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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Nabokov, on why novels aspire to the condition of the graphic novel

Posted by John Holbo on 03/20/07 at 11:34 AM

When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do not have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and then can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting.

But of course no such obstacles obtrude in the case of the graphic novel. Think about how, if the panels are well-composed, every page is at once taken in, all at once, and also threaded out - sometimes after a bit of disentanglement - into a line. Think about Chris Ware, master of dimensionally ambiguous architecture - half space, half time; he is the genius of the modern Buildingsroman, as it were.

I’ve had a terrible cold. I’ve been working. Sorry I haven’t been posting. To rest my weary head, I’ve been rereading not just Ware but Kim Deitch, Shadowland [amazon]. For the life of me, I can’t figure why Deitch isn’t as well known, outside comix circles, as Spiegelman and Crumb. (I know, I keep saying it. But read some Deitch, people.) I am very much looking forward to Alias the Cat.

Comments

I think the assertion ("The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting") is simply false. Or at least it requires a substantial defense. I’ll admit that a painting doesn’t impose a particular sequence, that it doesn’t emerge out of the iteration of some elementary perceptual action. But it’s not my experience that a painting is “taken in” in a phenomenal instant, and then the detail filled in.

(And I would agree that graphic novels are easier to consume than paintings or novels, though I would put a different spin on it than you do.)

By Vance Maverick on 03/20/07 at 01:52 PM | Permanent link to this comment

"out of the iteration” s/b “out of the conscious iteration”

By Vance Maverick on 03/20/07 at 01:52 PM | Permanent link to this comment

I also think Nabokov is at least partly wrong about paintings (even if he does have a point about literature).

But what I really want to know is why, John, if you already have a headache, are you reading Chris Ware? Doesn’t that tiny print make it worse?

By Dave Maier on 03/21/07 at 11:32 AM | Permanent link to this comment

Chris Ware is now animating.

By Bill Benzon on 03/21/07 at 07:57 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Purely for the benefit of others like me who searched in vain for the google definition, the proper spelling is Bildungsroman (good word to know).

By Chris4d on 03/21/07 at 09:05 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Reading six point font when you’ve got a headache - hair of the dog, hair of the dog.

And for the record: I did, of course, intend that mispelling.

Thanks for the link, Bill.

By John Holbo on 03/21/07 at 09:12 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Think about how, if the panels are well-composed, every page is at once taken in, all at once, and also threaded out - sometimes after a bit of disentanglement - into a line.

Alan Moore’s Promethea, with artist JH Williams is an excellent example of this combination of synchronic and diachronic layout.

By on 03/25/07 at 09:14 PM | Permanent link to this comment

You can’t take in a graphic novel like a painting, dumbass—they have pages.

By on 02/09/09 at 07:34 PM | Permanent link to this comment

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Nabokov, on why novels aspire to the condition of the graphic novel

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