Finished the agonizing, horribly depressing tale, the miserable life, of Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth (Chris Ware, 2000). A graphic novel compilation tracing the suffocating reunion between a hopelessly lonesome, depressed, looser protagonist and his estranged father.
At first confusing: late 19th C. flashbacks, dreamscapes, schematic family trees, paper cutouts, minute print. The novel, which received glowing to damning press reviews from the likes of Time, Wired, NY Times, Slate, Matt Groening, became hard to put down, like having the flu. Meticulous attention to detail like, I assume, no other in the genre. Eloquent and bitter narrative prose interjected with racists, sexists, misogynists and (all rolled into one) bastard fathers. And then pieces begin to fit, earlier fantasies explained and justified. The 1890s Corrigan segments particularly moving, sepia-toned, cute kid, narrated from his adult (modern?) memory. As a child, waiting dutifully for the school bullies, or his father, to beat him:
The familiar sniff
of his own kneecaps
which always proceeds
any punishment.
Equally touching/depressing: children playing hide and seek among Chicago suburbs, where once a Native village stood:
helps to make their game
much more exciting
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