Books in Canada
The most striking thing about current publications on North Korea-travelogues and travel guides, journalistic accounts, photographic albums-is the similarity of all the scenes their authors describe. The few foreigners who visit the country are assured a predictable experience: they are accommodated in one of Pyongyang’s three big hotels, shadowed by anxious minders, and guided through a never-changing array of propaganda excursions, such as the obligatory laying of flowers before a 22-metre Kim Il-Sung statue, and visits to the city’s ornate Moscow-like metro stations, the Juche Tower, and the captured USS Pueblo, among others. North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, nevertheless possesses a certain appeal as a travel destination, especially for people who travel in pursuit of outré experiences. A particular set of bragging rights attends those who have witnessed life-however micromanaged and manipulated-in the world’s most xenophobic state.
It is possible for almost anyone to go on an Intourist-style tour of North Korea, and members of the Western media often do, in various guises. Guy Delisle’s graphic account of his time in North Korea is unique among a variety of DPRK travel tales, and has a number of advantages over them. Born in Quebec, and now residing in France, Delisle went to Pyongyang to supervise production of an animated French program that utilised North Korean labour (I could have written ‘employed’, but I’m not sure North Koreans have much choice in terms of who they work for; Delisle was only allowed to meet the actual workers once). Since he was working in the country, he was able to spend a significant period of time there, and thus feel some of the subtler effects of life inside its propaganda bubble. His medium-comics-is well suited to exposing the absurdities of life within the Kim Cult, by circumventing some of the limitations that usually hinder professional writers and photographers in the country: he draws things he might not have been allowed to photograph, and his anecdotes offer a sharp, satirical perspective that journalists aren’t required to bring across.
The first distinctly comic-book moment in Pyongyang is the scene in which Delisle clears North Korean customs. The soldier going though his bag inquires about his copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four, and sweat beads leap from his illustrated head as he explains: “It’s a novel . . . an old one . . . from the 1950’s . . . kind of a classic . . . it’s fiction.” Cartoonishess and caricature bring a pleasing element to Delisle’s story, and there are panels on most pages which would work well as political cartoons in themselves, such as the scene in which he and his guide pass a building decorated with portraits of Marx and Lenin:
“Hey, isn’t that Karl up there?”
“You know Marx? Very good.”
“A bit . . . doesn’t everybody?”
“Oh no, not many capitalists do.”
Delisle is made to feel the grip of the Kim family regime from the very outset of his trip, and the first thing his official guide suggests is a visit to the highest point in the city “to admire the view.” This is a sly way of getting the still-weary traveller past the obligatory and embarrassing gesture of bowing before the enormous bronze statue of the Great Leader that looms over the city. As he gets reacquainted with some of his colleagues in the small world of French animation, he notes the nervous reflexes that one of the other expats has developed: “Shit, we forgot to tell the guards . . . ,” she gasps after they have moved their conversation to a restaurant near their hotel. At work, wall-mounted speakers blast propaganda tunes, and dual portraits of Kim Il-Sung (“Great Leader”, dead since 1994, but officially “eternal president”) and his son Kim Jong-Il (“Dear Leader”, officially only head of the party and the military) are mounted over every workspace and pinned to every lapel. When Delisle puts on a jazz CD, his minder complains that “it could have a bad influence on the others.”
To occupy the foreigners’ free time, their guides regularly offer them official excursions and activities staged specifically for foreigners. There are enough of these to fill many weekends, but they all have one theme in common: the heroism and might of the Kim regime. Visitors are made to feel like nonbelievers who are dragged to church every Sunday. Delisle renders all of these scenes in detail, with some postcard-style illustrations of the main propaganda sites, and a few pages of ironic insights into the function of each monument.
On such excursions, he entertains himself by goading his minders. Obliged to write in a guestbook after visiting the nuclear-attack-proof International Friendship Exhibition (Kim Jong-Il’s showcase of gifts, mainly from other shady regimes) he scribbles: “I’ve never walked down longer hallways in all my life. Luckily we were given slippers, or else I would have worn out my shoes.”
Small acts of subversion sustain the bored cartoonist. He reads Nineteen Eighty-Four in his hotel room and draws comparisons with North Korean life (interestingly, Kim Il-Sung, a Soviet-trained anti-Japanese guerrilla fighter, founded the DPRK the same year Orwell began writing his novel). Delisle gives the book to his translator as a gift, who promptly and nervously returns it, explaining (with flying sweat beads), “I don’t really like science fiction.” Delisle insists on walking everywhere in order to see the city and to exasperate his guides, who have the privilege of driving on Pyongyang’s quiet streets. He repeatedly asks them the same searching questions in order to force them to repeat the same official lies. He constantly makes the same requests (to borrow a bicycle, to visit a train station), to which the minders never quite say no, but have no intention of assenting.
It’s a common thread among most North Korean travelogues that the traveller wonders how much of the official line North Koreans actually buy (even those reunited with families in the South have been known to go on parroting DPRK propaganda). When Delisle comments to his guide on the complete absence of handicapped people in the city, his guide tells him: “There are none. All North Koreans are born strong, intelligent and healthy.” Actually, North Koreans are generally shorter than South Koreans, due to the stunting effects of malnutrition. If the man realises he is speaking nonsense, then he must be an expert at deception.
The tone of Pyongyang is generally light, but there is nevertheless a palpable sadness to the subject matter. North Korea is a starving slave state in which privilege (and rice, as Delisle illustrates in one helpful diagram) is doled out according to its citizens’ level of self-abasement before the Kim family regime. One of the more disturbing propaganda displays Delisle describes is the “Children’s Palace”, a place where children are indoctrinated and trained to perform in the country’s musical spectacles. Rows of little girls play accordions with such exaggerated expressions on their faces that they are clearly demonstrating anxiety and conformity rather than pleasure. One of the songs they perform is entitled, We are the Happiest Children in the World, a statement that would hardly need to be articulated if it was true. The contradictions in that scene are indeed Orwellian, and the lightness of Delisle’s satire is tested in such moments. His tone would not benefit, however, from the blood and grit of Nineteen Eighty-Four because like most visitors to the DPRK, Delisle simply wasn’t exposed to much blood and grit. Pyongyang’s ostentatious totalitarian landscape is a vulgar façade, a comic book city, and perhaps it takes a comic book artist to point out the plastic light fittings on its marble walls.
Roland Brown (Books in Canada)
It is possible for almost anyone to go on an Intourist-style tour of North Korea, and members of the Western media often do, in various guises. Guy Delisle’s graphic account of his time in North Korea is unique among a variety of DPRK travel tales, and has a number of advantages over them. Born in Quebec, and now residing in France, Delisle went to Pyongyang to supervise production of an animated French program that utilised North Korean labour (I could have written ‘employed’, but I’m not sure North Koreans have much choice in terms of who they work for; Delisle was only allowed to meet the actual workers once). Since he was working in the country, he was able to spend a significant period of time there, and thus feel some of the subtler effects of life inside its propaganda bubble. His medium-comics-is well suited to exposing the absurdities of life within the Kim Cult, by circumventing some of the limitations that usually hinder professional writers and photographers in the country: he draws things he might not have been allowed to photograph, and his anecdotes offer a sharp, satirical perspective that journalists aren’t required to bring across.
The first distinctly comic-book moment in Pyongyang is the scene in which Delisle clears North Korean customs. The soldier going though his bag inquires about his copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four, and sweat beads leap from his illustrated head as he explains: “It’s a novel . . . an old one . . . from the 1950’s . . . kind of a classic . . . it’s fiction.” Cartoonishess and caricature bring a pleasing element to Delisle’s story, and there are panels on most pages which would work well as political cartoons in themselves, such as the scene in which he and his guide pass a building decorated with portraits of Marx and Lenin:
“Hey, isn’t that Karl up there?”
“You know Marx? Very good.”
“A bit . . . doesn’t everybody?”
“Oh no, not many capitalists do.”
Delisle is made to feel the grip of the Kim family regime from the very outset of his trip, and the first thing his official guide suggests is a visit to the highest point in the city “to admire the view.” This is a sly way of getting the still-weary traveller past the obligatory and embarrassing gesture of bowing before the enormous bronze statue of the Great Leader that looms over the city. As he gets reacquainted with some of his colleagues in the small world of French animation, he notes the nervous reflexes that one of the other expats has developed: “Shit, we forgot to tell the guards . . . ,” she gasps after they have moved their conversation to a restaurant near their hotel. At work, wall-mounted speakers blast propaganda tunes, and dual portraits of Kim Il-Sung (“Great Leader”, dead since 1994, but officially “eternal president”) and his son Kim Jong-Il (“Dear Leader”, officially only head of the party and the military) are mounted over every workspace and pinned to every lapel. When Delisle puts on a jazz CD, his minder complains that “it could have a bad influence on the others.”
To occupy the foreigners’ free time, their guides regularly offer them official excursions and activities staged specifically for foreigners. There are enough of these to fill many weekends, but they all have one theme in common: the heroism and might of the Kim regime. Visitors are made to feel like nonbelievers who are dragged to church every Sunday. Delisle renders all of these scenes in detail, with some postcard-style illustrations of the main propaganda sites, and a few pages of ironic insights into the function of each monument.
On such excursions, he entertains himself by goading his minders. Obliged to write in a guestbook after visiting the nuclear-attack-proof International Friendship Exhibition (Kim Jong-Il’s showcase of gifts, mainly from other shady regimes) he scribbles: “I’ve never walked down longer hallways in all my life. Luckily we were given slippers, or else I would have worn out my shoes.”
Small acts of subversion sustain the bored cartoonist. He reads Nineteen Eighty-Four in his hotel room and draws comparisons with North Korean life (interestingly, Kim Il-Sung, a Soviet-trained anti-Japanese guerrilla fighter, founded the DPRK the same year Orwell began writing his novel). Delisle gives the book to his translator as a gift, who promptly and nervously returns it, explaining (with flying sweat beads), “I don’t really like science fiction.” Delisle insists on walking everywhere in order to see the city and to exasperate his guides, who have the privilege of driving on Pyongyang’s quiet streets. He repeatedly asks them the same searching questions in order to force them to repeat the same official lies. He constantly makes the same requests (to borrow a bicycle, to visit a train station), to which the minders never quite say no, but have no intention of assenting.
It’s a common thread among most North Korean travelogues that the traveller wonders how much of the official line North Koreans actually buy (even those reunited with families in the South have been known to go on parroting DPRK propaganda). When Delisle comments to his guide on the complete absence of handicapped people in the city, his guide tells him: “There are none. All North Koreans are born strong, intelligent and healthy.” Actually, North Koreans are generally shorter than South Koreans, due to the stunting effects of malnutrition. If the man realises he is speaking nonsense, then he must be an expert at deception.
The tone of Pyongyang is generally light, but there is nevertheless a palpable sadness to the subject matter. North Korea is a starving slave state in which privilege (and rice, as Delisle illustrates in one helpful diagram) is doled out according to its citizens’ level of self-abasement before the Kim family regime. One of the more disturbing propaganda displays Delisle describes is the “Children’s Palace”, a place where children are indoctrinated and trained to perform in the country’s musical spectacles. Rows of little girls play accordions with such exaggerated expressions on their faces that they are clearly demonstrating anxiety and conformity rather than pleasure. One of the songs they perform is entitled, We are the Happiest Children in the World, a statement that would hardly need to be articulated if it was true. The contradictions in that scene are indeed Orwellian, and the lightness of Delisle’s satire is tested in such moments. His tone would not benefit, however, from the blood and grit of Nineteen Eighty-Four because like most visitors to the DPRK, Delisle simply wasn’t exposed to much blood and grit. Pyongyang’s ostentatious totalitarian landscape is a vulgar façade, a comic book city, and perhaps it takes a comic book artist to point out the plastic light fittings on its marble walls.
Roland Brown (Books in Canada)
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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Globe and Mail
"The memoir is topical, coming at a time when interest in the goings-on behind the last remaining panel of the Iron Curtain is high. [...] The episodes are smart, sharply observed and funny, without downplaying the untold horrors (death camps, starvation) that lurk around every corner."
--Ce texte provient de la
Paperback
édition.
Review
"Guy Delisle is a wry 37-year-old French Canadian cartoonist whose work for a French animation studio requires him to oversee production at various Pacific Rim studios on the grim frontiers of free trade. His employer puts him up for months at a time in 'cold and soulless' hotel rooms where he suffers the usual maladies of the long-term boarder: cultural and linguistic alienation, boredom, and cravings for Western food and real coffee. Delisle depicts these sojourns into the heart of isolation in [the] brilliant 'graphic novel' . . . Pyongyang." --Foreign Affairs
Product Description
A westerner's visit into North Korea, told in the form of a graphic novel.
Famously referred to as one of the "Axis of Evil" countries, North Korea remains one of the most secretive and mysterious nations in the world today. In early 2001 cartoonist Guy Delisle became one of the few Westerners to be allowed access to the fortresslike country. While living in the nation's capital for two months on a work visa for a French film animation company, Delisle observed what he was allowed to see of the culture and lives of the few North Koreans he encountered; his findings form the basis of this remarkable graphic novel. Pyongyang is an informative, personal, and accessible look at a dangerous and enigmatic country.
Famously referred to as one of the "Axis of Evil" countries, North Korea remains one of the most secretive and mysterious nations in the world today. In early 2001 cartoonist Guy Delisle became one of the few Westerners to be allowed access to the fortresslike country. While living in the nation's capital for two months on a work visa for a French film animation company, Delisle observed what he was allowed to see of the culture and lives of the few North Koreans he encountered; his findings form the basis of this remarkable graphic novel. Pyongyang is an informative, personal, and accessible look at a dangerous and enigmatic country.
About the Author
Guy Delisle was born in Quebec City in 1966 and has spent the last decade living and working in France. He has written and drawn four graphic novels, including Shenzhen, an account of his travels to China. Pyongyang is his first in English.
