Augustus

Are you familiar with John Williams 

No, not the composer. I'm talking about the author of the same name.
 

During his lifetime, Williams wrote four novels, three of which are today considered classics of 20th Century American literature. Augustus, which I recently re-read, being one of them. 

Originally published in 1972, Augustus was to be Williams' final novel. In it, the author takes us back in time to ancient Rome. The Augustus of the title is, of course, none other than Augustus Caesar, though when the novel begins, he's only a shy and scholarly youth named Octavian. It's not long, however, before the murder of his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, has put Octavian on the path which will make him the first Emperor of Rome. 
 

Augustus is an epistolary novel, meaning (for those of you who don't know) that its plot is told mainly via letters that the characters write to each other. It should be noted that although he's the central character, Octavian's perspective is kept from the reader until the last portion of the novel. For the majority of Augustus, the Emperor is seen through the eyes of those around him, whether family, friends or enemies.
 

While each of Williams' three major novels are well worth reading, I have to single out Augustus as my personal favorite. It's a masterpiece of historical fiction that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as other novels focusing on Roman Emperors, such as Graves' I, Claudius and Yourcenar's Memories of Hadrian. 
 

Highly recommended.

The Mirror and the Light

Earlier this year, the final installment in Hilary Mantel's trilogy about Thomas Cromwell was released. Being a huge admirer of Mantel's writing, thanks in no small parts to the previous parts in the trilogy: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, I had been waiting eagerly for part three to come out and, as soon as I was aware that it had been released, I wasted no time procuring a copy of my own and, having read it, here are my thoughts on it.

The Mirror and the Light, as the third volume is called, covers the last five years of Cromwell's life. Cromwell is now at the height of his power, having the King's ear and being regularly rewarded with new titles and lands in recognition of his services. Of course, such a good thing can't last forever. As he, Cromwell works tirelessly to create a new England and tries to keep the increasingly moody Henry happy, his enemies; among them, the Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Stephen Gardiner are busy working in the shadows, plotting his downfall.

Considering the high quality of its predecessors, not to mention the amount of time that have passed since last we ventured into Mantel's version of Tudor England, it is only understandable if the reader has some concern as to whether or not The Mirror and the Light will live up to expectations. As far as this reader is concerned, it definitely does.

With The Mirror and the Light, Mantel concludes what is, without a doubt, among the finest works of historical fiction that I've ever read. Mantel's prose is as rich as ever and throughout the volume's eight-hundred plus pages, I was kept in suspense, this despite knowing full well what Cromwell's ultimate fate would be (after all, he was an actual historical figure), wondering if this would not be the moment when he, Cromwell, would slip up and thus, fall from grace. As with many great stories, whether they are based on history, or completely made up by their creator, its not so much what happens in The Mirror and the Light that's important, but rather how and why it happens. 

In conclusion, a magnificent novel, well worth the long wait. 

Fanny & Alexander

Greetings, Dear Reader and welcome to a new year for this blog. Not just a new year, but a new decade as well. Yes, we have left the 2010's behind and must now venture forth into the uncharted waters of the 2010's. Best of luck to both of us.
Anyway, I thought I'd begin the 2020's on a positive note. Namely, by doing a little post on one of my favorite movies. So, here we go:

I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but I am an admirer of the filmography of Ingmar Bergman. Admittedly, I haven't seen everything he made (far from it), but what I have had the opportunity to see has been of a consistently high quality and that there is no doubt to me that Bergman deserves his reputation as a director.

That said, if I had to pick out what is, in my opinion, the man's Magnum Opus, my choice would fall upon the movie that is the subject of this post:

Fanny & Alexander.

Fanny & Alexander exists in two versions; one made for television and a (comparatively) shorter cut released in theaters. Bergman himself considered the TV-version to be the correct one and so, that is the one, I've decided to focus on.

The Film takes place in Sweden in the early years of the 20th Century and focuses on the Ekdahls; a large and wealthy family ruled over by the grand-mother, in general and two of the children in that family: Fanny and her brother Alexander, in particular. Following the death of their father, the children's mother remarries the local Bishop and the three of them move into his home; a place of strict rules and punishments.

The TV-version of Fanny and Alexander lasts for five hours and not once during that time does it feel as if the story is dragging its feet. One major reason for this is the characterization, which is quite simply top-notch. With a few exceptions, pretty much every character that are introduced to the
viewer is well-rounded and interesting.

Take, for example, uncle Karl. While his treatment of his wife and bitter resentment towards his brothers  and self-pity hardly makes him a sympathetic character, we also see him get along well with the children during the Christmas party and much later, it is he who goes to negotiate with the Bishop in order to save his late brother's remarried widow. In short, he's not a cardboard character but a human being with both good and bad aspects to his person and this goes for almost every character in the cast.

Then there's a villain of the story, who stands among the all-time great screen-villains. Bishop Edward Vergerus is, in many ways, the epitome of the wicked step-parent and yet, as horrible as he is, the Bishop never strays into the realm of cartoon villainy, but remains a chillingly believable figure throughout.

At the beginning of this post, I called Fanny & Alexander as one of my favorite movies (or films) and I've kept referring to it as such throughout. However, I would also call it one of my favorite series. While most commonly thought of as a movie, the TV-version was originally intended as a mini-series and can be watched as such. In fact, the DVD/Bluray box-set even refers to it as a "TV-series".

That said, at the end of the day,  no matter what label one chooses to apply to it, one thing remains true: Fanny & Alexander is a masterpiece; an enchanting tale of great richness, covering every human emotion. From hope and joy to fear and terror, aided in no small part by the cinematography of frequent Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist. If you haven't seen it already, you definitely should and if you have? Watch it again, like most great works, its worth returning to every now and then.

Habibi by Craig Thompson

Before reading Habibi, the only work of Craig Thompson's that I was familiar with was Goodbye Chunky Rice, his debut comic, which I read when I was in fifth grade (or maybe sixth, my memory is a bit vague). As for Thompson's later comics, such as Blankets, at the time they came out, they didn't seem like the sort of thing I'd be into, so I never paid much attention to them. Habibi, on the other hand was a comic that had me intrigued from the moment I became aware of it and recently, I finally got around to read it and without giving too much away, I only wished I had read it sooner.

Originally published in 2011, Habibi is set in a fictional Middle-Eastern land. It is here that we meet our main characters; Dodola and Zam, refugee child-slaves, who have made a home for themselves in a ship, stranded in the desert. Dodola, the older of the two by nine years, takes it upon herself to act as a surrogate-parent to Zam, nurturing him and teaching him to read and write. Life is harsh, however and eventually, Dodola sees no other option but to prostitute herself to the passing caravans in exchange for food and other things she and Zam need to survive. One day, Dodola vanishes and Zam, having learned what his caretaker had to go through and feeling wracked with guilt, sets out to find her.

Stretching across six-hundred pages, the story of Habibi is truly epic in scope, allowing Thompson to show what a truly gifted storyteller he is. The story does not unfold in a linear fashion, but jumps back and forth in time and as it does, the reader is treated to new revelations about the characters and the world they inhabit. Dodola and Zam are both very engaging protagonists, particularly the former, who ranks among my favorite female leads in any work of fiction. The author does a great job making us root for these two and hoping that they and the love they share will prevail, allowing them to overcome the many horrible things they have to endure during the course of the story and find happiness.
Religion plays an important part in Habibi. When they were children, Dodola would tell Zam stories from the Quran. These stories are woven into the main plot, much like the stories-within-stories, seen in such works as Potocki's The Manuscript Found in Saragossa and, of course, The One-Thousand and One Nights. While not a religious person myself, I did find the way Thompson would compare and contrast the stories found in the Quran with their counterparts from the Old Testament (such as Abraham's sacrifice of his son) to be interesting.

The richness of Habibi's plot is matched by its art, which is some of the best black-and-white artwork I've ever seen. Apparently, it took Thompson six years to complete and I can definitely see why. Inspired by Islamic art and calligraphy, there are panels and pages here so intricate, that a reader can find themselves lost in them.

Habibi is well deserving of the praise that it has received over the years since it was first published. Craig Thompson has crafted an astonishing masterpiece, one which belongs on any list of great comics.

Comics That Should be Translated: Les Sept Vies de l'Epervier

I'm an avid reader of comics, no matter what format or genre (though obviously there are some genres I favor over others) and it just so happens that several of the comics I read happen to be in French and haven't been translated into English. As such, this will be a recurring series of post in which I will write about some of these comics that I feel deserve to be translated into English. The first such comic I've chosen to write about is Patrick Cothias' and André Juillard's masterpiece Les Sept Vies de l'Epervier.

In order to talk about this comic, we first need to talk about another one; Masquerouge (Redmask, yes it's supposed to be written as one word), which was a comic created by the team Cothias-Juillard for the children's magazine PIF Gadget back in the early 80's. Masquerouge took place in France during the reign of Louis XIII and starred a masked avenger clad in a red mask, who fought against corruption and injustice, as masked avengers tend to do. Somewhat unusual for the time was the fact that the person under the red mask was a woman, the young baroness Ariane de Troïl. Now, I haven't actually read Masquerouge so I can't vouch for it's quality, but everything I've read about it make it seem like a competently made, but fairly standard adventure-comic.

Anyway, in 1982, Cothias got the idea of making a prequel to Masquerouge, focusing on the origin of his heroine. Unlike it's mother-series, said prequel was meant to be for an older audience, with greater depth to the characters and everything that entails. This comic, which would soon come to completely eclipse Masquerouge in terms of recognition, was given the title Les Sept Vies de l'Epervier (or The Seven Lives of the Sparrowhawk).

The story begins with the birth of the future king Louis XIII. Meanwhile, a pregnant woman is running through the woods, she's being tracked down by her husband, Baron Yvon de Troïl and her husband's brother, Gabriel, with whom she's been having an affair. She tries to cross a frozen lake, but the ice is to thin and she breaks through. The woman manages to get to dry land and mere moments later gives birth. She wraps the newborn baby in her clothes to protect it from the cold and is found later by Yvon and Gabriel, frozen to death.

Furious, Yvon blames his brother for the death of his wife and banishes him from his sight. While riding through the woods, Gabriel encounters a strange blind woman who presents him with two birds; an owl and a sparrowhawk. She tells him that his destiny will be linked to one of the two birds and urges him to choose: The philosophical owl or the bold sparrowhawk..

Meanwhile, Yvon decides to raise the infant as his own and eight years later, the child has grown up into a strong-willed young woman named Ariane. One day, a mysterious man wearing a red mask appears in the church and challenges Yvon's closest neighbor; the despicable Count Thibaud de Bruantfou to a duel. Naturally, Ariane becomes fascinated with the masked-man's heroism and strong sense of justice and decides to seek him out, much to the concern of her supposed father and brother, Guillemot.

From what at first seem to be a rather simple tale, Cothias crafts a complex, elaborate plot which spans over several years and involves a multitude of characters, some of them fictional and others taken from the pages of history. Characterization is really the strongest point of this saga, with each character from Ariane and her family, to the french king Henry IV and the mysterious Léonard Langue-Agile (basically, quick-tongued or sharp-tongued) emerging as some of the most memorable and well-crafted characters I've encountered in comics.

I should warn any potential reader that Les Sept Vies de l'Epervier is not for the squeamish. Cothias doesn't shy away in the slightest in showing the cruelties and injustices of the age, an age where the strong ruled over the weak and local provincial lords could pretty much as they pleased. Not that all members of the aristocracy are presented as bad, both Yvon and king Henry himself are both depicted as flawed, but sympathetic characters. On the flip-side however, we have the scheming Concino Concini and the Count de Bruantfou, the latter which seem to embody the worst cruelties and excesses of the ruling class. In short, this is not a comic in which the majority of the cast, whether good or evil, gets away unscathed (or even alive).

I've talked a lot about the story, what about the art? After all, the ninth art-form is a visual medium and while I can forgive a comic whose artwork is less than stellar if the story is good enough, the ideal is of course to have both a great story and great artwork. Thankfully, Les Sept Vies de l'Epervier does not disappoint in that regard. André Juillard is one of the finest artist working in comics and he does an excellent job portraying the characters and the period they live in. Of course a picture is worth more than a thousand words and so, at the end of this post, I've included some samples of Juillard's work so that the reader can see what I mean.

To sum it up, Les Sept Vies de l'Epervier is undoubtedly a masterpiece, one of the finest works produced in the medium in my opinion and a comic that's well deserving of being translated.

Artwork: