In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman

[katekintailbc]

In the Shadow of No Towers
by Art Spiegelman

I read this a month or two ago and typed up some quotes I liked from it so I'd have something good to say about it. But my computer had to be rebooted and I lost the quotes, apparently.

Art Spiegelman was a keynote speaker at the AWP Conference in Chicago, and I got to witness the crazy awesome that is his mind firsthand. I love the idea of a graphic novel about a regular citizen of New York's experiences during and after 9-11. And I respect the fact that it was done to combat post traumatic stress that the incident brought on. And the format of a gigantic (in dimension, not in page length) board book for adults is an interesting one. But the execution left me wanting.

I found the mix of styles distracting and unsettling. I was almost thrilled each time the images that Maus made familiar appeared. Most of the images were disturbing or confusing, though. Every time I thought I thought I had gotten inside his mind, it would shift and go somewhere else. Most of the more political cartoon-like images made my head hurt from thinking too much. And there was lots of write-up or text that just seemed to be too much on a gigantic page. I wanted more of a story and less of raw emotion-inspired images, I think. I wanted something more to tie things together for me.

The part I liked the best were the newspaper pages/quotes at the end. That took it away from one man's experience and brought it back to something I could relate to and understand better. I was not impressed with this book but I respect it.