Signed copies of Gloria Steinem's Life on the Road, Overrated Writers, Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, The Tribe in LARB, Hammershøi Exhibition in NYC,

• Gloria Steinem's event  at Rialto with Drawn & Quarterly was a lot of fun. Such a fascinating life that woman has had so far and her big lesson is simple: listen to others. Think of all the problems we might solve if we merely listened, really listened. If you missed it and want to get a signed copy of her book, you can order one on their website.
• A really interesting discussion on one of France's best-known writers, Delphine de Vigan. Does Delphine de Vigan deserve her success? (The discussion is in French and it's all in good fun in one way though the French rather take these things rather seriously.) One critic argues she's brilliant and fascinating. The other critic argues that she's overrated. Both men, of course, but still, part of a new trend where writers and critics are starting to push back again: really taking certain writers to task and exploring the idea of the overrated writer. Personally, I love de Vigan's work but I definitely do agree with Partisan's analysis of some their writers.
• A really interesting piece on Matthew Orr's book The Road Not Taken and his analysis of Robert Frost's widely anthologized poem, "The Road Not Taken." Orr's argument is that the poem has long been misunderstood as an anthem of individuality when, upon closer analysis, it really does not contain that kind of message at all.
• If you're in New York next week, there's an exhibition at Scandinavia House on the work of painter Vilhelm Hammershøi which ends on the 16th. His paintings are so moving and lonely and I am reminded of Edward Hopper though from a totally different era. This writer looks at the exhibition and at Hammershoi's work in context with his time and age. 
• Great long analysis in LARB of the Ukrainian film, The Tribe, that swept Cannes in 2014. I saw it at Cinema du Parc a while back and thought it was pretty revolutionary, not only in terms of the lack of spoken dialogue (the film is set in a deaf school and everyone communicates in sign language, none of which is translated, yet it's easy enough to follow the broad plot arcs), but also in terms of its squalor and portrayal of the downtrodden (death, murder, rape, accidents, it's a bleak and depressing film but one is still left with hope), things shown on screen that I have to say, I've never seen before. I walked out of that theatre in a daze...

Vilhelm Hammershøi: in New York until next week

Miriam Katin: Letting it Go

I've long been a fan of comics in novel or memoir form and so I was really happy when Drawn & Quarterly contacted us about doing an event at the Festival with Miriam Katin's new book, Letting it Go. Katin was born during WWII in Hungary but her work simmers with youthful and contemporary rhythms.

In Letting it Go, the author/artist (the book is a memoir) is confronted with her fears and anger, traumas from her past which centre around Berlin after her grown son informs her that he is moving there with his girlfriend. The book unfolds in these emotional bursts as Katin works through all her charged feelings that linger from her experience as a young girl, her prejudices against the city, her worries for her son.

It's beautifully drawn with a (what seems to me) intentionally amateur style (almost like it was taken directly from a sketchbook and publishes), naive, blunt coloured pencil drawings and no panels. But in the pages are gorgeous sketches of New York, of Berlin, of the past, and one gets a real sense of Katin's personality and her contemporary life as a New Yorker.

I am really excited that we can host Miriam for the book party at Blue Met. Her event, which will also feature Drawn & Quarterly Editor-in-Chief, Chris Oliveros, will be held at Hotel 10 on April 28 at 1:00 p.m.

And, hey, hey, it's free to attend!

Guy Delisle and his travels

Getting back into the swing of things after reading only sporadically the last month. Well, not sporadically, I read every day but no 2 hours lounging around in my favourite chair in the evenings or falling into a book all weekend.

The last week, been pretty much reading only Guy Delisle. Delisle is one of the stars of Graphic Fiction/Memoir and his style: straightforward, almost non-lyrical - belies the more flowery approach (in terms of language and drawing style) of graphic memoirists such as Alison Bechdel. But I have been loving his books. I came across this trove of his books a few weeks back: Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China, Pyongyang: a Journey in North Korea, his two early works, Burma Chronicles. His new one, Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City comes out in April.

Delisle's North Korea book traces a few months he spent there as an animator (and, in fact, his descriptions of the process of animating a TV show are just as compelling as the bizarre cultish world of Kim Jong Il's people), his relationships with his guides and translators as well as other animators and foreigners working in Pyongyang. What an amazing opportunity and what an amazing experience to capitalize on. Delisle keeps a certain distance from his reader, he doesn't go into enormous details of his past or his emotional reactions to certain things on an individual level (though he certainly reacts as a normal human would to the bizarre universe of modern North Korea).

His early works are interesting but contain very little language (even at his most verbose, Delisle is not a writer in the way Bechdel is but an artist, his language straightforward and not often loaded with subtext) but are amusing if a little bizarre at times. They are also quite funny though these are works that can be read (and re-read) in a single sitting. It's funny to see how his earlier works contain the germ that he would bring to his more complex travel chronicles.

I am just starting his Shenzhen book and I am looking forward to seeing what he does with it in China, a country I have a long association with. Maybe one of these days he'll make it to Japan and write about it though he'll need a lot longer than three months to really make any sense of it...

Random Sunday Thoughts

*It's snowing. I guess winter really is going to happen again this year. Every year, I hope that winter just forgets to show up. It'll be fine once it starts but the transition is a challenge.

*There is little distinction between "work" and "life" in some professions. I notice this, for example, when I am reading a book for work on a Saturday afternoon or blogging for work on a Sunday morning. But more than this, I have many events to attend for work which almost always figure into my weekend at some point: readings, launches, performances, openings, cocktails. Not complaining, but a good reason why I need so much time off during the summer.

*Reading Nancy Richler's The Imposter Bride. Only just 30-40 pages into it but it's highly readable at this point (beyond that initial confusion when one has to sort out all the different characters' names). Nominated for the Giller, it's a book that landed on my desk almost a year ago (before it was published) but, as is often the case, it got a bit lost in the sea of books. When I read about the nomination, I recalled having it and rounded it up.

*It's odd how few novels there are about elections when we are all so gripped by them a regular intervals. I know about a few, of course: The Manchurian Candidate (which I read a long time ago, great movie, too, though I mean the old one with Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury), Primary Colors (which I've never read), and a few others. When I search for "novels about elections" a list pops up of 10 or so. I've almost no interest in reading any of them, particularly at this time of year when I am so sick of election noise. I've absolutely given up watching the US news at this point but it's even a big part of the Canadian news cycle now.

*Still working my way through Jason Lutes' Berlin, on the second book, City of Smoke. Reading it slowly because I try hard to only read one chapter every few days so I can revel in it. That's the problem with most good graphic novels: I race through them in 45 minutes, but I'm trying to train my brain to enjoy this one slowly, pay close attention to the illustrations and, more importantly, the interaction between the illustrations and the text. Book three has not been anthologized yet (the author is still writing the series) so now the question is do I wait or do I start buying single issues/chapters once I am done with Book 2?

* The last few days I have been doing lots of research: on German novelists, on Chinese poets, on Italian journalists, on African cartoonists. This is one part of my job that I like a lot.

*My first day of winter tradition (which means the first day it feels like winter): make a big pot of chilli and watch an old movie on DVD.

Graphic Novels: some of my favorite titles

I developed a taste for comics (or graphic novels) later in life. As a young person, I didn't really read comics. Not sure why: no one that I can recall did as a matter of fact, not my brothers or cousins or classmates. It just wasn't part of our lives growing up.

But in my early 30s I started reading books by writers like Alan Moore, Frank Miller and others. I started reading the classics but soon branched out into personal favorites. I still read comics frequently though I try to just read for 30 minutes or an hour each day because 1) they go so fast and 2) I am too interested in too many other kinds of writing.

Jason Lutes' Berlin

Lately, coming back from Berlin, I've been reading non-stop about the city and that has led to other kinds of connections: Christopher Isherwood, Joseph Roth, Käthe Kollwitz, Robert Walser, and others. I was up at Drawn and Quarterly recently and discovered Jason Lutes' Berlin which is fascinating. Set in the years between the end of WWI and the start of WWII, his book explores the political turmoil in the city through the eyes of a cast of characters from all walks of life.

The work is beautifully drawn, compelling, tragic and funny. Apparently Lutes is only halfway through his story though he hasn't published a new one in a number of years. For some reason, this makes it even more appealing to me (nothing's worse than starting a series that's already over).

The End of Men?

A couple of years back, I was really into the work of Brian K. Vaughan. His series Y: The Last Man took inspiration from a nearly forgotten Mary Shelley novel, The Last Man. In Vaughan's version, a deadly virus hits in the Earth and every male mammal on the planet dies suddenly. All except one man, Yorick, and his pet monkey. The series traces the end of the world as we know it as Yorick crosses the US in search of the cause or a cure for the disease in order to start life again. Along the way, he encounters lesbian terrorists, Israeli spies, Russian agents, and every woman wants him for various reasons. Unfortunately, as they are want to do, Hollywood is now adapting this for film which I'm sure will make the series popular but also ruin it slightly.

Brian K Vaughan's other work (later than Y: The Last Man) is a more traditional super-hero tale: Ex-Machina, about a NYC politician who is a retired superhero but has been called back into active duty reluctantly. This series is an interesting exploration of the media, what it means to be "good" or moral, and what power actually means.

I tend to prefer graphic novels that are set in the "real" world. I don't like science fiction series or alternative universes (that's true of fiction, too, for the most part). The only exception to this is The Walking Dead which is great though I haven't seen any new issues in a long time.

Some other series I like include Matz's The Killer, and Jay Faerber's Near Death (set in the noirish streets of modern Seattle).

As I write this, I have to say that though I never liked comics growing up, I did love graphic illustrators and early graphic novelists like Frans Masereel were some of my favorite artists. I had (and still have) several of his "novels in woodcuts" that tell a story with only images. Frans Masereel himself was a fascinating figure and deserves an entire post himself.

Frans Masereel