Parenthetical.net

My first Cybils review! Woot! There were things I loved about it, but I have some concerns.

First of all, let me say that I loved the art. I tend to be a realism kind of gal. But these black-and-white drawings have so much energy and motion, I couldn’t help but get caught up in them. They reminded me of… ok, this is possibly out of nowhere, but when you were a kid, did you ever watch those educational shows where someone told a story while someone else illustrated it in real time? I loved watching those artists convey so much with a face made out of three lines. Pedrosa’s art is more detailed than that, but it has the same feel. The author bio says he has an animation background, and it shows.

On to the story… [spoilers, but this isn't a book where the plot is the point anyway]

A dad and a mom and their little boy live in a happy little house on a happy little farm where nothing ever goes wrong. And then three shadows come on horseback and don’t do anything but hang around looking ominous, but both dad and mom are sure that they’ve come to take away their son, Erlkönig-style. So dad freaks out and takes the boy away on a crazy sea-crossing adventure, but of course he can’t outrun Fate/Death/what have you. The boy dies, and they are sad, but then mom and dad have more kids and are mostly happy again.

My biggest problem with it from a Cybils point of view is that it isn’t a YA or kids’ book. It’s all parent-perspective, all about the parents’ (mostly the dad’s) desperate need to protect their son at any cost. I’m an adult but not a mom, and frankly I found it hard to relate to. According to the bio, the book “was born out of the agony of watching his close friends’ child die very young,” and reading that made it a lot clearer to me — as a meditation on this experience and perhaps a letter of comfort to his friends, it’s lovely. As a book to recommend to kids or teens? Not so much.

I also have some issues with the art from a racism/sexism perspective, and maybe I’m overreacting, but it ooked me out enough that I have to mention it. There’s a whole subplot involving a slaver on the ship and the sex slave he’s transporting. (Yeah, not so much a kids’ book.) The slave is clearly meant to be African — darker skin, large hoop earrings, stacked necklaces like a picture from National Geographic — but her features are grotesque, almost skull-like. She’s made frightening in a way that even the evil white characters aren’t. (With the possible exception of the baron.)

Also, there are a couple of panels showing mom and dad naked together (not doing anything, just hangin’ by the pond or in bed… that’s when I knew the book wasn’t American, and I was right, it’s French), and I was squicked by the contrast between his giant hulking hairy body and her tiny girlish perky-breasted one. (Here’s an example — thanks, Sara!) The way their relationship was written didn’t bother me much (especially since it eventually becomes clear that the story takes place in an earlier century), but the art does not present them as equals, or even both as adults.

ETA: Also reviewed (more positively) by my co-panelist, Fuse #8.

Comment here