THURSDAY, JULY 1, 2010


KLMNO BOOK WORLD


In a graphic novel’s dark lines, the grim life of a troubled soul


by Michael Dirda I


t’s not as though I haven’t no- ticed the rise of the graphic novel. Over the years, I’ve dropped into any number of bookstores and inevitably found — and envied — the three or four young people always sprawled on the floor next to the shelves labeled “Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels.” No other readers look quite so utterly ab- sorbed in their books. Back in the 1980s, I even


oversaw a special Book World “Close-Up” devoted to comics: We ran pieces about Alan Moore’s “Watchmen,” Harvey Pekar’s “American Splendor,” the Hernandez Brothers’ “Love and Rockets,” Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” and the work of Frank Miller. I remember being espe- cially fond of Miller’s samurai adventure “Ronin.” There might have been something about Howard Chaykin’s “American Flagg!” too. Comics, it was clear even then, had darkened since the glory days of Carl Barks’s “Uncle Scrooge,” and super- heroes were no longer as un- complicated as they were in the heyday of Superman. In fact, many of the best com- ics were already addressing themes far more grim and grue- some than anything in EC’s old “Tales From the Crypt.” Dys- functional families, genocide, sexual violence, plain old exis- tential despair — there wasn’t much that was comical in their generally noir outlook on life. They made “The Postman Al- ways Rings Twice” look like a happy love story, a fairy-tale ro- mance.


Since then, graphic novels and comics have grown even more aesthetically complex and disturbing. Think of Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” and Alan Moore’s and Melinda Gebbie’s “Lost Girls” — or consider “Wil- son,” the latest from Daniel Clowes, author of “Ghost World” and “David Boring,” re- cipient of all the major awards in the field, and a frequent con- tributor to the New Yorker. In this album the hero is a fat, bearded and profane Everyman of some indeterminate middle age. Even more than most of us, Wilson has made a mess of his life. When the book opens, he’s unemployed and cares only for his dog. Things go downhill from there: His father dies, he hooks up with his ex-wife (whom he suspects has been a druggie and prostitute), discov- ers that he has a now-grown (and very alienated) daughter, goes to prison and, after his re- lease, learns that he has become a grandfather. The book ends with Wilson in a bare apart- ment, staring out the window, as raindrops skate down the


makes me a little uncomfort- able, Wilson!”


Because each chapter can stand alone, it takes a while be- fore the reader recognizes that they are moving forward in chronological order, gradually telling a unified story. In “Post Office,” for instance, Wilson plans to send a box of dog feces to someone. Only much, much later do we discover — during a family dinner party — the iden- tity of the recipient. Throughout, Wilson period- ically accosts various strangers, and these encounters often re- semble concise, absurdist dra- mas. While waiting for a plane, he asks a well-dressed business- man about his job. The man, ill at ease, answers: “I’m in senior management at a small equity firm, and I do some consulting for various—.” Wilson inter- rupts, saying he doesn’t want “all the mumbo-jumbo. I want to know what you actually do. Like the actual physical tasks of your daily life.” The man splut- ters that a lot of it focuses “on how to best implement mana- gerial strategies in—.” Wilson suddenly erupts:


“Listen to me, brother — DRAWN & QUARTERLY A TINY DRAMA: “Wilson” is divided into “chapters,” each a page long, with a kicker at the end.


panes of glass. “Of course,” he murmurs to himself, “that’s it! Of course!” Ever since Scott McCloud’s


foundational “Understanding Comics,” people have come to realize that there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye in what Will Eisner calls “sequen- tial art.” In “Wilson,” the first thing you notice is that the “novel” is divided up into page- long “chapters.” Each bears a ti- tle, such as “Oakland” or “Taxi Cab” or “Shopping Mall,” and most take only six or seven pan- els to relate an incident from the protagonist’s life. Most of them end with an unexpected kicker or reverse, often a kind of joke or comment on the human


condition. In “Pure Bliss,” Wilson sits


WILSON


By Daniel Clowes Drawn and Quarterly. 77 pp. $21.95


peacefully with his ex-wife, Pip- pi, and newly discovered daugh- ter on a pier, overlooking a lake. He speaks of “the connection between us. We don’t even have to say a word — it’s purely chem- ical.” He keeps on in this vein: “Don’t you feel it, Pippi? Don’t you feel like we’re doing the right thing for once in our stu- pid lives?” Finally, his ex-wife answers, “I don’t know.” And an incredulous Wilson responds, in shock, “You don’t know?? My God, Pippi!” There’s a final pan- el break, and then we’re looking at the little group from the back, as Pippi adds, “I guess maybe this whole kidnapping thing


you’re going to be lying on your deathbed in 30 years and think- ing ‘Where did it all go? What did I do with all those precious days?’ Some [expletive]-work for the oligarchs? Is that it?” The man answers: “Look, I’m proud of what I do, and I work very hard to—.” At which point, Wilson buries his head in his hands: “Oh God, it’s so terrible the way people live!” While Clowes’s art is essen- tially realistic, he seems to have deliberately emphasized the round-faced dumpiness of Wil- son, Pippi and their daughter, Claire. No one in the book is at all physically attractive. At the same time, he varies his draw- ing styles: In some, Wilson is distinctly gnomish or cartoony; in others, he’s thinner and more normal-looking — even as some chapters are in color, some in black and white, and several in a washed-out monochromatic blue or pink.


Who is the audience for “Wil-


son”? Certainly not those young people I see sprawled on the floor with Japanese manga. This is a book about life’s pas- sages and disappointments, and will be most appreciated by those who know something of quiet desperation. It’s not a pretty book, and even its lan- guage is so vulgar that it’s diffi- cult to quote from. But this de- scent into a man’s soul is cer- tainly a long way from what my mother used to call “your funny books.”


bookworld@washpost.com


Visit Dirda’s online book discussion at washingtonpost.com/readingroom.


S


C3


Trading in briefs for pants, she’s still a wonder


by Robin Givhan


Wonder Woman has traded in her signature superhero briefs for skintight black pants. They are the centerpiece of a head-to-toe makeover that in- cludes a navy motorcycle jacket and a pair of gold, bullet-de- flecting gauntlets. Why the change, and what does it mean, if anything? First off, in her more modern comic-book costume, Wonder Woman (a.k.a. Diana Prince, a.k.a. Lynda Carter) looks like a glamorous athlete instead of an unusually muscular Miss America who happens to fight crime. The sleek lines of the new wonder pants evoke sci-fi warrior agility, while the cropped jacket — with its stud- ded epaulets — adds rock star, Balmain flash. Historically, superheroes


have been closely tied to patri- otism. Wonder Woman’s look has not been substantially al- tered since 1941 (except for the late ’60s and early ’70s, when she gave up her costume entire- ly). The makeover purges the Americana from her clothes. She no longer looks as though she’s wearing a flag. She has shrugged off parochialism to become an international so- phisticate.


NEW LOOK: Wonder Woman has given up star- spangled briefs for skintight pants.


DC COMICS VIA REUTERS A career re-envisioning myth and the natural world poet from C1


disseminator. I just like to write poems.” Merwin, who was born in New


York and educated at Princeton, was recognized early by W.H. Au- den, who selected Merwin’s first book for publication in 1952. But Merwin came into his own as a poet during the volatile years of the Vietnam War. When he was first awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1971, he used the occasion to speak out passionately against the war and alienated Auden in the process. He has embraced en- vironmentalism and spent dec- ades helping to reforest the for- mer pineapple plantation he calls home. He maintains a genial but distant relationship with Amer- ican literary life. “I love leading a very, very qui-


et life, and then having little binges of seeing other people,” Merwin said. “I love them both. I don’t want to have either of them all the time.” Perhaps his poetry, steeped in myth and tradition but deeply personal and meditative, reflects that dichotomy. Dana Gioia, a poet who also


served as chairman of the Nation- al Endowment for the Arts and is now director of the Harman- Eisner Program in the Arts at the Aspen Institute, said that Merwin


MATT VALENTINE


A LIFE IN VERSE: W.S. Merwin won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971 and 2009.


was “an inevitable choice” and “one of the last great members of the generation of the 1920s that has dominated American poetry.” Gioia distinguishes three recur- ring themes and traits in Mer- win’s work: a sense of interna- tionalism, a deep engagement with myth and religious vision, and a fascination with the natu- ral world. “There is something monklike about Merwin,” Gioia said. “He is trying to achieve a contemplative distance from desire and ambi- tion.” In an interview Tuesday, Mer-


“I love leading a very, very quiet life, and then having little binges of seeing other people. I love them both. I don’t want to have either of them all


the time.” — W.S. Merwin


win remembered turning points in his life. His father, a Presbyteri- an minister, had a church in Union City, N.J., overlooking Ho- boken, which was then a busy port. Merwin remembers watch- ing the river from on high. “I could just spend all after- noon gazing at the river,” he said, which may have inspired his ear- ly love of the novels of Joseph Conrad. It also made him restless for a life beyond the “rather claustrophobic” one he seemed destined for as a child. After deciding to be a poet, he went to visit Ezra Pound, then in-


carcerated at St. Elizabeths Hos- pital in Washington (for his sup- port of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini during World War II). “I didn’t know about his poli- tics, fortunately,” said Merwin, who was a pacifist and incarcer- ated in a naval mental hospital near the end of World War II, ac- cording to an interview he gave to NPR in April 2009. “He said: Translate. You haven’t got any- thing to write at 18, and you have to write every day. The only way to do it is to learn languages and translate.” Merwin has translated ever since, from French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, among other languages. Merwin’s encounter with Bud- dhism also had a profound im- pact on his life, though he de- scribes it with chicken-and-egg ambiguity: “Did I become inter- ested in Buddhism because it was going to change me, or because of some affinity I found in Bud- dhism?” The power of poetry, and art in


general, to connect us more deep- ly with ourselves, rather than the empty rodomontade and blather of public life, is fundamental to Merwin’s mix of ecological and personal vision. A sonnet by Shakespeare or a painting by Pi- casso, says Merwin, “belongs to each of us in a completely distinct


and original way.” And that is deeply political. “It means you are paying atten- tion to it as yourself,” he says, not as someone merely mouthing the platitudes of public discourse. Merwin, who travels to the mainland about twice a year, says he will visit the Library of Con- gress, give readings and partici- pate in public sessions. “I like the Q and A format best


of all,” he says, “because people get to ask their own questions.” kennicottp@washpost.com


Because the superhero uni- verse is dominated by men, Wonder Woman has always been burdened by the politics of gender. She appeared on the first cover of Ms. Magazine in July 1972, her corset and high boots announcing that femi- nism, beauty and sexuality could forge a powerful coex- istence. Now that she’s been given a pair of pants — that Western symbol of formalized male au- thority — it’s tempting to de- clare this makeover an advance in gender equity. But not so fast. In superhero land, where everything is exaggerated, the boys are sketched with a nod to extreme masculinity. Batman’s suit, for example, gives the slen- der Bruce Wayne perfectly etched pecs. It was only fair that Wonder Woman’s leg-re- vealing briefs gave mousy Miss Prince a goddess’s sexy, lithe figure. Pants make Wonder Woman look chic, fit and contemporary. They imbue her with bourgeois authority. But power? From her lasso of truth to those legs of steel, she’s had that from the beginning.


givhanr@washpost.com


ON WASHINGTONPOST.COM From the ’40s to her newly announced costume this week, check out the many looks of Wonder Woman at washingtonpost. com/comicriffs.


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