is left to say about a work hailed as one of the finest graphic novels, and a breakthrough for the genre when it was first released back in the mid-80s? The answer is: tell others to read it too!
Watchmen is such a pivotal work that it is essential reading just to understand the new type of graphic work that have been published in the last 20 years, in contrast to the more stereotyped superhero comics I--like many others--enjoyed during my boyhood years. Good superhero comics can no longer ignore the self-reflection brought about by Moore's bleak and penetrating look into the ordinary lives of superheroes.
But read it not only for that--it stands by itself as a highly entertaining story, breathtaking in its visual style and superb structural arrangement. It is a nearly flawless masterpiece that is both an obituary of and an homage to the superhero genre.
I find it useful to think of its nearly perfect execution in slight contrast to From Hell, because they allow one to juxtapose two master works by one author. Both works are masterpieces, but their natures are different. From Hell is a work whose project is doomed from the outset, because everyone who knows ripperology knows that the mystery cannot be solved. Yet the story bravely sets out to create a credible version of events. But it also ponders the nature of that mystery, its implications, and its relevance to us. It is both a narrative and a metanarrative. From Hell's playing field is ultimately more difficult than Watchmen's, because it is also up against the whole literary field, and its past. It is closer to what Bolano would have called "the difficult work", the one that struggles with the thing it cannot quite achieve. Watchmen, by contrast, achieves its goal with room to spare--and that's a compliment whichever way you look at it.
Rorschach was arguably my favourite character, and I'd like to finish this little ramble about Watchmen (and From Hell) with my favourite lines from the novel, uttered by him. Rorschach finishes his last journal entry, and decides to post it to the New Frontiersman newspaper to reveal the truth about the catastrophe. By doing so he acknowledges his own limitations, and he admits as much in his final entry:
"For my own part, regret nothing. Have lived life, free from compromise and step into the shadow now without complaint. Rorschach, November 1st, 1985."
These words reveal that he is leaving the reality he knows for one where he is uncertain of his footing. It shows him as vulnerable, a man who is ultimately fixed in his identity, but not afraid to follow it through until the end. He has great self-knowledge, and knows his limitations, even if he is unwilling to give up on them.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Review: From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
Note: This post originally appeared on my discontinued website maartensity.com. The published date and time has been adjusted to match the original.
No one who has an interest in the history of London can fail to be at once intrigued and disturbed by this masterful work. It is an absorbing narrative with many elements of a meta-narrative to appeal to the intellectually inclined. What intrigued me is the author's awareness of the ultimate futility of trying to determine the truth of the Ripper murders with any final certainty, while at the same time managing to weave such a self-assured story.
The novel suggests that the myth of Jack the Ripper "gave birth" to the twentieth century, or one could say that the spirit of "his" myth can be found in the atrocities of the 20th century. Yet I believe the culture on the ground that surrounded those notorious East End murders is still being investigated with fresh zeal today. I own a copy of Sarah Wise's The Blackest Streets, published just last year, which has as its subject the poorest of the poor living in the Old Nichol towards the end of the 19th century. The "Old Nichol Gang" make an important cameo in From Hell, and in the fear they created by their earlier murders they played an important role in Mary Kelly's decision to initiate blackmail. (Not everyone agrees that a specific gang called the Old Nichol Gang existed, but there is little doubt that a mob was around in the Old Nichol, and gangs of all sorts). Both groups (women in the East End and people living in the Old Nichol) had poverty in common.
The subject of From Hell is sinister and disturbing, no less for the suggestions of conspiracy than for the horrendous murders themselves. However the novel is a reminder that reality is layered, and that the nature of that layered reality is not the solid thing we suppose it to be.
No one who has an interest in the history of London can fail to be at once intrigued and disturbed by this masterful work. It is an absorbing narrative with many elements of a meta-narrative to appeal to the intellectually inclined. What intrigued me is the author's awareness of the ultimate futility of trying to determine the truth of the Ripper murders with any final certainty, while at the same time managing to weave such a self-assured story.
The novel suggests that the myth of Jack the Ripper "gave birth" to the twentieth century, or one could say that the spirit of "his" myth can be found in the atrocities of the 20th century. Yet I believe the culture on the ground that surrounded those notorious East End murders is still being investigated with fresh zeal today. I own a copy of Sarah Wise's The Blackest Streets, published just last year, which has as its subject the poorest of the poor living in the Old Nichol towards the end of the 19th century. The "Old Nichol Gang" make an important cameo in From Hell, and in the fear they created by their earlier murders they played an important role in Mary Kelly's decision to initiate blackmail. (Not everyone agrees that a specific gang called the Old Nichol Gang existed, but there is little doubt that a mob was around in the Old Nichol, and gangs of all sorts). Both groups (women in the East End and people living in the Old Nichol) had poverty in common.
The subject of From Hell is sinister and disturbing, no less for the suggestions of conspiracy than for the horrendous murders themselves. However the novel is a reminder that reality is layered, and that the nature of that layered reality is not the solid thing we suppose it to be.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Gedig: My Diep Ontwaakde Hunkering
Note: This post originally appeared on my discontinued website maartensity.com. The published date and time has been adjusted to approximate the original.
Die hitte slaan op uit die teerpad
en die geur van stof en sinkdakke
roer swart sade van herinnering
die hartseer van herinnering
van 'n diep ontwaakde hunkering
want hier al langs Jakaranda takke
wat skuif en skuur oor die bruin sinkdakke
lê 'n diep begrawe hunkering.
Bo die pienk, gevalle Jakaranda blom
op grond grof tot die reën weer kom
hoe snak ek as die blare wink
as baksteen rooi deur die blare blink
beur my hart as die onthou weerklink
soos dreunings ver in die middagson
die donderweer van die reën wat kom
wat heimwee in my hart weer bring.
Daar's 'n huis wat agter heinings staan
'n huis waar grasse ruig opstaan
met skadus teen die baksteenmuur
en'k onthou weer eens was iemand hier
en sy het daar langs die rooi steenmuur
in die son soms vir 'n ruk gestaan
geglimlag en dan in gegaan
en my hele hart herroep haar hier
Want my leefruim het sy weg gebaan
met doel en drif verspoel in eiewaan
en haar sag bruin oë en helder lag
diep wys stem en roesbruin hareprag
het vir ewig eendag stilgeraak
vir ewig sag bruin nimmermeer
en die diep verlange eggo weer
want hartseer bly geduldig wag
Terwyl die hitte styg uit die teerpad op
en die geur van sinkdakke en stof
sag-saggies sweef soos herinnerings
soos die hartseer en herinnering
van my lank begrawe hunkering.
Daar duskant Jakarandatakke
wat skuif en skuur oor die roes sinkdakke
verrys beelde van my hunkering.
Die hitte slaan op uit die teerpad
en die geur van stof en sinkdakke
roer swart sade van herinnering
die hartseer van herinnering
van 'n diep ontwaakde hunkering
want hier al langs Jakaranda takke
wat skuif en skuur oor die bruin sinkdakke
lê 'n diep begrawe hunkering.
Bo die pienk, gevalle Jakaranda blom
op grond grof tot die reën weer kom
hoe snak ek as die blare wink
as baksteen rooi deur die blare blink
beur my hart as die onthou weerklink
soos dreunings ver in die middagson
die donderweer van die reën wat kom
wat heimwee in my hart weer bring.
Daar's 'n huis wat agter heinings staan
'n huis waar grasse ruig opstaan
met skadus teen die baksteenmuur
en'k onthou weer eens was iemand hier
en sy het daar langs die rooi steenmuur
in die son soms vir 'n ruk gestaan
geglimlag en dan in gegaan
en my hele hart herroep haar hier
Want my leefruim het sy weg gebaan
met doel en drif verspoel in eiewaan
en haar sag bruin oë en helder lag
diep wys stem en roesbruin hareprag
het vir ewig eendag stilgeraak
vir ewig sag bruin nimmermeer
en die diep verlange eggo weer
want hartseer bly geduldig wag
Terwyl die hitte styg uit die teerpad op
en die geur van sinkdakke en stof
sag-saggies sweef soos herinnerings
soos die hartseer en herinnering
van my lank begrawe hunkering.
Daar duskant Jakarandatakke
wat skuif en skuur oor die roes sinkdakke
verrys beelde van my hunkering.
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