Safer Places

 

Safer Places by Kit Anderson (2024) 208 pages

This volume of graphic literature is a series of short stories or vignettes of various themes — young people, wizards, the World's Biggest Ball of Twine, and more. There's a surreal feel to most of the works. In a couple of instances, I felt like I needed a younger person to translate the meanings for me, even after multiple views/read-throughs. I came away with a mixture of feelings: some were ordinary slice-of-life stories, some were hopeful, some had a touch of pointlessness or despair. 

The first story, "The Basement," portrayed reassurance for a boy after a death in the family (possibly his grandfather). "Weeds," a story about a grad student with flowers growing out of her was intriguing. My very favorites might have been a recurring series of stories that centered on a wizard.

The drawings were well-done and expressive. The table of contents was my friend!

The Last Days of New Paris

 The Last Days of New Paris by China Mieville, 209 pages.

This book is difficult to categorize and even more difficult to describe, but I will do my best here. In 1941, while the Nazis were occupying Paris, a strange bomb went off. The so called S-Blast filled the city with physical and uncontrollable manifestations of Surrealist art. Between the so-called manifs and the demons the Nazis summon to attempt to maintain control, Paris is rendered strange and unstable, as well as being totally cut off from the rest of the world.

The story bounces back and forth between a solitary Surrealist soldier trying to resist the occupying Nazis in 1950 and a house full of Surrealists resisting in their own, more cognitive, way before the S-Blast. This book was extremely weird, but I found it very compelling throughout. I think fans of the Surrealist movement in particular will love this novel (and it's extensive index of references), but I enjoyed it as someone who knows little of the movement as well. This is a short book that packs a lot in with a startling degree of complexity, and I would recommend it for people feeling like they want to read something different. 

Magritte: this is not a biography

Magritte: this is not a biography / Vincent Zabus, art and colors by Thomas Campi, 72 pgs.

A man buys a bowler hat unaware that it was once owned by surrealist painter Rene Magritte.  When he dons the hat, he is transported into a surreal world where he is required to solve the mystery of Magritte before he will be allowed to remove the hat.  Through various interactions with guides and biographers, he learns about Magritte and his wife, their lives and influences.  In the end, he is confronted by Magritte himself who claims there are no answers before sending our protagonist back to reality.  A lovely little book that mimics Magritte's style and tells a bit about the artist in an"unbiography" fashion.

Une Semaine De Bonté: A Surrealistic Novel in Collage

Une Semaine De Bonté: A Surrealistic Novel in Collage by Max Ernst, 224 pages.

Ernst's novel, first published in, let's say (too lazy to go and look it up again), 1935, was originally released in five chapbooks. The illustrations in this wordless novel were formed by cutting illustrations from a variety of encyclopedias, novels and the work of Gustave Dore and them pasting them together in new and interesting ways. Each of the original chapbooks were based on the days of the week and each day had its own theme. Not sure what those themes were, but the takeaway from this novel is that birdmen are very fond of busty Victorian women. But we knew that already.

Peggy Guggenheim: the Shock of the Modern / Francine Prose 211pp.

Like Einstein: His Space and Times, David: the Divided Heart, and others, this title is part of Yale's Jewish Lives series.  And what a life!  Peggy, niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim and born near the turn of the last century, devoted her life and wealth to collecting, promoting, and exhibiting some of the most important artists of the century: Jackson Pollock, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, and many others.  She rescued her large collection, one of the most important of the time, from the Nazis, thereby tilting the course of art history.  And although self-conscious about her physical appearance, she collected important men just as assiduously as artworks.  There were affairs with Samuel Beckett and Yves Tanguy, and I lost count of the marriages.  I am a long-time fan of Francine Prose, and she's painted a fascinating portrait of a strange, insecure, and daring woman.