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library_brandy's review against another edition
4.0
I don't know why Paul Hornschemeier doesn't get more love.
xterminal's review
3.0
Paul Hornschemeier, The Three Paradoxes (Fantagraphics, 2007)
So, the underlying question of Hornschemeier's graphic novel asks us: was Zeno, in fact, right? Even when we reach our destination, have we really reached our destination? We are here given five linked (some more firmly than others) stories: the main story details a visit from our protagonist (Paul, natch) to his parents. The one most firmly linked is a memory Paul has while walking through town with his father of a childhood memory; a second involves a comic the adult Paul is trying to draw that focuses on what we must surmise is an idealized form of his childhood self- radically different from the child we get to see; a third involves a car accident, which may or may not have happened to Paul (I couldn't tell, and no other review of the book I've read trying to figure it out touches on this); the fourth is a comic-book retelling of Zeno presenting his paradoxes (and being rebuffed by Socrates).
I didn't have nearly as much of a problem with the caesura motif as a lot of reviewers seem to have; it picks up on the paradox of the arrow in flight, and the traversing of each half-distance, never reaching the target. Every time Paul wants to say something, it has to travel half the distance from brain to mouth, then half that distance, then etc., which usually ends up with him blurting out something that bears little, if any, resemblance to what he's actually thinking. I can buy that. But then, on the same level, the thing I did have the most problem with here works in exactly the same way, and it still bugged me (the conclusion to the main storyline is absent-- because, of course, if Zeno was right, we can never reach our destination, see?). A paradox in itself, I guess. What we do get, on the other hand, is very well done, and deeply felt; I just wanted more of it. That, however, would have derailed the entire novel. What's the answer? There isn't one. Another paradox! ***
So, the underlying question of Hornschemeier's graphic novel asks us: was Zeno, in fact, right? Even when we reach our destination, have we really reached our destination? We are here given five linked (some more firmly than others) stories: the main story details a visit from our protagonist (Paul, natch) to his parents. The one most firmly linked is a memory Paul has while walking through town with his father of a childhood memory; a second involves a comic the adult Paul is trying to draw that focuses on what we must surmise is an idealized form of his childhood self- radically different from the child we get to see; a third involves a car accident, which may or may not have happened to Paul (I couldn't tell, and no other review of the book I've read trying to figure it out touches on this); the fourth is a comic-book retelling of Zeno presenting his paradoxes (and being rebuffed by Socrates).
I didn't have nearly as much of a problem with the caesura motif as a lot of reviewers seem to have; it picks up on the paradox of the arrow in flight, and the traversing of each half-distance, never reaching the target. Every time Paul wants to say something, it has to travel half the distance from brain to mouth, then half that distance, then etc., which usually ends up with him blurting out something that bears little, if any, resemblance to what he's actually thinking. I can buy that. But then, on the same level, the thing I did have the most problem with here works in exactly the same way, and it still bugged me (the conclusion to the main storyline is absent-- because, of course, if Zeno was right, we can never reach our destination, see?). A paradox in itself, I guess. What we do get, on the other hand, is very well done, and deeply felt; I just wanted more of it. That, however, would have derailed the entire novel. What's the answer? There isn't one. Another paradox! ***
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