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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In 2001, French-Canadian cartoonist Delisle traveled to North Korea on a work visa to supervise the animation of a children's cartoon show for two months. While there, he got a rare chance to observe firsthand one of the last remaining totalitarian Communist societies. He also got crappy ice cream, a barrage of propaganda and a chance to fly paper airplanes out of his 15th-floor hotel window. Combining a gift for anecdote and an ear for absurd dialogue, Delisle's retelling of his adventures makes a gently humorous counterpoint to the daily news stories about the axis of evil, a Lost in Translation for the Communist world. Delisle shifts between accounts of his work as an animator and life as a visitor in a country where all foreigners take up only two floors of a 50-story hotel. Delisle's simple but expressive art works well with his account, humanizing the few North Koreans he gets to know (including "Comrade Guide" and "Comrade Translator"), and facilitating digressions into North Korean history and various bizarre happenings involving brandy and bear cubs. Pyongyang will appeal to multiple audiences: current events buffs, Persepolis fans and those who just love a good yarn. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Pyongyang documents the two months French animator Delisle spent overseeing cartoon production in North Korea, where his movements were constantly monitored by a translator and a guide, who together could limit his activities but couldn't restrict his observations. He records everything from the omnipresent statues and portraits of dictators Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il to the brainwashed obedience of the citizens. Rather than conveying his disorientation through convoluted visual devices, Delisle uses a straightforward Eurocartoon approach that matter-of-factly depicts the mundane absurdities he faced every day. The gray tones and unembellished drawings reflect the grim drabness and the sterility of a totalitarian society. Delisle finds black comedy in the place, though, and makes small efforts at subversion by cracking jokes that go over the humorless translator's head and lending the guide a copy of 1984. Despite such humor, which made his sojourn bearable and overcame his alienation and boredom, Delisle maintains empathy. Viewing an eight-year-old accordion prodigy's robotic concert performance, he thinks, "It's all so cold . . and sad. I could cry." Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Walking home in the dark,
By
This review is from: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (Paperback)
For the past two nights I have had dreams about North Korea. I don't recall ever having had a recurring dream. I never dreamt about the North during the early part of this year when I read one book after another about the DPRK. I wonder what tonight's dream will be about, considering I have just finished Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, a graphic novel by Guy Delisle. Pyongyang is the first work of graphic fiction I have read. It is classed as a novel but it reflects Delisle's own two-month stay in the North Korean capital where he worked for a French animation company.Delisle's observations and frustrations in having to deal with North Korean bureaucracy made for a hilarious read. Although Delisle is in the country on a two-month work contract, he is still led by guides everywhere. Guest workers, like tourists, must pay their reverential respect at all North Korean monuments and propaganda museums in addition to working at their job six days a week. Delisle is given the propaganda tour and he depicts himself in some drawings as barely able to contain his laughter. He expresses his frustration at not being able to find a decent cup of coffee in the whole country. I know what I have in store yet I will be prepared in that at least I have the foreknowledge to bring my own, albeit inferior, instant coffee when compared to brewed, from home when I travel there. The drawings were made with a variety of perspectives which I admired and enjoyed. In the midst of his adventures working with westerners and North Koreans at the animation studio, Delisle inserts a running joke in the form of a police line-up in which he asks the reader "Can You Spot the Traitors?". One must look at all the people and decide from almost an identical set of characteristics who is a traitor to the fatherland. A typical answer would be Figure #1 because "he let the portrait of Our Dear Leader gather dust". I do not believe that a graphic novel about North Korea would have had the same humorous touch if it had been written and drawn by someone who hadn't been there. A book like this would be a welcome addition to my collection on account of its artwork alone, and although I have already read it I would consider buying a copy. I read the hardcover edition, which was 176 pages printed on a very thick paper. I always had to ensure I wasn't turning two pages at once since it often felt as though I had multiple pages between my fingers.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A lot of fun!,
By
This review is from: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (Hardcover)
I first read this book last winter and had an awesomely fun time reading it and recently half read it looking over the shoulder of my wife as she read it for the first time in bed. I have traveled a bit in my life and had been to totalitarian states like Syria, East Germany and the Soviet Union so many of the physical monstrosities rang familiar. However, even in those places I didn't meet the "I love this kool-aid the dear leader allows us to drink" mentality that he ran into in NK. Unlike the other reviewer of this book, I appreciated the perspective of someone working in another country as opposed to someone just passing through. Where the previous reviewer was upset about him trying to control his laughter at the friendship museum, I too could barely contain my laughter reading those scenes. Comparing his "true believer" handlers to "over zealous soccer fans" is incredibly inappropriate. Are lunatic cults limited to other cultures? Of course not. We have plenty of our own. This should be read as someone's travelogue... a travel log doesn't necessarily have profound insights on every page... It's a fun book plain and simple. If you are looking for "Focult in North Korea" no, its not for you, but if you want a really fun and interesting read this book is for you!
6 of 17 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Journey into the mind of someone who doesn't get it,
By
This review is from: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (Hardcover)
I picked this up with the assumption that it would fall along the same kind of nuanced, interesting analytical lines as say, Joe Sacco or Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels on outsider journeys and conflict. Instead, Delisle simply disappointed me. Where to begin? At times he offers interesting details into the country's ridiculous museums or construction customs, but istead of simply letting the facts speak for themselves, Delisle adds commentary that would best be left out in the 'show, don't tell' rulebook of highschool nonfiction writing.While noting that his translators and guides would probably be punished severely for saying ANYTHING bad about the Kims, or ANYTHING good about America, he still reserves a mocking, superior attitude towards them during conversations about North Korea's politics. Why mock individuals for conforming when you know what awaits them should they deviate? Though I am certainly no fan of communism or the personality cult of the Kims, I found myself irritated by his mockery of ordinary people revering the communist leaders. Particularly frustrating is the scene at the Frienship museum when he worries about containing his laughter in front of a crowd kneeling at Kim's feet. What makes these people any different or more brainwashed than overzealous hockey or soccer fans? Does he really think he would behave differently in their situation? His attitude towards North Koreans reminds me of the typical arrogance displayed towards Natives by early colonizers who felt the need to pathologize their every custom. (Examples include his mocking of coworkers enjoying propaganda music or their sad tourist sites) This is not to say that North Korea is not worth critically examining, but perhaps we might lobby Joe Sacco to make a trip over. Delisle didn't exactly give me the critical analysis I was looking for. Instead of enjoying Coca-cola as a symbol of resistance (nevermind their human rights abuses in Columbia or environmental crimes in India..), Sacco would look at figures such as the translator and render a humanistic protrayal of what made them tick.
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