martes, 10 de mayo de 2011

Maus

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale


Maus, is a graphic novel written by Art Spiegelman, and the story is focused in the World War II and specially in the holocaust in which his parents were involved, it is a amazing history although the drawing is not the best, but despite this issue this masterpiece won a well deserved  special Pulitzer Award.


First of all,  Art Spiegelman spent around ten years in the creation of Maus, which was published in two parts: the first time called “My father bleeds history” in 1986 and the second one called “And here my troubles began” in 1991.  In the next year, he received a Pulitzer award among others.


About the pencils, we can say that the entire novel is in black and white, you can notice that the illustration looks very plain but even with this simplicity is very functional and sympathetic because a normal person can understand the metaphor. The style may be very simple but as the story is developed, we can see the influences, essentially, the expressionism. He uses animals to describe the different types of nationalities, religion or race.  The election of the animal is on purpose, a cat for the Nazis (who hunted Jews), mice for the Jews (victims), pigs for the Poles (who somehow betrayed the polish Jews), frogs (the Frenchs), deer (Swedish) and dogs (Americans).

Regarding the narrative, Art and his Vladek (his father) lived in New York; Art visited his father so that he could tell him all about his experience in the WWII, so in one page we can read about Vladek’s memoirs at the next we can read the doubts and the ideas for the creation of this novel. The storytelling is intertwine but it works, because you can feel the pain, frustration and desperation of being hunted by the Nazis, in the other hand the discussions and the doubts of Art about this story.

Throughout the story we are witnesses of the psychological issues of the characters and how our background shivers in times of war.  Anja, gave birth to Richieu, and when the Nazis started chasing the Jews, they decided to protect their son and send him far away with his auntTosha (Anja’s sister). But when she heard that the Nazis took some children, she freaked out and rather than being taken away from her; she decided to poison her own son Bibbi, her nice Lonia, Richieu and herself.

This issue was overwhelming for both of them. For Vladek, Richieu was the perfect son, and this image stayed with him for the rest of his life. In the other hand, Anja suffered of constants periods of depression until she committed suicide in 1968.  These are the two main issues that scarred him for life; despite not getting to know his brother it started an unusual sibling rivalry and the suicide of his mother it was a heavy burden to bear.

At the moment he published the first part, the fame came. He received lots of journalist criticizing his job, asking what the objective of the novel was, what did he want to transmit, and receiving comments about the German people tired of being accused for the holocaust because this new generations did not do anything.  

Although he did not want to communicate a specific message, several messages were implicit.  One of them is the spoils and scars of war. While we read about the young Vladek before and during the war, we perceive a happy, smart, enthusiastic and cooperative being. Regarding the old man after the war, we perceive a greedy, stubborn, racist and self-centered being that tries to inflict compassion in people to take advantage of this. This qualities and behavior made Art hesitate, he was the stereotype image of the Jew, and so what would be the reaction of the people towards this issue?.  Definitely, a person is able to survive (physically) to war, like Valdek did; but a part of us does not survive. War leaves us very deep psychological wounds and transforms our behavior, leaving hidden scars.

As an extra matter, in the original novel we can see the bad use of English,  Vladek tend to confuse the different times and words so sometimes is difficult to understand 100% but the author deals with it very well.

For me one of the most memorable moments in the novel is when Art realizes that his mother Anja wrote in her diary all her experiences of the war, living in Auschwitz and escaping situations. When Art ask his father about it, Vladek tells him that he got rid of the diaries and the reaction of Art is very devastating, he calls him Murder and curse him.

Finally, this novel is in my top three novels ever, it manages to communicate the atrocious way of living in the ghettos, the camps (like Auschwitz) and an entire environment is against you, constantly losing your possessions and struggling to maintain was left, like Vladek. Also, it has a strong sentimental part, overwhelming situations and turns, and shows the brutal truth of war; exposing the veiled scars of it.


The Bard.




martes, 15 de marzo de 2011

“Pride of Baghdad
Pride of Baghdad is a graphic novel amazingly written by Brian K. Vaughan and marvelous illustrated by the pencils of Niko Henrichon. This is a true story about 4 lions that lived at the zoo in Baghdad and after the U.S. air force blasted the city in 2003 they manage to escape.  As I perceive the novel, I think that the main issue of the novel is the discernment of the meaning of freedom throughout the life experience.



The story is developed around this pride of 4 lions: Zill the head of the pride, Safa the old lioness, Noor the youngest lioness and Ali who is Noor’s cub. Among these characters we can distinguish different perceptions of freedom according to the age, experiences, expectations, knowledge and awareness of our surroundings.

For example in Zill we can see the nostalgic point f view about freedom, as he says that he misses watching the horizons in the wild life. In Safa we can see the experience and the consciousness, because she live terrible issues in the wild life, especially with a lion called Bukk and even got blind from one eye, so she is aware of the dangers in the wild life (represent the experience) and even at the beginning when the animals in the zoo got free her first decision is to stay but finally she change her mind. Noor is the youngest lioness, an all she wants to get of the zoo and be free, but as the story goes forward we can see that, even this desire has been accomplished one way or another, she is scared and shocked by the brutal change of life and the hostile environment. Ali represents the innocence and inexperience, he is astonished by everything that he sees and sometimes he is bump into diverse feelings  from amazement to panic.

Also, one thing that got my attention is the wordplay of the author in the main title; Pride of Baghdad might have lots of meanings. The first is very simple, is the group of lions (pride).
The second is referring to the Iraqi version of a Russian tank; these tanks were called “Lions of Babylon”, and had been a special, unique and representative Iraqi force since the cold war and they we used during in the invasion in 2003. And the third could be referring to the city and the Iraq people to preserve their pride despite the invasion.


About the different meanings of “Pride o f Baghdad”, there exists a statue in Iraq, called the Lion of Babylon (which is in below the heading); this is a statue of a man struggling against a lion to avoid being devoured.  The symbolism is represented in the story of the people; the story says that as the statue remains in place, no foreign government will rule.

Finally, I think that this is a great novel although it is short; the author portrays really well the perception of freedom in a state o f war. To some people freedom is the will of doing whatever you want and sometime it is impeded by the society and our regulations, even the way to accomplish freedom is important as the author say with Safa “Freedom can’t be given, only earned”.


The Bard.
 

martes, 8 de marzo de 2011

Daedalus Hyperboreus

“Daedalus hyperboreus”

On Sunday night I had a great experience; I remember that at midnight I was trying to get asleep, and I was lying down on my right side but I felt a something odd, like some kind of energy or a presence right in front of me, despite feeling this presence I felt very calmed and peaceful.

Later that night I remember dreaming myself inside a mall, I visited several stores and suddenly my movements started to slow down that is when I realized entirely that I was dreaming, but next to that the best part started, I tried to wake me but I wasn’t able to move or speak for short moment and then I realized that it was also a dream. At the beginning I did not know what to think, but I remembered that I had a similar experience time ago so I started searching; and I found that I had a lucid dream.

A lucid dream is a dream in which you know you are dreaming. Typically this happens when the dreamer experiences something strange, and when they stop to question their reality, they realize they are in a dream. Lucid dreams happen naturally on occasion, although some people may have them naturally more often than others. The definition of lucid dreaming may be simple, but there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding it.

A lucid dream can begin in one of two ways. A dream-initiated lucid dream (DILD) starts as a normal dream, and the dreamer eventually concludes it is a dream, while a wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD) occurs when the dreamer goes from a normal waking state directly into a dream state, with no apparent lapse in consciousness.

The REM (Rapid Eye Movement) is when a person is dreaming, the eyes move rapidly up and down and vibrate. Scientific research has found that these eye movements may correspond to the direction the dreamer "looks" at in the dreamscape. This has enabled trained lucid dreamers to communicate with researchers while dreaming by using eye movement signals

The first book to recognize the scientific potential of lucid dreams was Celia Green's 1968 study Lucid Dreams. Green analyzed the main characteristics of such dreams, reviewing previously published literature on the subject and incorporating new data from subjects of her own. She concluded they were a category of experience quite distinct from ordinary dreams, and predicted that they would turn out to be associated with rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep). Green was also the first to link lucid dreams to the phenomenon of false awakenings.

Another reference is the Swedish called Emanuel Swedenborg; he had a great reputation in the science field, and at the age of 56 had a revelation in which he said that Jesus Christ came to his house and he drank a cup of tea with him, Jesus Christ told him that he was worried about the path of the church and he needed him to get the religion back on track so the people could really understand the gospels. So Jesus allowed him to visit heaven and hell through his dreams and share it with the humanity. Through his dream he visited heaven and hell and he wrote several books, his most famous book maybe is “Heaven and Hell” also “Daedalus Hyperboreus”.


The Bard.

viernes, 25 de febrero de 2011

Gomorra

It is the most devastating book I’ve read in a few years. It analyzes the phenomenon of camorra, one of several kinds of Italian mafia, relatively little known before the publishing of that book, yet probably the most dangerous one.
Saviano, a journalist who comes from Calabria, the region dominated and corrupted by camorrists, shows the mechanisms of how such a criminal organization operates.

The book consists of personal accounts of the author who, as a person born in Calabria, witnessed the tragic consequences of camorra crimes more than once, and also you can find there typical journalistic articles describing scandals connected with camorra, police actions and investigations, details of shady operations and illicit businesses.

The most terrifying and shocking fact is that camorra has become the inherent and indispensable part of Calabrian economy and society to such an extent that it’s almost impossible to imagine how the whole region could function without
it. The workshops controlled by the mafia produce clothes for the most famous Italian fashion designers, the local councils are so corrupted that the vast majority of them, 90 per cent approximately, have had to be replaced with the special commissioners appointed directly by the central government. Moreover, it is difficult to find the construction company which is not somehow connected with the criminals.

The waste disposal business is totally controlled by the mafia, which makes Calabria one of the most polluted regions in Europe. Have you been to Naples? Have you seen those enormous, huge piles of trash and waste? This is because the waste disposal business in the city is controlled by the camorra. To make matter worse, according to the book they bring even more dangerous and toxic waste to Calabria just to make money.

They don’t care about the fact that they pollute the region where they live. Saviano wrote this book to inform and alarm the public opinion. He reached his aim. Unfortunately, the criminals, who try to avoid publicity at all costs because it is bad for business, sentence him to death.

viernes, 11 de febrero de 2011

Threes Cups of Tea





More than the book itself, I love what this book is looking to achieve. One man's obsession for children in a country half a world away, is humbling and inspiring.

The structure of the book was more disjointed than I expected it to be and it was sometimes hard to follow the sequence of events and places. But perhaps that is reflective of the character of our hero, who seems never to be able to stay in one place for more than a few weeks at a time.

I have to say that one of the relatively unsung heroes of the book is Greg Mortenson's wife. She must be a woman of vast patience and understanding, to see her husband disappear so regularly and for such lengths of time, and to be left with the responsibility of parenting their children whilst he is occupied with the care of thousands of other children.

He says that instead of fighting with wars that do nothing but destroy and set back education of other countries people, that we should be empowering them with education...especially the women. A man will go to school and learn, and then go off in the world and never teach, but a woman will learn and then teach it to her daughters and friends and tribe, continuing the education for generations to come. This is why it is so important to build school for poor, suffering country.


 Must Read!
                                                          Seif al Din
 
Mohamed Bouazizi, a young man of 26 years old, head of a big family had been pushed to the edge because of the lack of opportunities, the abuses of the police, the economic situation and the humiliation, he decides to buy gasoline, spread it all over himself and standing in front of the city hall and  ...burst into flames!

A simple act of human desperation and nervous breakdown, this act had unleashed one of the biggest civil movements in this century, the Egypt’s had took this act as a symbol, what I called the Seif al Din (Sword of Fate) to fight against Hosni Mubarak, who has been a dictator for almost 30 years.

Today, Egypt has entered into history as the first Islamic state that had achieved the revolution; the last revolution in the Islamic world was the Islamic revolution in Iran (1979), and the last one in Africa, specifically in Egypt began with Gamal Abdel Nasser who was the leader in the revolutionary movement in 1952, he represented a change in politics, justice and the idea of the pan Arabism.

Today, we have been witnesses of a new real revolutionary movement; today we have seen that is possible to do a revolution with creating a full state of war, today we know that it is possible to change the old paradigms, today we watched an entire country, an entire population speaking up their minds, today we observed Christians and Muslims joined in one goal, today we saw the army executing the judgment of the people.

This is a landmark in the Egyptian history, the army declared an exception state, and a new beginning is at their sight; this is an example of the things that any country could accomplish, again, today was Egypt, tomorrow could be Yemen, Tunisia Morocco… and Mexico?

Mubarak to all the Egyptians!




martes, 25 de enero de 2011



Persepolis by Marjene Satrapi 

Persepolis is an outrageous graphic novel written by Marjane Satrapi, she is an intelligent and outspoken child of radical Marxists and the great-granddaughter of Iran’s last emperor. The drawings and strokes seem very simply and are in black and white but they work very well according with the biographic history.

The history begins when she had 10 years old on 1979; during this year a big political change happened, the Islamic Revolution; she lived under an Islamic fundamentalist regime but her parents ha d very progressive ideas and she also had very radical ideas during her childhood, for example she liked to read about Karl Marx, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and become a revolutionist, but on the other hand she was very religious and she wanted to be god’s last and best choice for a prophet.

I think this is a great graphic novel, because in all pages you can find very interesting points of view and contrasting ideas, believes and cultural aspects, it does not matter if she is in Iran or Vienna you can see different ideals and ways to see the world, the novel is very funny and sometimes can be very sad and even nostalgic but it represents very well the encounter of two different cultures like the oriental and occidental in this case.