Scan barcode
edevulder's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
celestoche's review against another edition
5.0
juste excellent. Les illustrations sont brillantes et au niveau de l'histoire. J'étais prise dans l'histoire (même si je n'avais jamais entendu parlé avant ma lecture de ces evenements)
j'ai même envie de lire Dante maintenant
j'ai même envie de lire Dante maintenant
rainbowbookworm's review against another edition
3.0
This is a tough one to rate because there is a story within a story within a story. I felt that some parts worked but others were trying to hard to be successful. It took me a while to get through it, but I don't regret it as I was unfamiliar with the people who inspired it.
cucina_kristina's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
fremom3's review against another edition
5.0
A fascinating story that I would love to read more about. This book is a work of art that will join my personal list of true crime classics.
fleurdelyssa's review against another edition
5.0
This was a really excellent, well researched book. I enjoyed the book all the more because it is based on real historical incidents and figures - sort of reminded me of Erik Larson's "Devil in the White City". This illustrations are intricate and deliberate, I spent so much time pouring over each page so that I didn't miss anything. I also enjoyed the inclusion of so much poetry, I don't know that I've ever felt so inspired to read Dante! I worthwhile read for anyone - even those that don't think that they enjoy graphic novels ;)
rebus's review against another edition
4.75
Some reviewers have called this a memoir, when in fact the subjects of this biography had no input whatsoever into its creation (aside from providing research materials to the author and illustrator). It is very nearly a masterpiece of biography, but it goes much deeper, as it is also a crime story, a short history of the classics, 2 tales of fatherhood, and ultimately a tale of growth and redemption (which to me are the most bankrupt tales in all of literature, as they often forgive or let people off the hook who don't deserve it). The art is magnificent and full of detail, using the tale of the Inferno to great use in telling what is one of the few redemption songs I've ever enjoyed.
The flaws may seem minor, but they are significant when summed up. The first was to say that organized crime was established by Prohibition, when in fact it had foundations in the 1880s or earlier and was more than well established a full 2 decades, an entire generation, before Prohibition took effect. A second significant error was perhaps factual, Leopold suggesting that Poe practically invented the genre of detective fiction, when in fact it would not exist for at least 3 decades after Poe's death. Leopold was also dead wrong to assert that Rizzo was a low life for robbing liquor stores, while the heroes of Homer--this occurred during a discussion related to Omerta, the code of silence among Italian gangsters--were fighting heroic battles. This is simply the fiction of white Western European culture, as those wars were all for Empire and plunder, which has become the modern paradigm, and we should see any modern thief as striking a blow against Empire (or at the very least, indirectly attacking Capitalism by stealing from the upper middle class). The text is also littered with common modern usage that would not have been around in the time period the tale mostly takes place (1935-65).
Indeed, we are shown the evil of the philosopher Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, a corrupt use of architecture to spy upon and oppress the masses--it's primary uses were in the elite's structures of power, such as prisons, workhouses, poorhouses, corporations and businesses, schools, hospitals and insane asylums--yet the view of Leopold and Rizzo is that poets are like divine entities sent to help us transcend and understand the universe, but the truth is that the Divine Comedy largely supports the psychotic view of the religious and warns of punishment and damnation for not getting with the program of exploitation. Indeed, far from elevating the human spirit, the Classics in general act like another form of physical architecture that oppresses the human spirit and makes us feel small: cathedra designed to use classical music to reduce us to insects. I guess I prefer the modern physics for understanding the physical and metaphysical world to this cheap, State, oppression.
This establishment and Statist view becomes even more apparent in the closing remarks by the authors and editors, in which the imagination of the creative spirit is lauded over all else in life and human history (when in fact the vast majority of artists have lacked all talent and offer the view of a State propagandist). It is a repulsive trend I saw in the recent sequel to Marvels, deifying the artist and the upper classes from which 99% of all art in human history has come, above all else (see: Jacobin Magazine on Art for the 99%).
It so wonderfully does the job of biography that I must rate it as high as I possibly can without calling it a masterpiece, simply because the author is deeply inculcated into an establishment view and probably believes he's a good liberal without realizing that the modern liberal is a bit to the right of Hitler.
The flaws may seem minor, but they are significant when summed up. The first was to say that organized crime was established by Prohibition, when in fact it had foundations in the 1880s or earlier and was more than well established a full 2 decades, an entire generation, before Prohibition took effect. A second significant error was perhaps factual, Leopold suggesting that Poe practically invented the genre of detective fiction, when in fact it would not exist for at least 3 decades after Poe's death. Leopold was also dead wrong to assert that Rizzo was a low life for robbing liquor stores, while the heroes of Homer--this occurred during a discussion related to Omerta, the code of silence among Italian gangsters--were fighting heroic battles. This is simply the fiction of white Western European culture, as those wars were all for Empire and plunder, which has become the modern paradigm, and we should see any modern thief as striking a blow against Empire (or at the very least, indirectly attacking Capitalism by stealing from the upper middle class). The text is also littered with common modern usage that would not have been around in the time period the tale mostly takes place (1935-65).
Indeed, we are shown the evil of the philosopher Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, a corrupt use of architecture to spy upon and oppress the masses--it's primary uses were in the elite's structures of power, such as prisons, workhouses, poorhouses, corporations and businesses, schools, hospitals and insane asylums--yet the view of Leopold and Rizzo is that poets are like divine entities sent to help us transcend and understand the universe, but the truth is that the Divine Comedy largely supports the psychotic view of the religious and warns of punishment and damnation for not getting with the program of exploitation. Indeed, far from elevating the human spirit, the Classics in general act like another form of physical architecture that oppresses the human spirit and makes us feel small: cathedra designed to use classical music to reduce us to insects. I guess I prefer the modern physics for understanding the physical and metaphysical world to this cheap, State, oppression.
This establishment and Statist view becomes even more apparent in the closing remarks by the authors and editors, in which the imagination of the creative spirit is lauded over all else in life and human history (when in fact the vast majority of artists have lacked all talent and offer the view of a State propagandist). It is a repulsive trend I saw in the recent sequel to Marvels, deifying the artist and the upper classes from which 99% of all art in human history has come, above all else (see: Jacobin Magazine on Art for the 99%).
It so wonderfully does the job of biography that I must rate it as high as I possibly can without calling it a masterpiece, simply because the author is deeply inculcated into an establishment view and probably believes he's a good liberal without realizing that the modern liberal is a bit to the right of Hitler.
moncoinlecture's review against another edition
5.0
Quelle fabuleuse BD! J'ai tout aimé, le trait tout comme l'histoire!