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From Publishers Weekly
Karasik and Mazzucchelli's 1994 comics adaptation of Auster's existentialist mystery novel, reprinted here with an introduction by Art Spiegelman, has been a cult classic for years. The Comics Journal named it one of the 100 best comics of the century. Miraculously, it deepens the darkness and power of its source. Auster's novel (about a novelist named Quinn who's mistaken for a detective named Paul Auster and loses his mind and identity in the course of a meaningless case) zooms around in metafictional spirals, but it doesn't have a lot of visual content. In fact, it's mostly about the breakdown of the idea of representation and the widening chasm between signifier and signified. So the artists, perversely and brilliantly, play fast and loose with the text. Mazzucchelli draws everything in a bluntly sketched, bold-lined style, and having set up a suitably film noir mood at the beginning, he substitutes literal depictions of what's happening for symbolic or iconic images wherever possible. One character's monologue about the loss of meaning in his speech is drawn as a long zoom down his throat, followed by Charon arising from a void, a cave drawing, a series of holes and symbols of muteness and finally a broken marionette at the bottom of a well. This reflected, shattered Glass introduces a whole new set of resonances to Auster's story, about the things images can and can't represent when language fails.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–Auster's novella, originally published as part of the groundbreaking "Neo-Lit" series (Sun & Moon, 1985; o.p.), holds up in this adaptation. Daniel Quinn, a reclusive poet turned mystery writer living in New York City, receives calls from an unknown and perplexing individual who mistakes him for the detective Paul Auster (not to be confused with Auster the writer, who also appears in the book). After giving in to curiosity, Quinn accepts the case as protector of Peter Stillman, a young man whose father tortured him with experiments of sensory deprivation to discover the original language of God. As Quinn delves into the case, he becomes caught within the pair's obsessions. Karasik and Mazzucchelli tone down some of the metafictional aspects of the novella, but they streamline and focus the story without sacrificing too much of Auster's intent. Mazzucchelli's simple, straightforward artwork is ultimately what makes this version really work, transforming a highly intellectual tale based mostly around language and the word into a world of surreal visual meditations. The use of heavy black lines against a white background is reminiscent of the noir movies that partially influenced the original; when the characters dive further and further into insanity, the images become increasingly abstract. Combined with the unusual story, this technique makes for a unique introduction to some complex ideas of postmodernism without getting in the way of the plot.–Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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...THE TELEPHONE RINGING THREE TIMES IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT... Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
...THE TELEPHONE RINGING THREE TIMES IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT... Read the first page
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