I just read this first volume of a comics series, and quickly, because I have been reading this past year these big books about the killing of JFK andI just read this first volume of a comics series, and quickly, because I have been reading this past year these big books about the killing of JFK and the title caught my eye. Yeah, I like that title! I expected it to be trashy/satirical and I could then write a bemused dismissal review. But that's what you'd expect with a title and premise such as this. So what if it doesn't suck!?
And I have been reading James Tynion's crazy hysterical horror send-up of conspiracy theories, Department of Truth and am liking it. This series is in some ways in the same conversation as Tynion's series, with a Texas drawl, and some flat-out saed-off shotgun violence and so,me stereotypical Texas rednecks, natch. This volume is just the introduction to the series, to the basic wacky concept and to some central characters who are gonna get involved in this guvamint cover-up--a wannabe cowboy from Wisconsin in a ten (or maybe fourteen) gallon hat, a Buddy Holly-idolizing musician without talent, an angry Civil Rights activist who is specifically angry that JFK is dead, and a former G-Man who actually has leftie leanings. The single conspiracy theory being advanced here is that the body in Oswald's Dallas grave ain't Oswald's, pardner. He's missing his ring in there. So, body swap, (for no obvious reason yet).
So I am not sure yet why I should care about this band of misfits, or about Oswald's body, either, for that matter. But the gift of low expectations makes it possible that things sometimes don't suck as much as you thought they would, and here I am, somewhat amused. I'll peek at the next one. ...more
The rock star creative team of Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino and Dave Stewart return to bring us a six-issue comics story to pull our heart strings, The rock star creative team of Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino and Dave Stewart return to bring us a six-issue comics story to pull our heart strings, presuming that the animals the Russians and the US sent up in space (separately, it was the Cold War), Laika, Able and Baker may indeed return. So this is a sci-fi comic meets alt-history, where Nixon defeats JFK, though to what purpose, I am not always clear), and in the near future, we discover the dog and monkeys have not been killed but kidnapped by aliens. And 60 years later, coming home?! Why? because all animal lovers have always wanted these animals (and especially Laika, because: dog!) to come home.
This is the set-up for the heart-string-pulling at the end, but really, why does this story exist? For animal lovers, I'd guess. Because the sci-fi story is not interesting or particularly purposeful, though with all the talk of aliens and ufos late.y, I guess the abducted by aliens angle has some comic interest. But the alt-history angle has less interest. Maybe there's a couple potentially decent ideas mashed up in there, but it's just not great storytelling.
This is a great-looking comic thanks to Sorrentino and Stewart, building on the work of Gideon Falls, but I kept getting hooked in by the art in that one and it finally came to very little in the end. This one has a similar vibe, and tries out different styles for the lives of the animals, okay, but it is beginning to seem like Sorrentino is wasting his talent with weak Lemire stories. I gave this three stars initially, but the more I write about it, my feelings for the story (and Rod Brown's encouragement to be as curmudgeonly--okay, I mean honest--as he is) drops it down to two stars....more
“Question authority”: Pin worn by a lot of people in the late sixties, and many people took this invocation to heart
“What the fuck do you even think A“Question authority”: Pin worn by a lot of people in the late sixties, and many people took this invocation to heart
“What the fuck do you even think America is? You think it had the name carved into the fucking bedrock? Nothing about this place is real. It’s all just people.”
On the one hand, The Department of Truth (DoT) is the perfect book for the times we live in, as it speaks to the politics of the time, the media-advanced conspiracy theories that, embraced by more and more extreme right folks, are moving us closer and closer to chaos. On the other hand, DoT in this “history and background’ volume makes it clear that we have always had with us as a human race fictions/lies--some of them useful, as in mythology and some spiritual beliefs--and many of them crazy and self-destructive (such as that climate change is anti-biz socialist myth?) and some just mildly entertaining as such as BigFoot/Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster. Some of them just as ridiculous but maybe more scary such as put forth by the likes of Breitbart and Q-Anon.
We have always had the belief in the supernatural with us, as scholars of, for instance, Japanese Yokai, tulpas, and as the organizers of multiple religions, make clear. We have our share of fictions, our histories, and we have our share of myth-busting projects, from Howard Zinn’s The People’s History of the United States, The X Files and various movies about the supposedly true or supposedly faked moon landing.
The Department of Truth, Volume 3: Free Country collects issues 6-7, 14-17 of the comics series written by James Tynion with art by guest artists Elsa Charretier, Tyler Ross, John J. Pearson, David Romero, Alison Sampson, and Jorge Fornes. The first volume had issues 1-5, the second volume 81-3, so you can see the team is trying to create a better sense of coherence in this ambitious, wide-ranging series.
The focus in this volume is largely on Lee Harvey Oswald’s tenure at the DoT : Oh, you say you saw him killed--as I did--on live network tv?--oh, sure we did! You really think that’s real?! How convenient that they immediately killed the killer Jack Ruby, problem of a criminal investigation solved! I saw it! Or did I?
In this volume we have four basically separate back stories that help deepen and historicize the work of the Department of Truth: UFOS, the moon landing, The Men in Black, and Mothman.
What is the tipping point when mass belief in some lie turns to destruction? When did it happen in Hitler’s Germany? When can it happen here (or in any alt-right extremist location)? Watch what happened to the parents and teachers and administrators of Sandy Hook and tell me we are going to be “all right.” I am sure Uvalde is already experiencing this treatment from the crazy nihilist alt right.
The art in this volume is wonderful, scary, nightmare beautiful, hallucinatory, powerful. The downside of this volume is that it tends to be very expository instead of advancing the overall narrative. But I’m okay with a backstory volume, deepening the world-building. All comics do one or more of those. But it’s not very much story. It’s mostly people talkin’ at ya. Minimal action, wide angle. But still very, very good!
I liked very much the meeting between Lee Harvey Oswald, Frank Capra (the creator of positive visions of America) and Nixon at the White House, talking about how someone as talented as Stanley Kubrick created a plausible fake of the Moon Landing (go ahead, google that, Tynion didn’t make up that theory). Why do that? Go figure: Space race, Nixon needed some feel good news for his tenure as President, and so on.
Who is the Lady in Red?
There are in this volume even more current crazy theories such as put forward by science fiction writer and then purveyor of his own “religion” (Scientology) L Ron Hubbard are sprinkled throughout.
What’s the point? I mean, you do have to believe in something, but you should also question everything you hear and read and think you see. But I do not recommend you read this series about the nature of truth if you are paranoid schizophrenic or have just dropped acid. ...more
The 19th and final volume of the sweeping epic alternative historical saga of the Edo period in Japan, wrapping up all of the political machinations tThe 19th and final volume of the sweeping epic alternative historical saga of the Edo period in Japan, wrapping up all of the political machinations that returned men to power as Japan turned from a feudal society to a global nation. The central interesting reflection on Japanese history that Yoshinaga-Sensei employs is queering the rendering of historical events by inventing a plague, The Red Pox, that killed off a majority of the male population, necessitating women’s rise to power. The focus of the series is the Tokugawa Shogunate, which in this volume is finally decimated, enabling the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Sir Tensho-In, one of our fave characters in the series, engineers a brilliant political solution to the civil conflict threatening to destroy Japan, avoiding the violence that everyone had anticipated.
On the personal side--because the series has always tacked back and forth between the broad political scene and the intense, sometimes salacious personal scene in the Inner Chambers (a male harem?! Glbtq representation!)--the series concludes with some sweet quiet personal moments including Tensho-In meeting several girls being sent to study in the United States, a moment of hope for Japan and the women and girls of the future Japan..
Maybe you think you aren’t interested in Japanese history, here in the West? Okay, I get that, but this is an epic manga accomplishment, finally concluded. ...more
Wow, yet another remarkable volume--fifteen- in this Eisner-nominated alt-history manga series with operatic events set in the Edo period of Japan, whWow, yet another remarkable volume--fifteen- in this Eisner-nominated alt-history manga series with operatic events set in the Edo period of Japan, where we have presumed a plague eliminated most of the male population, necessitating females in power. But the plague is now over, and we can see males are on the ascendancy again.
Let me see if I can delicately convey without spoiling things the drama: Iesada's time as shogun ends, after we have witnessed the blooming of her love with her consort Taneatsu, who advises the next young shogun, fourteen-year-old Iemochi. We get more political manuevring over whether to engage with the West. We also get cute moments, where Iesada, a tough woman and leader, is able to actually express her love for Taneatsu, after she has seen in him in an elegant outfit. She also cooks for him, though for centuries men have presumedly been doing this. And sews, though men also have been doing this.
This has lots of action, dramatic medieval power struggles, and sweet romance, with a couple of surprises/shocks....more
“The people who control the truth control the world.”
The Queen, in Alice in Wonderland, tries to persuade Alice that you can believe impossible things“The people who control the truth control the world.”
The Queen, in Alice in Wonderland, tries to persuade Alice that you can believe impossible things -- and suggests that it helps if you practice. "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast," she declares.
The Department of Truth: The End of the World is a series about conspiracy theories and the destabilizing effect they have on the world. What conspiracy theories do you subscribe to? Aliens? UFOs? (Hey, maybe not a joke anymore?!). What about a long-standing one, the rumor that Jews eat Christian babies. The faked moon landing? Flat earth? Faked Sandy Hook with child actors? JFK as CIA victim? Rigged 2020 election? Clintons as murdering pedophiles? The eighties Satanic panic? Jewish lasers starting California forest fires? Reptillian illuminati? Marjorie Taylor Greene actually exists?!
In an over the top style reminiscent of Jonathan Hickman, James Tynion creates a first volume of mostly exposition touching on many conspiracy theories and their origin not in QAnon or Breitbart or Russian Bots but in an organization called Black Hat, at war with the Department of Truth over the political and economic soul of the universe, though who the good and bad guys are is still up in the air. There’s a kind of X-Files “smoking man” spouting shadowy theories. There’s a woman in red with no eyes, and some kind of Satan character? A guy named Lee Harvey Oswald and his assistant Ruby working for the Department of Truth? Is someone on acid here?? (Wait, now they're telling it is good for you, again? That theory?!)
In the middle of this is Cole Turner, who teaches about conspiracy theories. He attends a Flat Earth conference where he flies to the end of the world and sees that the world is actually flat. Then everyone but he on this Arctic expedition is killed, for some reason, and why he is not killed is not clear. So he is confused, naturally, and never quite decides what is going on. Sometimes "they" seems to inhabit his dreams. What is real??!
I really really like the idea of a comics series about conspiracy theories, especially one that isn’t just satire but tinged with horror, as this one is, but this all seems like the wheels have come off on a fast corner, as I always think when I read Hickman. There’s some suggestion that we have always lived with conspiracy theories (the Plague as punishment from God, AIDS as punishment from God, and so on), and postwar US taking control of the Truth Machine makes some sense, but this comic is as crazy as QAnon to me right now.
There’s a suggestion in this volume that 11//22/63--the day of the JFK killing in Dallas, and the almost immediate skepticism about who killed him and why--is the day the world started to really fall apart, where cracks really first became visible in the world as we thought we knew it. Intriguing? kInd of! This could be seen as an inventive fantasy with appropriately shadowy/sketchy/splashy artwork or just crazy.
Reminds me of Burroughs, 11/22/63 by Stephen King, Men in Black, with shadowy collage art similar to Bill Sienkiewicz and Dave McKean that I actually like a lot more than the story at this point. But I want this to make sense! I want to like it and learn from it, but there might be just three or four threads than it can handle. I may read one more volume to see if the fog clears. ...more
“We did not ask for this room or this music. But because we are here, let us dance.”
The literary establishment has done itself no favors by beating up“We did not ask for this room or this music. But because we are here, let us dance.”
The literary establishment has done itself no favors by beating up on King as a hack writer, as his works have sold over 350 million copies (which is evidence of his mediocrity from their perspective; academic success is signaled by book sales of less than 100 copies, indicating that only an elite few can understand these "important" books) and he has won countless literary awards, but I have to admit that I was influenced early on by my teachers not to read him, and since horror was not an interest of mine, I largely ignored him for most of my life. But a woman of my (close) acquaintance told me that this book had the single best ending she had ever read, so of course I had to read it.
And it’s not horror, it’s sci-fi, a time travel book, ranking high on a Goodreads list among favorite time travel books, and also near the top of a specialized list of time travel romance books, though I only realized it was primarily a romance as I was reading it (I didn’t know this beforehand; hey, wait, I thought, in the process of reading it, the lady wanted me to read this, uh. . . romance by Stephen King that does not end in bloodshed?. . . . where can I get some flowers and a box of chocolates . . . or make a mix tape of romantic ballads. . .). (I have to say before I forget it that there is something in this book that I’ll remain vague about that reminded me of Captain America going back in time to dance with his True Love).
“But I believe in love, you know; love is a uniquely portable magic. I don’t think it’s in the stars, but I do believe that blood calls to blood and mind calls to mind and heart to heart.”
11/22/63 is of course a time travel book that works as alternative history (think: Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino, Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, and others). It addresses a kind of bar discussion topic about what it is one might do if one had the opportunity to make changes in 1) one’s personal life, and 2) history. As to the second issue, we can see Jason's comic, I Killed Hitler, as an example of him weighing in on what might be one of the top three. For King, and for many of us who lived through the moment of JFK's death--I was in my elementary classroom and wandered out to the hallway to see teachers sobbing in each other’s arms and when I got home with my sister my mother hugged us with sobs--it would be to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the assumption being that maybe some bad things may not have happened if JFK lived.
But since this book exceeds 850 pages (I listened to it), we don’t go straight to Dallas, of course. Jake Epping is a 35-year-old English teacher (as King himself once was!), recently divorced because his ex complained he never cried, he had no feeling. A guy that runs a diner sees he is single, no kids, so he shows him a portal to the past and suggests he change history by going back to 1958 and lay the groundwork for saving JFK’s life. But first he needs to save someone else’s life just to prove that an English teacher can kill someone. And he gets a second chance in love with a cute librarian, Sadie, who over time agrees to help him with his crazy plan to kill Oswald. Which I suppose I shouldn’t talk about even though there about 30K reviews, but I’ll say some of how the political issue gets resolved is satisfying.
And the ending, with respect to Sadie, is powerful, moving. Okay, King is very sentimental, and nostalgic. From the very first I thought this book was a tribute to Ray Bradbury and his nostalgic (and sometimes time-traveling) trips to a sweeter, nicer time where real-life horror also happens. Though in an afterword that King himself reads, he says his real inspiration re: time travel in this book is jack Finney’s Here and Now, which he says is the best time travel book of all time. But--not knowing that book--this felt as nostalgic and sentimental as Bradbury and as astute about social and political issues, too. I didn’t love all the constant repetition to remind me that the past is “obdurate,” that it resists change, though I did like his playing around with Bradbury’s notion of the “butterfly effect” with respect to history, as our assumption that saving JFK as saving the country might not necessarily be the case. When you change one thing, you may not change everything for the better.
“. . . a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.”
King may be sentimental in places, but he is also a horror writer; he knows bad things happen to good people. But one thing I found interesting is that in his decades of research on the JFK assassination, it is clear he (and Jake) are not JFK conspiracy theorists. King and Jake think Oswald was the lone gunman.
I liked this book; it does no good to complain that it is ⅓ or more longer than it needs to be; this critique is an old one that falls on deaf ears for King fans, who love his work, the longer the better. But I will say it is still a very very good book, very readable and compelling, and I’m glad I read it....more
I just recently read Stevens' (2018) The Winner, the first book I have read from him, so I was intrigued and decided to read whatever else I could finI just recently read Stevens' (2018) The Winner, the first book I have read from him, so I was intrigued and decided to read whatever else I could find from him, a decade or more after everyone else who knows him from alt comix fairs. The thing you need to know about Stevens is that he is an amazing artist, and also makes comics, I think mostly memoirs, serialized in strips. Both of these books are about booze. The Winner is post-booze, sort of, if you can ever get over the stuff, and The Lodger is still well into the cups. It's funny because I just made a note on a review about how all of Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder mysteries are really on every page about booze, about alcoholism, as all of Raymond Carver's stories are, and this is true for both of Stevens' books I have thus far read.
They also both feature an arrogant self-loathing art school drop-out--Stevens--and it's about painting vs. comics, what shall I do, with the hand-wringing, it's about women, but it's mainly about his drinking away his life as he does some art (and mostly drinking) as a lodger in a former art prof's house. Stevens knows the prof and his family know her drinks too much, but they are all very tolerant of Stevens, as are his friends/girlfriends. Everyone enables him. And then it's twenty-something cultural enabling, as everyone he knows is drunk all the time. Both books feature amazing portraits particularly of these women (some of them naked; could you still do this now, post naked pics of yr ex?).
Three things I have noticed:
1) Stevens is disaffected, but he is also brutally honest, self-deprecating. He's the anti-hero of his own stories. 2) The art is the true hero of this tale, something he can accomplish in spite of himself. The art rises above his squalid life. 3) Easterner Stevens gives a nod to Andrew Wyeth, whose work seems to influence his a great deal; both are creators of both portraits and landscapes. Wyeth only painted, his work is only about beauty; Stevens brings this beauty-sensibility to the ba, in a sense, in part, though he draws landscapes and lovely, wispy-haired, ethereal women, too. 4) I like how Stevens has dogs talk. Most of the time you sorta wanna shoot him for being such an asshole (I mean this figuratively, I'm a pacifist!), but he knows he is being an asshole and the dog helps us see that he knows this about himself.
I kind of have a love/hate thing for art school hipster Stevens (oh, trust me, he hates art school hipsters, would be swearing at me for calling him that if he even cared what I think about his art but he doesn't, trust me, I'm a writer, what the hell do I know about art and what makes me think I am an art critic!??). But here's the thing, I am now going to read another one by Stevens, so there's something there. A few great things. Even if you never read a word he writes, even if you just look at it, the art is there, just breathtakingly good. As with artists in general, you know, you don't have to admire the artist to admire the art....more
This is the thirteenth volume of this gorgeously rendered—in lush period costumes--alternative history set in the Edo period of Japan, wherein a largeThis is the thirteenth volume of this gorgeously rendered—in lush period costumes--alternative history set in the Edo period of Japan, wherein a large percentage of the male population had died out from the Red Pox, creating a huge shift in gender/power relations. At the conclusion of volume twelve Admirable Perry was arriving in Japan, signaling a huge shift in Japanese history, but at the outset of volume 13 we head back again to take a closer look at key events seventeen years earlier, as the cure for the Red Pox has been found, the male population is returning, and gender/power relations are also returning back to what they were, in some respects, to what had been the case before a roughly two century interruption.
There are things that bug me about this volume and the series: The translation that attempts to mimic medieval English and feels stilted; there are many pages in which the words drown out the images and many characters—and there are also SO many characters--are hard to distinguish from each other (thus requiring the guide to characters that opens the volume).
But on the whole, this truly is brilliant, a 5-star series, one of the greatest ever. With amazing art, sometimes jaw-dropping brutality and sexual politics. Not a kiddie manga, certainly. The series takes Japanese history and makes one teensy-weensy change and asks what impact that would make in Japanese society and history: What if women ruled the world? Her answers in the series are really interesting, and complex and entertaining.
This particular volume focuses on Sachiko, the daughter of the Shogun and heir to the shogunate. But she is also the victim of incest with the most powerful man in the region. The machinations to protect Sachiko that have her also emerge as an international power—and no longer be isolationist--is fascinating, and sometimes moving. There is also more sexual activity in this volume than we have seen for some time, some focused on Kagema—male prostitutes—some of whom dress as women. Who occupies the harem/brothel in a time of power? How does the population of those occupations shift as power relations shift? Another example:
“. . . and so it is today, the female courtesans of Yoshiwara are entertaining men wearing robes worn by male prostitutes servicing women--women copying men who were pretending to be women!”
“I see! You made that very easy to understand!”
But would things go back completely to patriarchy, after some of the good things (and bad things) Japan experienced with women in power for centuries? The story of Sachiko is one answer to this question. Ooku is one of the best examples of manga as an art form, period....more
Ooku is an amazing alternative history series set in Edo period Japan. The central “alt” premise is that the Red Pox has killed off 75% of the male poOoku is an amazing alternative history series set in Edo period Japan. The central “alt” premise is that the Red Pox has killed off 75% of the male population in less than a century. Women take over all the roles traditionally granted to men, including the Shogun. And one intriguing aspect is a sexual one; the most beautiful men are assigned to the Inner Chamber. The series began in 2005, but I didn’t begin reading manga until around 2014, I think, but have been reading it over the last few years, still catching up a bit.
Early on, the sexual intrigues were most central and interesting, and they still can be, of course, as women are in power—the brothels only feature men, for instance--but in this volume the urgency is around the cure for the Pox. One struggle is between Ienari and his psychotic, domineering mother who is killing off her courtiers and grandsons. As more and more men are appearing with the success of the cure, she kills off more and more of them. In one scene she tells her couriers they all must eat some rare delicacies, but also tells them one of the portions is poisoned. At one point in the volume, she turns with murderous intent to her own son, after she finds he has been working with a doctor to effect the cure in the region.
For those unfamiliar with it, Yoshinaga bases her work on deep research into the period, and her drawing and comics work are amazing. So you wonder: Do are women very much different than men in power? That women would do a better job of running the world is now a commonplace consideration these days (on the left, at least) as more and more women are getting elected in the U.S., a view I have subscribed to, generally. But Yoshinaga doesn't simplify things. The world isn't necessarily better because women are in charge. What Yoshinaga does to “normalize” the existence of glbt issues in this context is interesting. I never liked the awkward translation, but it sends a wrong signal to give this any less than 5 stars as I did years ago because of that, so I am going to fix that.
This last volume focuses on the development of science and the need to make connections with the west. At the end of the volume Admiral Perry arrives in Japan to signal the modern period.
I was reminded to read this again after reading the humorous Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal, where all men have been dead for many years, and recalls the dystopian Y: The Last Man by Brian Vaughn and Pia Guerra. ...more
My One 4th of July, Apple Pie, Patriotic, Love America and Truly Make Sure it doesn't get flushed down the fascist toilet book for 2019:
“Anything can My One 4th of July, Apple Pie, Patriotic, Love America and Truly Make Sure it doesn't get flushed down the fascist toilet book for 2019:
“Anything can happen to anyone, but it usually doesn't. Except when it does.”—Philip Roth, The Plot Against America
The Plot Against America is a must read for our times. A tour de force (and also sort of tour de [dark] farce) that is at turns funny and scary and moving, it is an alternate history novel exploring “what if” isolationist and anti-Semitic aviation hero Charles Lindberg had actually defeated FDR in 1940, running on an anti-war platform, and had made a pact with Hitler, whose tyranny—unimpeded by the USA as a key ally—then continued unabated. Specifically, Roth wonders what effects Lindberg’s presidency might have had on his actual decidedly Jewish family, somewhat fictionalized in this novel.
Young Philip, 7, is inspired by his father’s opposition to both Hitler and Lindberg, as is his cousin Alvy, who actually enlists with The Canadian Army (because Lindberg fulfills his promise of America First—with a focus on isolationism—and doesn’t allow the US military to fight Germany) and loses his leg in France, thereby getting Philip’s rich uncles to blame Philip’s father for that, for even wanting to fight Hitler’s fascism in Europe. Alvy, having fought for Canada, is increasingly harassed as anti-American, for choosing to fight Hitler, who becomes, thanks to Lindberg, a kind of ally of the US! Yikes.
One way Lindberg gets elected is that a prominent New Jersey rabbi argues for Lindberg and against the war. Lindberg's first domestic initiative is the creation of the Office of American Absorption to "encourage America's religious and national minorities to become further incorporated into the larger society." The focus here is on the better assimilation of Jews in particular. The OAA also later develops the Homestead Act, which helps relocate Jews and other minorities. Sound familiar, Native Americans? Or does it sound a little like deportation or travel bans, in principle? Anyway, Phil’s brother Sandy goes to a farm in Kentucky for the summer, and loves it, becoming for a time aligned with Lindberg and a spokesperson for the OAA program.
“To have enslaved America with this hocuspocus! To have captured the mind of the world's greatest nation without uttering a single word of truth! Oh, the pleasure we must be affording the most malevolent man on earth!”—Philip’s Dad, actually speaking of Lindberg, and not you-know-who
Sound ridiculous and possibly paranoid? Well, that’s what I initially thought. But it is one storytelling feat to make the basis for the story outlandish, even screwy, and yet on some level make it darkly reasonable and frightening. Could an isolationist fascist become President of the US of A?! Nah, it can’t happen here.
But as Philip’s father says, “What do you mean it can’t happen here? It is happening here!”
Roth works in actual forties historical characters throughout. For instance, Walter Winchell, the liberal journalist, remains just as anti-fascist as he was in real life in this version of American forties reality. With the help of Eleanor Roosevelt, Winchell actually becomes the Democratic candidate for President. But when Winchell takes his act on the road to (anti-Semitic) Father Coughlin’s Detroit, America’s Kristallnacht begins, and all hell breaks loose, especially for Jews in America. Fascism reigns, though that’s not the end of the story.
Maybe ultimately this novel is a reminder or rejoinder to Jewish (and other pacifists) who might have once opposed any war against fascism or dictatorships elsewhere. Roth is saying that sometimes war is justified, and the war against Hitler was for him surely justified. And Roth doesn’t really care about Lindberg. What he cares about is an electorate he sees as awed by media darlings, and moved by simple slogans like America First (both Lindberg’s and Trump’s actual slogan), Big Business Types who promise us riches and scare us about threats to security and demonize and scapegoat particular minority groups in the process.
But the main hero of this tale is really Roth’s Dad, raging against the rise of fascism in America. As Philip says, “There were two types of strong men: those like Uncle Monty and Abe Steinheim, remorseless about their making money, and those like my father, ruthlessly obedient to their idea of fair play.” Roth’s mother is also admirable in steadfastly clinging to goodness and caring regardless of what craziness happens. This book, written decades before Trump, has political targets, but it is also a love letter to his good, liberal, working-class parents.
“How can this be happening in America?”—Philip’s mother
Did Roth in 2005 have in mind a cautionary tale for America’s future? He says no. But here is Roth emailing with The New Yorker that the Lindberg nightmare fantasy he wrote about is nothing compared to what Trump could be for this country:
“How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination.” –Philip’s mother
I also just read The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, which posits a ridiculous clownish, crude and rude Hitler-like gangster rising to power in Chicago, ready to take over the country. It can’t really happen here, can it?! I’m just paranoid, right?...more
Wow, this is really good. This is not a kid manga, as it is complex and rich and insightful about history, gender, sexuality, and politics. And what iWow, this is really good. This is not a kid manga, as it is complex and rich and insightful about history, gender, sexuality, and politics. And what it means to be human. It asks, among other things, what would Japan have been like if a plague, like small pox, kills almost all the men and women came into power. And Yoshinaga's answers as it turns out are clever and complex. This is in the Edo period. Harems existed then for the aristocracy, and they still do in this alternative history, only now with men, of course, etc etc. And what is it just a few men will be asked to do, in society, with women in power? Reduced largely to ceremonial and procreative functions, what becomes of their identities?
This particular volume I almost thought was the finish, as many dramatic arcs would seem to be completed, and we circle back to themes from the early volumes. But a lot of powerful historical and individual dramas ensue that you come to care about. One thing: a (mere) man seems to rise up that has scientific capabilities and who helps to develop a vaccine for the pox! How could this happen?! From a man?! And what does it mean fort these women in power to hold back men, given they are also the mothers sometimes of sons who are men?! You get the point. But it's so well done!
I understand more is to come, so I will read. But when it is all done I will want to read it all the way through. It is hard waiting for months and you forget the characters and plot threads… like Game of Thrones or things like that. But it is worth the wait with this one. You may tend to think that all manga is for kids, but this series begins to get at what manga can accomplish. And artistically, it is just terrific. If you know nothing about manga, you will almost not believe this series exists or how good comics can be. Highly recommend. ...more
My favorite one so far.. Featuring Ejima's deeply sad story, and circling back to Yoshimune's coming into power… the storytelling seems like it is getMy favorite one so far.. Featuring Ejima's deeply sad story, and circling back to Yoshimune's coming into power… the storytelling seems like it is getting better, deeper, in this always very good series, though it's essentially the same inversion/reflection of actual history, political/sexual power struggles, and all the murder/rape/incest that powers history (with openly and acceptedly gay/bi characters throughout)… The Ejima story is maybe what put this one over the top for me, deeply affecting and sad....more
I typically don't like multi-generational stories, and this is sort of repetitive in some respects of the kinds of intrigues we've seen before, and (II typically don't like multi-generational stories, and this is sort of repetitive in some respects of the kinds of intrigues we've seen before, and (I'm told) roughly parallels Japanese history from an "alt-history" perspective (what if women were in power, and had a harem like Ooku, etc), but it's also clearly a reflection on Japan and gender and power regardless of gender/sexuality…. I continue to like it in spite of the layers of nuanced historical reflection I don't quite understand completely....more
So, in the second volume we go back 80 years (from the first volume) to get some broader historical background, so this is a kind of prequel to volumeSo, in the second volume we go back 80 years (from the first volume) to get some broader historical background, so this is a kind of prequel to volume one, and further evidence of Yoshinago's storytelling abilities. Complex, rich, sad, brutal, murderous, turning the idea of the female harem on its head, with lots of exploration of gender and sexuality and identity, generally. The central love story is powerful and moving. There's beauty in the artistic rendering of a lot of compelling and anguishing brutality. ...more