Book-It 'o11! Book #58
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one and two, just in case you're curious.) This was a library request.
Title: Market Day by James Sturm
Details: Copyright 2010, Drawn and Quarterly
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Mendleman’s life goes through an upheaval when he discovers that he can no longer earn a living for his growing family doing the work that defines him-- making well-crafted rugs by hand. A proud artisan, he takes his donkey-drawn cart to the market only to be turned away when the distinctive shop he once sold to now stocks only cheaply manufactured merchandise. As the realities of the marketplace sink in, Mendleman unravels. James Sturm draws a quiet, reflective, and beautiful portrait of eastern Europe in the early 1900s-- bringing to life the hustle and bustle of an Old World marketplace on the brink of industrialization. Market Day is an ageless tale of how economic and social forces can affect a single life."
Why I Wanted to Read It: In my fevered search for more graphic novels from my local library, this was yet another stumble-upon.
How I Liked It: While really more a short story than a proper novel, the author manages to fill the tale we do receive with staggering monochromatic coloring, exquisite silent panels of slight but meaningful action, and landscape shots of rich detail that manage to perfectly embody whatever mood the story calls to evoke (routine, promise, transition, socializing, desolation). And that's just the artwork.
While artwork and story are two separate things (as I've noted numerous times in this little ongoing experiment and will continue to note) in the world of the graphic novel, here they are not. The author manages to wed story and illustration in a way that recalls the best of The Sandman or Strangers in Paradise. Part of the brilliance of this novel is how well the text and the art are virtually inseparable.
It's a dark theme, but it's not the rain of despair that eventually bores the reader. The author keeps the misfortune real but the main character's introspection just as vivid. What particularly stood out for me was the unusually and almost lavishly cerebral approach to his craft the author paints Mendleman as taking. Rather than being the vacant work-horse feverishly filling orders (as one would expect of this period), Mendleman finds inspiration for his rugs seemingly everywhere; in the dawn rising as he heads to the market to sell his wares, in the crowded market scenes of excited patrons and sellers. While this will come to be a part of his downfall, it's beautiful to see while it lasts.
The story ends somewhat abruptly, but still poignantly and executing its task well as the reader is left to wonder, as the book cuts us off, what will become of Mendleman and his forced pledge to alter his craft and his burgeoning family with its needs. We are left with some suggestion (in an exquisitely understated way), as the final panel is Mendleman's home in one of the now-familiar landscape shots, but in a much brighter arrangement of colors than are featured anywhere else in the book. It's a suggestion of a quietly happy ending.
The book manages to be so slight (on a number of levels) and yet pack such a hard narrative punch.
Notable: As suggested on the back cover, the book does offer a very personal view of the slow transition of the factory state versus the artisan, and in a way that's possibly more comprehensible than reading the true first-hand accounts of the period in manufacturing and retail.
Title: Market Day by James Sturm
Details: Copyright 2010, Drawn and Quarterly
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Mendleman’s life goes through an upheaval when he discovers that he can no longer earn a living for his growing family doing the work that defines him-- making well-crafted rugs by hand. A proud artisan, he takes his donkey-drawn cart to the market only to be turned away when the distinctive shop he once sold to now stocks only cheaply manufactured merchandise. As the realities of the marketplace sink in, Mendleman unravels. James Sturm draws a quiet, reflective, and beautiful portrait of eastern Europe in the early 1900s-- bringing to life the hustle and bustle of an Old World marketplace on the brink of industrialization. Market Day is an ageless tale of how economic and social forces can affect a single life."
Why I Wanted to Read It: In my fevered search for more graphic novels from my local library, this was yet another stumble-upon.
How I Liked It: While really more a short story than a proper novel, the author manages to fill the tale we do receive with staggering monochromatic coloring, exquisite silent panels of slight but meaningful action, and landscape shots of rich detail that manage to perfectly embody whatever mood the story calls to evoke (routine, promise, transition, socializing, desolation). And that's just the artwork.
While artwork and story are two separate things (as I've noted numerous times in this little ongoing experiment and will continue to note) in the world of the graphic novel, here they are not. The author manages to wed story and illustration in a way that recalls the best of The Sandman or Strangers in Paradise. Part of the brilliance of this novel is how well the text and the art are virtually inseparable.
It's a dark theme, but it's not the rain of despair that eventually bores the reader. The author keeps the misfortune real but the main character's introspection just as vivid. What particularly stood out for me was the unusually and almost lavishly cerebral approach to his craft the author paints Mendleman as taking. Rather than being the vacant work-horse feverishly filling orders (as one would expect of this period), Mendleman finds inspiration for his rugs seemingly everywhere; in the dawn rising as he heads to the market to sell his wares, in the crowded market scenes of excited patrons and sellers. While this will come to be a part of his downfall, it's beautiful to see while it lasts.
The story ends somewhat abruptly, but still poignantly and executing its task well as the reader is left to wonder, as the book cuts us off, what will become of Mendleman and his forced pledge to alter his craft and his burgeoning family with its needs. We are left with some suggestion (in an exquisitely understated way), as the final panel is Mendleman's home in one of the now-familiar landscape shots, but in a much brighter arrangement of colors than are featured anywhere else in the book. It's a suggestion of a quietly happy ending.
The book manages to be so slight (on a number of levels) and yet pack such a hard narrative punch.
Notable: As suggested on the back cover, the book does offer a very personal view of the slow transition of the factory state versus the artisan, and in a way that's possibly more comprehensible than reading the true first-hand accounts of the period in manufacturing and retail.