I like to surprise myself by picking random books from library shelves. Asterios Polyp is one of my new favorites. :)

I also don’t think the change from AP’s life of study to one of manual labor is anti-intellectual. He changes more and has more revelations about his life when he leaves his professorship.

Either way, I think i have a different perspective because i had never even heard of this book! So there was no hype for it to live up to for me.

Other than Acme Novelty Library 20, Asterios Polyp is the only new comic I’ve read this year to truely exite me. I picked it up for cheap in an oxfam charity shop (mostly because I thought the book itself was really pleasing to look at so even if it was awful it’d at least be something nice for my shelf), and began reading before I was even aware that it was a well known and well-recieved comic.

It absoluetly blew me away, my twin brother died in child birth and it’s peculiar how well this book explains a lot of the feeling and emotions I have towards the situation. The idea of a phantom person (like a phantom limb) watching you and always being with you is something I’ve always felt very alone with, and I feel how AS presents the theme of duality throughout is done spectacularly.

I can totally agree that the stylistic decisions throughout the book overshadow the plot, but I never really felt like the plot was even the driving force behind the book. For me this book was about how people are moulded by their experience as youths to create personality types and aspirations, and how the most seemingly insignificant views and opinions may have will in someway affect the course of your life far more drastically than you may realize at first.

Your review in some ways has made me doubt myself and my opinions in this book (as a good review would do), and I may have such a great affection towards AP because of personal reasons that it could be said that my opinion is in someway skewed, but as far as I’m concerned you’re focusing on the wrong points when reviewing this book.

The plot is not what drives the book at all, very little happens and I believe there is good reason for this. It can be argued that it is rife with clichés, but I’ve never seen a cliché displayed in such a way, so surely that makes the fact that you may have heard it all before redundant. AP is an intricate and beautiful work, that demands more attention than a usual comic.

I may not be able to change your opinion, nor am I really trying to, but I’d be suprised if you read this book again and you didn’t take something new from it.

(Regarding the spotlight: thanks for pointing out another cliche in the book — “a literal spotlight”. I don’t think that that makes sense as the basis for any relationship, but then, I found the narration suspect because if one takes it literally, the story is two-dimensional at best. It doesn’t match my understanding of human nature that a spotlight would be the basis of love; at best, it’s a source of initial attraction. I still think the characters are together only because the author says so, but it’s obvious that you enjoyed the work much more than I did, so you’re willing to cut it a lot more slack and find the characters more human than the paper dolls I saw.)

As to whether or not you found it ‘compelling’ that is different from the point you originally made. You originally said ‘it wasn’t clear.’ It’s as clear as day in the book. When she’s a child the spotlight (a literal spotlight) is always on her brothers. (Another error in your piece, she has four brothers, not one.) When she sees AP, she finds a way to get into the spotlight, through him. It’s as clear as day. And then the spotlight motif is repeated when they start having problems–AP can’t deal with having the spotlight on someone else.

In any event, I’m finished posting here. I was looking for some good commentary on a great book, but unfortunately I didn’t find it. I wish you good luck in future reviewing efforts.

You say “It’s not clear in the book; [what his wife saw in him] their relationship just is because it’s artistically apropos.”

The book makes it explicit because that she intially likes him because he is the spotlight–the centre of attention. This is what causes problems later on.

If you’re not going to read or review seriously, please don’t bother posting your thoughts on the internet.

That said, Douglas Wolk pointed out that Mazzucchelli pre-empted this exact criticism anyway by literally placing a giant hole in the middle of his novel (the two page spread of the meteor crater).

I certainly would check out anything he does from here, but with far less certainty that any new work is going to be as extraordinary and revelatory as the very best stuff he has produced in the past.

[...] Asterios Polyp — Impressive craft that lacks the narrative heart that would make it great. [...]