WATCHMEN by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Watchmen - written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons

Who watches The Watchmen?

Wow! This is NOT my Uncle’s comic book. (inside joke there only my brothers will appreciate). Regular readers of this blog will recognize this is not my normal reading genre. I’ve wanted to read this for years, ever since I heard it won a Hugo Award, so upsetting in Sci-Fi circles that they changed the rules. A comic can no longer win. If you do something that makes em change the rules…you’ve done something extraordinary.

Furthermore, in most circles it is not considered a comic book, but rather a graphic novel. What’s the difference? Length mostly - it's like a 400 page comic book. Graphic Novelist Neil Gaiman offers this pithy distinction when responding to a claim that he does not write comic books but graphic novels, Gaiman said the commenter:

meant it as a compliment, I suppose. But all of a sudden I felt like someone who'd been informed that she wasn't actually a hooker; that in fact she was a lady of the evening.

So as the Gold Standard of the Graphic Novels I wanted to give this a read, and let me now repeat – Wow! I read it in a single day, but it will be troubling me for some days more I’m certain.

Set in an alternate history of the mid 1980s, with flashbacks as far back as the 30s. It is a world not terribly different than our own, with the 80s world on the precarious brink of nuclear holocaust and mutually assured destruction. It is also a world of superheroes, though more commonly referred to as masked adventurers or vigilantes, most in forced retirement due to public law. With one exception, the masked adventurers possess no superhuman abilities – they are simply physically, or mentally, or technologically powerful. They are also – damaged goods. You think Batman is dark and brooding – you should meet Rorschach. When ordered to cease and desist by mandate of the Keene Act, Rorschach’s response was to leave the body of a dead multiple rapist outside police headquarters with a one word note – NEVER!

Most of the others submit to the law, until one of their number, The Comedian is murdered in what seems to be a conspiracy to eliminate the erstwhile crime fighters.

It is a riveting mystery that raised the question of the ends justifying the means to an epic scale. Besides the written story that I thought was complex and fascinating, I have to say a word about the illustrations. The word “Graphic” is there for a reason. The artwork is fantastic and critical; the story would fail without the illustrations. Many panels with no words or dialogue tell an important part of the tale.

The principals:

Hollis Mason (the original Nite Owl)

Daniel Drieberg (Nite Owl II)

Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias)

Edward Blake (The Comedian)

Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II)

Walter Kovacs (Rorschach)

Dr. Jon Osterman (Doctor Manhatten) – The one exception with superhuman abilities due to what else: a laboratory experiment gone wrong.

This is the first Graphic Novel I’ve read, and although it isn’t Shakespeare or Tolstoy, I liked it very much. I plan to give a few more Graphic Novels a read. So what do you think of Graphic Novels: serious literary genre or childish comics?

Excerpts:

…part of the art of being a hero is knowing when you don’t need to be one anymore… ~ Hollis Mason (Nite Owl)

I am watching the stars… I am trying to give a name to the force that set them in motion. ~ Dr. Jon Osterman (Doctor Manhatten)

The only other active vigilante is called Rorschach, real name unknown. He expresses his feelings toward compulsory retirement in a note left outside police headquarters along with dead multiple rapist – NEVER!

Man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace.

As they dragged him away, Rorschach spoke to the other inmates. He said, “I’m not locked up in here with you. You’re locked up in here with me.”

Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias) to Doctor Manhatten – “Jon, wait, before you leave…I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end.

Doc Manhatten – “In the end? NOTHING ends Adrian. Nothing EVER ends.”

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Back to the Classics 2018

The good folks at Books and Chocolate are again hosting the Back to the Classics Challenge for 2018.  The nice thing about this challenge is you don’t have to finish all twelve to be eligible for the prize – Yep a PRIZE and everything.

***FANFARE***  My list (subject to change)
Change ONE (and TWO): I gomered up my original list. (apologies if "gomered" is politically incorrect...I can't keep track). I had Deliverance by James Dickey as my Travel Classic, but isn't quite 50 years old and therefore ineligible per da rules. I'm changing it to Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. Then somehow, I had USA by John Dos Passos as my 19th Century Classic. It isn't even close - don't know what I was thinking. I've switched to The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. Both reflected below now as well. 

(reviews in orange hyperlink)

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 A 19th century classic: The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens (1840). 

Looking forward to this Dickens title I have never read, because Dickens has yet to disappoint me.

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A 20th century classic: Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote (1958)

My first time reading this or Capote, and...I haven't watched the film. My favorite way to begin a book.

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A classic by a woman author: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Another first for both book and author.

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A classic in translation: The Idiot by Dostoevsky

First read of this title, but I've read and enjoyed several works by Dostoevsky

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A children’s classic: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A reread of a favorite. 

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A classic crime story, fiction or non-fiction: The Man Who was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

Also a reread. I found this very profound, and I promised myself a reread to contemplate it further.

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A classic travel or journey narrative, fiction or non-fiction: Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

I've read JKJ's short stories and thought they were great fun. Looking forward to this.

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A classic with a single-word title: Middlemarch by George Eliot

First time read of both novel and author.

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A classic with a color in the title: Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin

I'm really looking forward to this. I haven't read much Far-Eastern literature. This is considered one of the Four Great Classics of Chinese Literature.

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A classic by an author that’s new to you: Native Son by Richard Wright

First read of this novel and author.

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A classic that scares you: A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

This scares me because it is nearly 3000 pages (though that alone does not scare me), but it also reminds me in title and synopsis of In Search of Lost Time - which I sort of hated. But it's part of my Quest, so I gotta tackle it. It is actually 12 novels, 3 each in 4 volumes.

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A classic reread: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

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Backto the Classics 2017 wrap up

Backto the Classics 2016 wrap up

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Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin (93 down, 7 to go)

And a voice, for the first time in all his terrible journey, spoke to John, through the rage and weeping, and fire, and darkness, and flood: “Yes,” said the voice, “go through. Go through.”

Go Tell it on the Mountain is a powerful tale, beautifully and fearfully told; and the type for which I struggle to find the right description of my response. I can’t say I liked it, or enjoyed it – it isn’t a happy tale, but it was riveting and I’m glad I read it. So, what do I call that? I’m back to powerful. It evoked both powerful thought and feeling.

It is the semi-autobiographical story of one day in the life, the fourteenth birthday, of John Grimes, in 1930s Harlem. The narrator’s prose is beautiful and descriptive, while the dialogue is colloquial to the period and setting (as far as I know anyway), but still easy to follow. The real power and brilliance comes from how, little by little, Baldwin lets the reader in on the deep dark secrets of the main characters – things that were obvious to the reader, and other characters are proven false when Baldwin exposes the inner conflict in John, his father Gabriel, his mother Elizabeth, and his aunt Florence. There is a chapter devoted to each of these and their inner thoughts revealed through prayers, and during each one there were moments when I went – Wait! What? But then it actually made perfect sense.

It’s pretty brilliant in my opinion. As I mentioned it isn’t a happy tale. It is a painful reminder that the tragedies caused by slavery did not end with emancipation. It is reminiscent of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, and I suspect of Native Son by Richard Wright (though I’ve yet to read that one).

My Rating: 4 of 5 stars

 

Have you read Go Tell it on the Mountain or James Baldwin? What did you think?

Excerpts:

I found this first excerpt ironic. James Baldwin, who was not treated well by his stepfather often retreated to the Library – but in this semi-autobiographical account, the narrative describes the main character’s fear of entering a library:

But he had never gone in because the building was so big that it must be full of corridors and marble steps, in the maze of which he would be lost and never find the book he wanted. And then everyone, all the white people inside, would know that he was not used to great buildings, or to many books, and they would look at him with pity.

Not even tonight, in the heart’s nearly impenetrable secret place, where the truth is hidden and where only the truth can live, could she wish that she had not known him

But to look back from the stony plain along the road which led one to that place is not at all the same as walking on the road

And a voice, for the first time in all his terrible journey, spoke to John, through the rage and weeping, and fire, and darkness, and flood:  “Yes,” said the voice, “go through. Go through.”

Of tears there was, yes, a very fountain – springing from a depth never sounded before, from depths John had not known were in him.

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