A review by librarycore
Darger's Resources by Michael Moon

4.0

Reading as a companion to the biography "Henry Darger, Throwaway Boy" by Jim Elledge. It's fascinating how different writers/researchers/critics see Darger. Moon's short, dense collection of essays places Darger's work in the cultural milieu of early 20th century pop culture, discussing "In the realms of the unreal" in relation to pulp writers like H.P. Lovecraft, newspaper comic strips, stories of Catholic martyrs, and the juvenelia of Bramwell Bronte. This last is a particularly rich idea that certainly bears further research; although Bronte's work was written in a very different time and place, the similarities between the themes of the two men are striking. There are lots of good ideas in Moon's book and it's nice to have authors like Moon and Elledge seeking to place Darger within his proper historical and cultural context rather than seeing him as part of the "outsider artist" machine. Elledge's book humanizes Darger and Moon's offers some provocative interpretations of Darger's work. Recommended for those interested in early American "low-brow" art, nascent pop culture history, and of course fans of Darger's work.