jon_samuelson
02-04-2008, 06:30 AM
So, if any of you guys are fans of baseball, and spend as absurd an amount of time on ESPN.com as I do you probably know who Keith Law is. A friend of mine told me today that Law keeps a blog where he discusses literature, as he's apparently a big fan. He's been going through the TIME 100 Greatest Novels list, and recently he got to Watchmen.
Here's a link to his page, but I'll include his review here for the simplicity of not having to bother following the link.
I can not offer any comment on whether or not Alan Moore’s Watchmen is, as so many critics and readers say, the greatest graphic novel ever written.
I can, however, say that as novels, graphic or otherwise, go, it sucks.
Watchmen is a thinly drawn (hah!) paranoid agenda-driven short story, made novel-length by the inclusion of pretty pictures, which, by the way, take the place of the descriptive prose that makes the written novel an art form. There is no character development. The plot is linear, with characters’ stories provided for background, but they neither show changes in any of the characters nor are they remotely interesting as subplots. The story rests on a base of anachronisms, both historical ones (the Soviet Union was already in the throes of an irreversible economic collapse when the book was written) and political ones (nuclear power is mentioned in passing as a major environmental threat). And the whole thing was just beyond boring.
Even when the book got a little interesting in the final two chapters, Moore screwed up his writing. You’re telling me that of the four people in the room in Antarctica in the final chapter, not one of them realizes that the artificial peace is strictly temporary, or at least argues that it is? The smartest man in the world thinks war is over, forever, unless the event that triggers the peace is repeated at unpredictable intervals? If he’s the smartest man in the world, we really are a race of orangutans with safety razors.
I always felt that the TIME book critics added Watchmen to their top 100 novels list as a token entry, as if they felt the need to put one graphic novel on there to head off criticism that they had ignored this burgeoning genre, but reading the book confirmed my suspicions. And really, this was a more deserving entry than Cry the Beloved Country, Brave New World, or Tender is the Night, just to name three works of actual literature? Or, if we’re into tokenism, how about a token novel written by an African (A Grain of Wheat), a token mystery (Murder on the Orient Express), or a token comedy (something by Wodehouse, perhaps).
There is simply no comparison to the thematic and textural depth provided by a traditional novel and the superficial treatment inherent in the graphic form. And, since everyone seems to think that Watchmen is the genre’s peak, I think I can safely ignore graphic novels from here on out.
Needless to say his "critique" angered me. And here is my response....
I think Todd, way up near the top of the page, probably said this better than I’ll be able to, but I’m gonna give it a try anyway.
I’m clearly biased on this, because I love comics, but you’re being an ******* on this subject Keith. I can respect your right to an opinion. If you don’t like the medium of sequential art story-telling, that’s fine. I can respect that. I don’t much care for poetry. But the way that you’re completely dismissing an entire medium, just because you didn’t like one example of it is absurd, and it essentially completely invalidates any criticism you might hope to levy against it.
Shall we go into a few of the more egregious examples of your obvious inborn bias…
“made novel-length by the inclusion of pretty pictures, which, by the way, take the place of the descriptive prose that makes the written novel an art form”
- How dare you dismiss an ENTIRE MEDIUM so completely as to decide that it’s simply not art. Such a statement is basically claiming that you are the end arbiter of what is art. And as a person who clearly loves literature and art you should be ashamed at such a dismissal.
“One, my criticism is not about wordcount, but about what’s lost when all you have is dialogue. Part of the greatness of any work of literature is in its prose. That’s simply not present here.”
-I can’t really explain how childish I think this remark is. You’re basically saying “What I like is good. Therefore this, not being something I like, it is not good.” Comic books (or graphic novels as you’re so loathe to call them) are a collaborative effort between many artists. To claim that, with a comic book, because the story is not entirely told with words that it therefore cannot be “great” is pathetic. As I said, it’s a collaborative effort, you can’t simply ignore that the story is told with a combination of words and pictures. If you dismiss the story telling potential of the pictures you miss the whole damn point I think.
“Two, the comparison of a graphic novel - seriously, can we just call it a comic book already? - to true novels wasn’t my idea. TIME did it. And they’re not the only ones. And I think in that comparison, the comic book fails miserably.”
-If you want to make an argument that maybe a graphic novel shouldn’t be on a list of “great novels” because they’re different art forms… I can buy that. I think I probably agree with you. But you betray your bias by using “comic book” as an epithet. “It’s a ‘comic book’, it’s not a ‘true’ novel.” Would you like some wine and cheese to go along with your hypocritical arrogance?
When you stick to actual criticisms of this particular example of comic books, I agree with you. I myself don’t particularly like Watchmen. I think lots of Alan Moore’s work kind of devolves into self-indulgency, which is a trait of writing that I don’t have a great deal of patience with. But I really do recommend you try at least a couple of other books before you completely write off the medium. Understanding that you go for the more literary types of stories, I echo someone’s previous suggestion of Maus I&II. It’s an absolutely brilliant story of a mans recounting of the time his father spent in Nazi controlled Poland, and subsequent time in a concentration camp. I would also recommend Will Eisner’s “Contract with God” trilogy, which is a telling of one mans viewpoint of how a particular neighborhood in NYC changes throughout the decades.
I’ll close with this; I personally thought that “Brave New World” was boring, predictable, and melodramatic. I think it so pales in comparison to 1984, which is certainly in the same dystopian genre, that it would be absurd to include it on the same list. Does that mean that “Brave New World” isn’t any good? That it “sucks”? No, that would be stupid of me to think that. I just didn’t like it very much. Art is subjective, and it’s hurtful to a medium, it’s fans, certainly it’s creators, and it SHOULD be hurtful to you to be so bigoted as to completely dismiss it because you didn’t like one example of it.
I'm posting this because I'm curious how you guys feel about the fact that you like comics. Do you constantly feel the need to defend it? I'm so used to taking shit from my friends because I like comics that I'm a little desensitized to it. I've really only ever had a couple of friends who read comics, so I've never had anyone to talk about my favorite hobby with. I know my friends are just ribbing me, but dismissive comments like these by Law make me angry. I really don't think I should have to defend my enjoyment of an artistic medium. And now I'm venting and I'll shut up...
Here's a link to his page, but I'll include his review here for the simplicity of not having to bother following the link.
I can not offer any comment on whether or not Alan Moore’s Watchmen is, as so many critics and readers say, the greatest graphic novel ever written.
I can, however, say that as novels, graphic or otherwise, go, it sucks.
Watchmen is a thinly drawn (hah!) paranoid agenda-driven short story, made novel-length by the inclusion of pretty pictures, which, by the way, take the place of the descriptive prose that makes the written novel an art form. There is no character development. The plot is linear, with characters’ stories provided for background, but they neither show changes in any of the characters nor are they remotely interesting as subplots. The story rests on a base of anachronisms, both historical ones (the Soviet Union was already in the throes of an irreversible economic collapse when the book was written) and political ones (nuclear power is mentioned in passing as a major environmental threat). And the whole thing was just beyond boring.
Even when the book got a little interesting in the final two chapters, Moore screwed up his writing. You’re telling me that of the four people in the room in Antarctica in the final chapter, not one of them realizes that the artificial peace is strictly temporary, or at least argues that it is? The smartest man in the world thinks war is over, forever, unless the event that triggers the peace is repeated at unpredictable intervals? If he’s the smartest man in the world, we really are a race of orangutans with safety razors.
I always felt that the TIME book critics added Watchmen to their top 100 novels list as a token entry, as if they felt the need to put one graphic novel on there to head off criticism that they had ignored this burgeoning genre, but reading the book confirmed my suspicions. And really, this was a more deserving entry than Cry the Beloved Country, Brave New World, or Tender is the Night, just to name three works of actual literature? Or, if we’re into tokenism, how about a token novel written by an African (A Grain of Wheat), a token mystery (Murder on the Orient Express), or a token comedy (something by Wodehouse, perhaps).
There is simply no comparison to the thematic and textural depth provided by a traditional novel and the superficial treatment inherent in the graphic form. And, since everyone seems to think that Watchmen is the genre’s peak, I think I can safely ignore graphic novels from here on out.
Needless to say his "critique" angered me. And here is my response....
I think Todd, way up near the top of the page, probably said this better than I’ll be able to, but I’m gonna give it a try anyway.
I’m clearly biased on this, because I love comics, but you’re being an ******* on this subject Keith. I can respect your right to an opinion. If you don’t like the medium of sequential art story-telling, that’s fine. I can respect that. I don’t much care for poetry. But the way that you’re completely dismissing an entire medium, just because you didn’t like one example of it is absurd, and it essentially completely invalidates any criticism you might hope to levy against it.
Shall we go into a few of the more egregious examples of your obvious inborn bias…
“made novel-length by the inclusion of pretty pictures, which, by the way, take the place of the descriptive prose that makes the written novel an art form”
- How dare you dismiss an ENTIRE MEDIUM so completely as to decide that it’s simply not art. Such a statement is basically claiming that you are the end arbiter of what is art. And as a person who clearly loves literature and art you should be ashamed at such a dismissal.
“One, my criticism is not about wordcount, but about what’s lost when all you have is dialogue. Part of the greatness of any work of literature is in its prose. That’s simply not present here.”
-I can’t really explain how childish I think this remark is. You’re basically saying “What I like is good. Therefore this, not being something I like, it is not good.” Comic books (or graphic novels as you’re so loathe to call them) are a collaborative effort between many artists. To claim that, with a comic book, because the story is not entirely told with words that it therefore cannot be “great” is pathetic. As I said, it’s a collaborative effort, you can’t simply ignore that the story is told with a combination of words and pictures. If you dismiss the story telling potential of the pictures you miss the whole damn point I think.
“Two, the comparison of a graphic novel - seriously, can we just call it a comic book already? - to true novels wasn’t my idea. TIME did it. And they’re not the only ones. And I think in that comparison, the comic book fails miserably.”
-If you want to make an argument that maybe a graphic novel shouldn’t be on a list of “great novels” because they’re different art forms… I can buy that. I think I probably agree with you. But you betray your bias by using “comic book” as an epithet. “It’s a ‘comic book’, it’s not a ‘true’ novel.” Would you like some wine and cheese to go along with your hypocritical arrogance?
When you stick to actual criticisms of this particular example of comic books, I agree with you. I myself don’t particularly like Watchmen. I think lots of Alan Moore’s work kind of devolves into self-indulgency, which is a trait of writing that I don’t have a great deal of patience with. But I really do recommend you try at least a couple of other books before you completely write off the medium. Understanding that you go for the more literary types of stories, I echo someone’s previous suggestion of Maus I&II. It’s an absolutely brilliant story of a mans recounting of the time his father spent in Nazi controlled Poland, and subsequent time in a concentration camp. I would also recommend Will Eisner’s “Contract with God” trilogy, which is a telling of one mans viewpoint of how a particular neighborhood in NYC changes throughout the decades.
I’ll close with this; I personally thought that “Brave New World” was boring, predictable, and melodramatic. I think it so pales in comparison to 1984, which is certainly in the same dystopian genre, that it would be absurd to include it on the same list. Does that mean that “Brave New World” isn’t any good? That it “sucks”? No, that would be stupid of me to think that. I just didn’t like it very much. Art is subjective, and it’s hurtful to a medium, it’s fans, certainly it’s creators, and it SHOULD be hurtful to you to be so bigoted as to completely dismiss it because you didn’t like one example of it.
I'm posting this because I'm curious how you guys feel about the fact that you like comics. Do you constantly feel the need to defend it? I'm so used to taking shit from my friends because I like comics that I'm a little desensitized to it. I've really only ever had a couple of friends who read comics, so I've never had anyone to talk about my favorite hobby with. I know my friends are just ribbing me, but dismissive comments like these by Law make me angry. I really don't think I should have to defend my enjoyment of an artistic medium. And now I'm venting and I'll shut up...