The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec. Vol. 1 by Jacques Tardi , Kim Thompson (review)

Abstract

featured in the guidebooks. Bea's questrequires twotrips toParisand, bychoice, anexcursion toCalifornia, thus becoming herbrother's ambassadortorestore a fragmented family towholeness, butwith dubioussuccess .LikeJames, Ozickis a moralist ,cynically referring to thefaux expatriates whodescend onParisto livetheexistentialist life as "literary tourists/' as distinct fromthereal expatriates. Foreign Bodies isCynthia Ozick'smost mature novel; notonly istheproselushandpoetic, buther insights into a family where a Jewish American prince demotes hissister toa courier areruefully accurate. Bernard F.Dick Fairleigh Dickinson University RafikSchami.The Calligrapher's Secret. Anthea Bell, tr.Northampton, Massachusetts. Interlink. 2011. 444 pages. $20.isbn 978-1-56656-830-2 Considered oneoftheleading immigrantwritersin Germany, Rafik Schami(whoserealnameis Suheil Fadel) continues to charmreaders with his fictioninspiredby life in Syria,his originalhomeland. Born in Damascus in 1946 to a Christian father who was a baker, he migrated to Germany in 1971, where he earned a doctoratein chemistry atHeidelberg University and thenworkedin thechemical industry in Germany. In 1982he decidedto devotehimself fullyto writing fiction in German. He has written twenty-seven worksoffictionso far - some translated into morethantwenty-one languages and has received prestigious European literary prizes,including the Hermann Hesse Prizein 1994and theNellySachsPrizein 2006.Die DunkleSeitederLiebe(2004; Eng. The Dark Side of Love,2009),his longestnovel at 853 pages, was beautifully translated intoEnglish by AntheaBell and publishedby Interlink in2009. In TheCalligrapher's Secret , Bell now delights readerswithanother ofSchami's novels, halfas longbut equallycharming and entertaining. It has another plot,of course,but itsstyle is thesame:unhurried, leisurely , relaxed. Schami clearly enjoys describing indetailsettings, actions, and reactions thatmayor maynot matter to thenarrative structure of the whole butarefascinating observations aboutthemanners andcustoms ofthepeopleinDamascus, their religiousandethnic diversity, andmidtwentieth -century Syrian life. Theplotisabouttheloveaffair ofNoura, a married Muslim woman, andSalman, a Christian calligraphy apprentice; it is also aboutHamid Farsi, Noura's Muslim husband, a mastercalligrapher who has an ambition toreform theArabic script and who is thus distracted from caringforhis wife.The love-affair theme pales against the scriptreform themethatdominatesthe narration and is arguably themain plot, being only a metaphor for what is deemedtobe theurgent needto reform Muslimsociety. Thereis a fiercestruggle betweenthe secret "Society oftheWise/'ledbyHamid Farsi, thatembraces modernity and the fundamentalist "Pure Ones" who tenaciously defendthe holy language oftheQur'ananditsArabic scriptagainstall change.The novel tells about the engrossing experiences ofallparties. Anthea Bell, who is an acclaimed and award-winning Britishtranslator , is superbinherrendering ofRafik Schami'sstyle with itsinnuendos, humor, and endearingportrayal ofArablife. IssaJ.Boullata Montreal JacquesTardi.The Extraordinary Adventures ofAdeleBlanc-Sec. Vol. 1. KimThompson, tr.Seattle, Washington . Fantagraphics (W.W.Norton, distr.). 2010.96 pages,ill.$24.99. isbn 978-1-60699-382-8 Caught somewhere onthestructural continuum between thecomicbook and thegraphic novel,thegraphic albumwas thestapleoftheFrench bande dessinee (BD)industry fordecades untilL'Association and other "alternative" BD publishers forged an audienceforlonger booksinthe early 1990s. Thealbum istraditionallya forty-eight-page hardcover volumeandfeatures higher production values and largerpage sizes than itsAmerican cousins. Theresult isa form than caneasily beartheweight ofhigher panelcounts perpageand moretext.Therehas alwaysbeen someresistance to theform in the UnitedStatesdue to thehighratio ofpenniesto pages in comparison 68 1 World Literature Today JulyAugust 2011 169 to domestic comicbooksfeaturing much lower production values. Thoughmanycreators worked and continue toworkin thealbum form, fewmastered it so gracefullyand tosuchentertaining effect as Jacques Tardi. This recent release from Fantagraphics, entitled TheExtraordinary Adventures ofAdeleBlanc-Sec, collects thefirst twoofTardi's Adele adventures into something that could easilybe mistaken fora graphic novel. Inthis popular storyline, Tardi explores fin-de-siecle Paris with a mixture ofgothic imagery andludicrous plottwists, propelled bya droll heroinewith a penchant for entangling her elaborate schemes with the ineptitude ofbuffoons. Firstpublishedin the 1970s, Tardi'sworkhereis truly timeless, rendering hischaracters in Herge's ligneclairestyle but embedding thebackground witha virtuoso's attention todetail. Thisisimportant becausethestorydrawsso heavily upon thesetting - Parisin the latenineteenth century - to give it a depththatallows the workto transcend its oftenridiculous plot devices.In the firststory,"PterrorOver Paris,"Adele's quest to recover stolengoods (forherown gain) becomesbound up in the unlikely appearance ofa pterodactyl thatbeginsassaulting thecitizens ofParis. While the fundamental elementsof thepterodactyl storyline arebrought toa closebythealbum's end,Adele'sowninterests continue on intothenextstory, "TheEiffel TowerDemon."Thisestablishes a precedent by whichthe readeris abletogaina senseofclosure from each individualstorywhilebeing invitedto followthe largerstory concerns on intothenext.Thereis something silly aboutthewayTardi weavespetty crime and supernaturalhoo -ha tocreate these stories, and yethis delivery makesthereader feellikehe orsheis inon thejoke, rather than thebutt ofit...