Book-It '10! Book #67
The Fifty Books Challenge, year two! This was a library request.
Title: You'll Never Know Book One: A Good and Decent Man by C. Tyler
Details: Copyright 2009, Fantagraphics Books
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "C. Tyler's attempts to uncover and re-tell her father's experiences as a soldier in World War II, and her desire to understand how these events shaped and defined the rest of his life, provide the framework for this heartbreaking and beautiful new book. Part autobiography, part multi-generational family chronicle-- all told in stunningly rich, evocative watercolor illustrations-- You'll Never Know instantly takes its place alongside Maus, Persepolis, and Fun Home as a classic of the graphic memoir genre."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Good reviews from The AV Club and a compelling premise led me to make a request.
How I Liked It: I hesitate to put this alongside the trio of luminaries the back cover invokes for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's new (if only by a year). Secondly, Tyler has an unevenness to her drawing style that can throw off expressions. Trying hard to strike a balance between cartoon character and portrait is hard work (I know from experience) and Tyler frequently falters. Art Spiegelman largely stuck to a "cartoony" style in Maus, as did Marjane Satrapi in Persepolis (although she did some shockingly brilliant shadow work). While the art in Maus and Persepolis both boast the dignity that some critics feel is only reserved for non-cartoons, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home is really the only of the three to stretch consistently past the genre of even her Dykes to Watch Out For. So it's understandably confusing for an artist to find which note to strike. And in Tyler's defense, her cartoons are excellent, as are her "non-cartoons", it's only when she tries to venture between that it falters.
The story itself bears many parallels to Maus, at least in this first volume. Tyler sets out to tell her father's story with some distinctly Boomer navel-gazing thrown in. Tyler gets more personal with her own story than Spiegelman did in Maus, wondering if her relationship with her father set the standard for her relationship with her estranged husband. Tyler hits particularly well with a metaphor of her own, not of mice and cats but of her father as a tree, solid, yielding, using up all of its energy on its primary function (photosynthesis). Not limiting to vegetable, she also see's her father as animal: a fox, a creature that gets by on surviving and really has no room for much else.
It feels almost premature to review this book as I haven't read the second yet (like Maus and Persepolis, You'll Never Know has two parts). But the book at hand: for its flaws, the book is still a fascinating, largely beautiful (illustration-wise) read that may very well belong with the classics of this genre.
Notable: The word "cock-sucker" appears at least three times in a jovial, casual setting. I'm guessing this limits the book's likelihood of turning up at Walmart, beyond the innocuous-looking cover.
Title: You'll Never Know Book One: A Good and Decent Man by C. Tyler
Details: Copyright 2009, Fantagraphics Books
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "C. Tyler's attempts to uncover and re-tell her father's experiences as a soldier in World War II, and her desire to understand how these events shaped and defined the rest of his life, provide the framework for this heartbreaking and beautiful new book. Part autobiography, part multi-generational family chronicle-- all told in stunningly rich, evocative watercolor illustrations-- You'll Never Know instantly takes its place alongside Maus, Persepolis, and Fun Home as a classic of the graphic memoir genre."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Good reviews from The AV Club and a compelling premise led me to make a request.
How I Liked It: I hesitate to put this alongside the trio of luminaries the back cover invokes for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's new (if only by a year). Secondly, Tyler has an unevenness to her drawing style that can throw off expressions. Trying hard to strike a balance between cartoon character and portrait is hard work (I know from experience) and Tyler frequently falters. Art Spiegelman largely stuck to a "cartoony" style in Maus, as did Marjane Satrapi in Persepolis (although she did some shockingly brilliant shadow work). While the art in Maus and Persepolis both boast the dignity that some critics feel is only reserved for non-cartoons, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home is really the only of the three to stretch consistently past the genre of even her Dykes to Watch Out For. So it's understandably confusing for an artist to find which note to strike. And in Tyler's defense, her cartoons are excellent, as are her "non-cartoons", it's only when she tries to venture between that it falters.
The story itself bears many parallels to Maus, at least in this first volume. Tyler sets out to tell her father's story with some distinctly Boomer navel-gazing thrown in. Tyler gets more personal with her own story than Spiegelman did in Maus, wondering if her relationship with her father set the standard for her relationship with her estranged husband. Tyler hits particularly well with a metaphor of her own, not of mice and cats but of her father as a tree, solid, yielding, using up all of its energy on its primary function (photosynthesis). Not limiting to vegetable, she also see's her father as animal: a fox, a creature that gets by on surviving and really has no room for much else.
It feels almost premature to review this book as I haven't read the second yet (like Maus and Persepolis, You'll Never Know has two parts). But the book at hand: for its flaws, the book is still a fascinating, largely beautiful (illustration-wise) read that may very well belong with the classics of this genre.
Notable: The word "cock-sucker" appears at least three times in a jovial, casual setting. I'm guessing this limits the book's likelihood of turning up at Walmart, beyond the innocuous-looking cover.