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Reviews
The Graphic Canon, Volume 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest by Russ Kick
lsparrow's review against another edition
3.0
of the three volumes I was least familiar with the writing in this collection. I was not as drawn to the illustrations as in the previous two but I did learn about several authors that I have added to my to read list.
balletbookworm's review against another edition
4.0
Still pretty awesome but I didn't love it quite as much as the first two volumes. The artwork is still amazing but I had trouble with a lot of selections I hadn't read before. The one/two page illustrations of large works were nice but a single page for the entirety of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle didn't work for me like longer or excerpted adaptations.
surlygrrrl's review against another edition
3.0
See previous reviews of this volume in the otherwise impressive collection. Excellent overall, but this volume is lacking. Another reviewer pointed out that in this volume more of the artists chose an interpretive route rather than adaptive, and that choice often took away from my enjoyment.
mattycakesbooks's review against another edition
3.0
Unfortunately, I thought this series got progressively worse. The first had a lot of full stories - the Arabian Nights, the Native American "How the Coyote got his..." stories, the great Greek and Roman myths - and that made for more entertaining reading. As the series went on, the illustrations became more abstract, and they reflected less of the stories I actually like.
I know it's pointless in a collection to say, "Why didn't you choose THIS?" because ultimately, it's impossible to satisfy everyone, but I was supremely annoyed to see someone like Richard Brautigan - who wrote my least favorite book ever ("Trout Fishing in America,")- getting a spot, while Joseph Heller, Hunter Thompson, and Kurt Vonnegut all failed to make an appearance.
That's the curse of any collection though. It was an awesome project, and I'm glad someone did it, but I hope - I'm sure it won't - stop there. Adapting literature in graphic form is a fantastic idea, and, like literature, some of it's going to leave me cold, and some of it's going to excite me. Kick, I thought, tended to lean towards the more Harold Bloom camp, which is probably the more "serious" literature, and I can't deny that most of what he picked would be agreed upon by most academics. I hate Harold Bloom's taste though. Give me Stephen King over Ulysses any day. I don't care if that makes me a philistine.
It was a good series, and it's not up to Kick to pick my favorites.
I know it's pointless in a collection to say, "Why didn't you choose THIS?" because ultimately, it's impossible to satisfy everyone, but I was supremely annoyed to see someone like Richard Brautigan - who wrote my least favorite book ever ("Trout Fishing in America,")- getting a spot, while Joseph Heller, Hunter Thompson, and Kurt Vonnegut all failed to make an appearance.
That's the curse of any collection though. It was an awesome project, and I'm glad someone did it, but I hope - I'm sure it won't - stop there. Adapting literature in graphic form is a fantastic idea, and, like literature, some of it's going to leave me cold, and some of it's going to excite me. Kick, I thought, tended to lean towards the more Harold Bloom camp, which is probably the more "serious" literature, and I can't deny that most of what he picked would be agreed upon by most academics. I hate Harold Bloom's taste though. Give me Stephen King over Ulysses any day. I don't care if that makes me a philistine.
It was a good series, and it's not up to Kick to pick my favorites.
crasscasualty's review against another edition
4.0
A really enjoyable anthology. Great art and of course, great stories. However, because the prose is removed from these classic tales, some subtext and literary beauty is lost in translation. Some stories are able to compensate through the art, but others are a little disappointing and seem to miss the point of the original text. This matters a lot to me, as a former English major, but possibly not to everyone.
The adaptations are nonetheless very entertaining and this is an anthology I am sure I will keep coming back to. A very ambitious project, and very well executed.
Disclaimer: I received this book for free from First Reads.
The adaptations are nonetheless very entertaining and this is an anthology I am sure I will keep coming back to. A very ambitious project, and very well executed.
Disclaimer: I received this book for free from First Reads.
rebus's review against another edition
4.5
This was by far my favorite of the 3 volumes, owing to being far more familiar with much of the content and also appreciating modern literature much more than most ancient types (I think I'd read over 35 of the 80 books here and am now inspired to read far more of these authors, which I cannot say about the earlier volumes). It's also ongoing proof that the late Russ Kick was sort of an establishment tool and a moron, since he practically worships the execrable and far right wing Harold Bloom as the greatest critic of all time. Kick is also enough of a pinhead to decry irony as 'smarmy and hollow' in his defense of the sincerity of David Foster Wallace (my favorite author and someone who was NOT immune to the use of irony). He even calls Burrough's exploration of drugs something 'dark' when drugs have always been eye opening for those who use them properly (having died at the age of 52 with not much more than editorial credits to his name, Kick could hardly talk of such things without being a hypocrite). Kick should also have known--since he tried to make a living as a far left analyst who exposed society's flaws--that Lincoln was actually extremely pro slavery before political expedience became an issue, and the New Orleans episode didn't happen. He was also dead wrong to say that Orwell imagined a fascist world; he was DESCRIBING the way the world has been since Day One of human civilization. Hammett and Chandler were also far from the best noir writers, as the title is actually a tie between James M. Cain and Jim Thompson (no other crime writers come close).
A few impressions now about some things I didn't know about some of these works and authors...
It was sad to discover that Kipling's famous poem was really a rationalization of white privilege (or supremacy). ONLY the entitled can afford (literally) not to worry about outcomes.
It's amazing to see that the themes most prominent in my modern reading lists were present a little over 125 years ago. That is, that intellectual abstraction and industrialism were a plague that pushed us out of contact with nature, instinct and our bodies, that the intellect often served only as bit and bridle to control society.
Gibran was correct to note that we should love one another but not make a bond of love, that the man who loses all of his masks becomes the madman.
I appreciate Sartre even more now, because my grandfather would also get angry and stare off into the distance if I asked him about killing anyone in WWII (telling me it's nothing anyone should be proud of).
Anais Nin has now inspired me with her notion that there are no neat endings to novels, no synthesis of deep insight, that all meaning is contained within the body of the story that each climax (haha) creates an awareness and growth much like that of the rings of a tree.
There is much exceptional material here, though I beg to differ about authors like Hemingway, Joyce, and Fitzgerald, all of whom bore me to tears.
A few impressions now about some things I didn't know about some of these works and authors...
It was sad to discover that Kipling's famous poem was really a rationalization of white privilege (or supremacy). ONLY the entitled can afford (literally) not to worry about outcomes.
It's amazing to see that the themes most prominent in my modern reading lists were present a little over 125 years ago. That is, that intellectual abstraction and industrialism were a plague that pushed us out of contact with nature, instinct and our bodies, that the intellect often served only as bit and bridle to control society.
Gibran was correct to note that we should love one another but not make a bond of love, that the man who loses all of his masks becomes the madman.
I appreciate Sartre even more now, because my grandfather would also get angry and stare off into the distance if I asked him about killing anyone in WWII (telling me it's nothing anyone should be proud of).
Anais Nin has now inspired me with her notion that there are no neat endings to novels, no synthesis of deep insight, that all meaning is contained within the body of the story that each climax (haha) creates an awareness and growth much like that of the rings of a tree.
There is much exceptional material here, though I beg to differ about authors like Hemingway, Joyce, and Fitzgerald, all of whom bore me to tears.
ayarezk's review against another edition
5.0
One of the most artistic things I have ever witnessed. I enjoyed every bit!
amadswami's review against another edition
4.0
The art within this volume is beautiful.
Too little production focus on the arrangement of such stories/authors.
Also, WAY too big to comfortably enjoy at home.
Too little production focus on the arrangement of such stories/authors.
Also, WAY too big to comfortably enjoy at home.
upthescene's review
2.0
Overall, I thought the collection went downhill as we progressed through time.
In addition to awkward blurbs and serious fact-checking errors (apparently Russ Kick thinks Zora Neale Hurston wrote Go Tell It on the Mountain), there were many strange decisions made as to what is "classic" in this third volume - with few exceptions I would have preferred authors' more well-known works.
There were also a ton of single page illustrations, mostly of how the artist reacted to a particular story. Very different from the other volumes. Combined with the fact that there were many stories I didn't know, this made a lot of the book a slog.
There are exceptions, though. In particular, I liked the excerpt from Dubliners illustrated by Annie Mok (who has also illustrated Joyce's letters... Hilarious) and LOVED Kate Glasheen's adaptation of Faulkner's "the Hill".
In addition to awkward blurbs and serious fact-checking errors (apparently Russ Kick thinks Zora Neale Hurston wrote Go Tell It on the Mountain), there were many strange decisions made as to what is "classic" in this third volume - with few exceptions I would have preferred authors' more well-known works.
There were also a ton of single page illustrations, mostly of how the artist reacted to a particular story. Very different from the other volumes. Combined with the fact that there were many stories I didn't know, this made a lot of the book a slog.
There are exceptions, though. In particular, I liked the excerpt from Dubliners illustrated by Annie Mok (who has also illustrated Joyce's letters... Hilarious) and LOVED Kate Glasheen's adaptation of Faulkner's "the Hill".