La Fabrique des pervers

Abstract

keeps the energy high, moving us through Tezuka’s life at a pace as fast as Tezuka himself. The story was originally serialized, which means that there are several checkin points and some repetition. I found this incredibly helpful, actually. This wasn’t a comic I could read in one sitting, so I appreciated the landmarks along the way. Fred Schodt’s translation was wonderful : fluent, smooth, and with natural language . I can’t imagine anyone else translating this—Schodt himself even appears in a panel in this book (see WLT, March 2016, 7). One slight criticism: The Osamu Tezuka Story is absolutely a work in praise of Tezuka . This is no “warts and all” biography; there is nothing here that isn’t presented as wonderful. Tezuka was a workaholic to the extreme, and while this meant many fantastic creations, you can see the strain on those around him, caught up in the whirlwind of a man who never slept, never rested, and never stopped even to breathe. They are the collateral damage of a force of nature, like Semele burned to ashes by seeing Zeus in his full glory. Still—the world of comics we currently live in is worth it. The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and Anime has made me a new disciple to the God of Manga. Now I have a lot of reading to do. Zack Davisson Seattle, Washington Sophie Chauveau. La Fabrique des pervers. Paris. Gallimard. 2016. 288 pages. When Sophie Chauveau’s cousin Béatrice Meyer gets in touch with her after many years, it should be a cause for celebration. Instead, that meeting results in a very different kind of dynamic. For Chauveau realizes that, just like herself, Meyer had been sexually abused by her family members as a child. Together, they set out to determine how widespread that abuse might have been in the history of their large and prosperous clan. What they discover is properly appalling, and the story that Chauveau tells is one of panoramic dimensions, reaching back four generations , to the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war. Chauveau is abundantly conscious of the potential shock value of her story, and she exercises a great deal of tact and circumspection in order to avoid crude exploitation. She registers her conviction that this story must be told nonetheless, that someone must testify to this repeated, systematic abuse of the children in her family. For one thing, she is persuaded that her family was not the only one to suffer from this curse, as she calls it; she senses that many other families have been plagued by predatory males and strategically blind females; and she is aware, too, that the French judiciary system has long preferred to ignore the problem. In that perspective, Chauveau feels that her own family saga may be exemplary, as curious as such an idea may appear. Alas, words fail her on occasion, on one hand because naming something serves in some sense to normalize it and render it legitimate, on the other hand because words are poor things when compared to intensely traumatic experience. “Incest,” “rape,” “pedophilia,” “predation,” “abuse”: each term designates only one corner of the phenomenon Chauveau is seeking to bring to light, leaving the rest in darkness. As a writer, she has always relied on words; now she frets that they will betray her. Yet she forges ahead nonetheless, impelled by the notion that the only way to end this behavior—both in her family and in society as a whole—is to testify against it as openly, frankly, and courageously as one can. Warren Motte University of Colorado Nota Bene WORLDLIT.ORG 95 Zoran Živković Impossible Stories 1 Trans. Alice Copple-Tošić Cadmus Press Zoran Živković, one of Serbia’s most beloved and idiosyncratic writers, receives the red-carpet treatment as these new translations by Alice Copple-Tošić, delivered in an attractive and durable hardcover collection, introduce his work to a new generation. The subject of a special section in the November 2011 issue of WLT, Živković’s work is bursting with inventive scenarios, imaginative writing, and unforgettable characters. Edward Wilson-Lee Shakespeare in Swahililand: In...