Month: March 2005

Harry N. Abrams
2001
Herbert Lottman’s book on Man Ray and Montparnasse, at that time in history the center of the art world, is one of the best books I’ve read about the pre-WWII art scene. Most of my previous reading on the Surrealists have come either from their own texts, or in the stodgy writings that accompany art books. But none gave a sense of time and place as this history of a neighborhood.
It’s not exactly a book on Man Ray, but the American born, reluctant photographer (nee frustrated painter) serves as a conduit through which passes nearly every single important artist of the early 20th Century. Man Ray moved to Paris, believing he would be a painter, but wound up paying the bills with photographic portraits. His subject/client list is enviable: apart from the group of Dadaists and Surrealists that haunted the cafes there, he photographed Gertrude Stein, Eric Satie, Marcel Proust (the day after he died), Picasso, James Joyce, Hemingway, and many more. He was able to stay above the fray of many political/artistic fights and divisions because of his portraiture, and never earned the wrath of Andre Breton.
Lottman reports all this in the context of how these artists spent their time–sleeping with their models and mingling with people of all nationalities at the cafes and clubs that lined the street. They moved in and out of tiny studio apartments, and they opened and closed galleries. Man Ray had several major love affairs, first with the infamous Kiki, who is the model in his most famous early work, Lee Miller, his student and lover who then went on to a successful career in her own right, and a few other dalliances.
The world that we get to look into in the book is refreshingly modern, but also long past, especially when one considers how important creation and art was to all these people (well, except Duchamp, who had a successful career doing as little as possible). It would be hard to imagine such vigorous defences of art made today.
Anyway, a bloody quick read, to be had on Amazon for cheap, printed on lovely thick glossy paper, and full of relevant photos (although I would have liked more).

Viz Comics (U.S. Release)
1999-onward
Near the completion of this fan-subtitled version of Urasawa’s manga masterpiece, Viz Comics announced they were finally bringing out this title in the States, scuttling what was til then a 17 volume labor of love. I was fortunate to grab a Bittorrent file of Vols. 1-16 off the web just before they disappeared for good.
So consider this a preview.
If American comics have to go through the rigmarole of dopey “They aren’t for kids anymore!” articles every couple of years, imagine what it would take to get something like this unfolding manga serial taken seriously. Yet out of anything I’ve read this year, this multi-layered comic has be one of the most satisfying and emotional experiences I’ve had for a long time.
It’s a genre-busting series that combines sci-fi, horror, and adventure elements into a generation spanning plot. Influences and allusions abound: Stephen King’s “It”, Patlabor 2, The Seven Samurai, Dennis Potter-esque time jumps, The Stand (King again!), and much more.
At the center is failed rockstar Kenji, who is currently running a mini-mart and looking after his sister’s baby daughter. Yet his childhood comes back to haunt him, when it is suggested that a religious cult, the leader of which is a man named “Friend,” is plotting to take over the world, using a secret plan that Kenji and his friends designed back in elementary school as a joke. As Kenji assembles his old school friends, now all in their thirties and a various stages of their lives, they try to figure out through their collected faulty memories who Friend could possibly be, and how to stop him.
This is just the launching pad for an adventure that jumps backwards into the past, forwards into the future where things haven’t turned out for the best, and into a virtual world where the memories of their 1970s childhood are replayed and “corrected.”
Never, unlike other series, did I get the sense that Urasawa was just making this up as he goes along. Like The Sopranos, otherwise meaningless exchanges and scenes from the early volumes return much much later, revealing their deep meaning and throwing me for a loop. The manga is full of mysteries and unanswered questions, and each time one is answered, 10 more mysteries present themselves.
The emotional core of the manga deals with the idealism of youth and the failures of adulthood, and whether that can be regained despite (or because of) impossible odds. We see this in Kenji and friends, but also in Kenji’s niece Anna, who grows up to be a sort of savior herself.
“20th Century Boys” is also quite frightening. The pacing is cinematic, with big scares revealed in full splash pages. The face of “Friend” starts as a device out of suspense film: shrouded in shadow, we assumed his identity will turn out to be a character we’ve already seen in broad daylight. But as 20th Century Boys progresses, “Friend”‘s face becomes a thing of horror, causing paralysis in those who gaze upon it (we only see reaction shots). It’s a device that Urasawa uses again and again, and he always finds a fresh way of employing it. (I read the fansub as a slideshow on my LCD monitor, so I never see the pages ahead of time. It’s an excellent way to get maximum frights out of the comic!)
Urasawa is still writing the manga, and some of these series can stretch to thirty volumes and beyond. In Volume 16we jump ahead in time again and a new whole chapter of the story begins to open up, so I believe we’re nowhere near the finish. And now that Viz will start bringing out the series officially, we’ll have to wait for them to catch up. Unless Urasawa drops the ball near the end, this will be one of the most important mangas in recent memory.
P.S. Bush-haters may notice that the story of a religious cult that orchestrates its own terrorist attack to take over the government is…a bit familiar. But having been started in 1999, Urasawa’s comic is either prescient or tapping into the same evil forces in the air that are now part of our reality.
P.P.S. Now that I’ve discovered this whole underground of fansubs, I’m going to be reading a lot more manga!
UPDATE (5/25/06): From Wikipedia: “20th Century Boys is still running strong in Japan, and currently has 21 volumes so far. It seems to have been inspired in parts of the story by the works of Stephen King, containing allusions to It and The Stand. It was recently licensed by Viz (2005), however at Urasawa’s request it has been rescheduled for release after Monster finishes its English serialization due to a change in art style over time.”
Currently, scanlations are available here, but you must register: http://www.x3gen.com/new/manga_downloads_20thcb.php

Little, Brown
2004
Recommended by Jon, and my first LeCarre novel (after this, I think there will be more). This most recent work tries to figure out the world post-Cold War, in regards to spies, while backtracking and flashbacking to show the making of lead character and double agent Teddy Mundy. LeCarre evokes 1968 Berlin well–a hotbed of student activism–and what comes after, and Mundy’s relationship with a fellow activist, also spy, called Sasha. We then follow his rather centerless, wandering life, never really sure of his identity (as the author points out, spies have to operate under an enforced and necessary schizophrenia.) Finally, we catch up with Teddy in the present day, long after the fallen Berlin Wall has put an end to Teddy and Sasha’s careers. Now Sasha has come a’calling, with an offer.
LeCarre has been criticized for turning the last couple of chapters into a diatribe against the Bush Administration. He does get out some zingers: “It was an old Colonial oil war dressed up as a crusade for Western life and liberty, and it was launched by a clique of war-hungry Judaeo-Christian geopolitical fantasists who hijacked the media and exploited America’s post-Nine Eleven psychopathy.”
Like Seymour Hersh, LeCarre believes we’ve been taken over by a cult. And it should not surprise you that I think that way too. But the reviewers make it appear that this is just a context-less rant. It’s not. The novel is a traditional LeCarre spy narrative upended suddenly and violently by dismal post-911 realism. It’s Smiley’s People with the ending of Costas-Gravas’ “Z”. The fundamentalists on both sides are working towards the same goals, and both are enemies of reason. It’s a sock-knockin’-off ending, and expects you to jolt awake from it.

Rugged Land
2002
One of my favorite productivity sites, 43 Folders, recommended this book to all who have dealt with writers block and such, and so I decided to check it out. (At least I think it was 43 Folders–maybe it was a link from them to somewhere else). Steven Pressfield is best known for the book “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” which was made into a movie with long title intact. The War of Art is a very short, lots-o-white-space manifesto on creativity, which can be read in one sitting. It can also be digested in one sitting, as the thought behind the 200 pages can be summed up this way: “Stop procrastinating. If you’re a writer, write. If you’re a painter, paint. Just get on with it!”
Not the most shocking advice, though it never hurts to read it again and again from different people. Because he is offering this to all sorts of artists, from screenwriters to sculptors, he keeps things general. But it’s the general where his writing is at its snooziest. I learned much more from his biographical anecdotes sparsely dispersed through the book than from the generic self-helpy stuff.
Oh yeh, and it only takes two hours to read, giving you ample time to get back to whatever it is you’re working on.