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600bars's review
4.0
Last year I took a kid’s book home from work bc it was annotated by Lemony Snicket in character and had charming illustrations. That was “The Bears of Sicily”. We loved it so much. I looked up the author and realized that I already owned this book, which I bought because I had never seen an NYRB Classic be a graphic novel since NYRB has the NYRC imprint specifically for graphic novels. So I basically bought this just for novelty purposes without knowing anything about it, but then when I looked at it on the shelf I noticed the blurb on the back was written by Daniel Handler, who is Lemony Snicket!
This story is a retelling of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the traditional story Eurydice dies and goes to the underworld. Orpheus is a lute player and decides to go down to the underworld and use his musical talents to get her back. It works but the condition is that he can’t look back at her while they’re walking out of the underworld, and of course he can’t resist. I’m gonna be real, I only know the story because of Hadestown. But that’s not so bad. These stories are meant to be retold and retold and it’s always cool that they are presented to new generations in novel ways. Previously I always got this story mixed up with the biblical one about looking back at the city and turning into a pillar of salt. Why do deities get sooo mad about turning around to look? Anyway, looking back isn’t really a factor in this story although it is mentioned, which is interesting because the whole looking back thing is always what people remember most about this story.
In this version we have Orfi and his girlfriend Eura who live in Milan in the 60s. Orfi plays guitar instead of a golden lyre. He sees her walk into a mysterious door across the street and when he follows her in he realizes it’s the underworld. Hades (I think) is represented by a sentient overcoat. I’m not sure if it’s actually Hades because he mentions being demoted to underworld middle management, but I'm not up to date on Stygian Bureaucracy tbh.
The underworld is not what you’d expect. There isn’t torture devices and fire and screaming. The biggest problem is that it’s boring. It’s not that nothing is going on. It’s just that all their needs are met, they have everything they want. “Here everyone is healthy, equal, content. Oh sweet unhappiness!” 76 ”I mean: what do you lack? Almost Nothing. Recently we got a color TV. But we lack the most important thing: the freedom to die. 74” And herein lies the real torture. With no mystery, no desire, no dread, nothing has any meaning. Without the deadline of death there’s no point in doing anything. Nothing to seek, nothing to search. It’s difficult to desire what you already have. You can’t want to know if you already know everything. There are beautiful naked women everywhere, and there is no illicitness to sex, so it loses its spice and is just boring. Everything is mind numbingly boring and they all miss the dread they felt at the end of the day on Sundays, they miss dreading the week ahead. The finitude of life is a blessing.
I almost never ever finish my to-do lists, but on the rare occasion when I do, I look around and feel totally lost and empty rather than accomplished and happy. Getting everything you want is actually not what you want. Freedom from all restrictions takes all the fun out of life. You can’t have day without night etc. This is why I like living in Minnesota and having seasons; I think I would get depressed if I lived somewhere where the weather was always nice.
The art really varies in style and technique. Forgive me for I’m not an Art Person so I don’t know all the terms but some pages have a lot of cross hatching, some have none, some are pointillism (those were my favorite). Some are crude and cartoonish with simple straight lines and some are extremely detailed with lots of texture. Some are abstract shapes, some are realistic. Some are surrealist bizarro scenes and sometimes the dullness is the point. Really the only thing that gives it aesthetic consistency is the color palette, which is GORGEOUS. Idk if Buzzati did the coloring for this or if it was updated for the NYRB release but it looks great. Lots of light yellows and peaches, light greens and blues, and many different pinks. It’s very different from what you’d expect from HELL which is typically so dark and red and brooding.
There are a lot of naked women, like a LOT. Everyone likes to see beautiful women but I was having a debate as to whether I thought it was reaching a point of misogyny or not. It’s typical for heaven/hell to have lots of naked women running around because that’s what everyone desires, and that does fit in with the core concept that if it’s everywhere it’s boring and not even enticing any more. However I did side-eye the moment in which the Coat is offering Orfi his pick of women, and every girl gets a name, but with the one black woman is presented as “a black girl”. She doesn’t get a name and she’s presented purely as an exotic enticement. The drawing of her, at least, is beautiful and you can tell he put much more work into her drawing than the other girls in the display. But that’s kind of a small consolation. Other than that, this is pretty awesome.
This story is a retelling of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the traditional story Eurydice dies and goes to the underworld. Orpheus is a lute player and decides to go down to the underworld and use his musical talents to get her back. It works but the condition is that he can’t look back at her while they’re walking out of the underworld, and of course he can’t resist. I’m gonna be real, I only know the story because of Hadestown. But that’s not so bad. These stories are meant to be retold and retold and it’s always cool that they are presented to new generations in novel ways. Previously I always got this story mixed up with the biblical one about looking back at the city and turning into a pillar of salt. Why do deities get sooo mad about turning around to look? Anyway, looking back isn’t really a factor in this story although it is mentioned, which is interesting because the whole looking back thing is always what people remember most about this story.
In this version we have Orfi and his girlfriend Eura who live in Milan in the 60s. Orfi plays guitar instead of a golden lyre. He sees her walk into a mysterious door across the street and when he follows her in he realizes it’s the underworld. Hades (I think) is represented by a sentient overcoat. I’m not sure if it’s actually Hades because he mentions being demoted to underworld middle management, but I'm not up to date on Stygian Bureaucracy tbh.
The underworld is not what you’d expect. There isn’t torture devices and fire and screaming. The biggest problem is that it’s boring. It’s not that nothing is going on. It’s just that all their needs are met, they have everything they want. “Here everyone is healthy, equal, content. Oh sweet unhappiness!” 76 ”I mean: what do you lack? Almost Nothing. Recently we got a color TV. But we lack the most important thing: the freedom to die. 74” And herein lies the real torture. With no mystery, no desire, no dread, nothing has any meaning. Without the deadline of death there’s no point in doing anything. Nothing to seek, nothing to search. It’s difficult to desire what you already have. You can’t want to know if you already know everything. There are beautiful naked women everywhere, and there is no illicitness to sex, so it loses its spice and is just boring. Everything is mind numbingly boring and they all miss the dread they felt at the end of the day on Sundays, they miss dreading the week ahead. The finitude of life is a blessing.
I almost never ever finish my to-do lists, but on the rare occasion when I do, I look around and feel totally lost and empty rather than accomplished and happy. Getting everything you want is actually not what you want. Freedom from all restrictions takes all the fun out of life. You can’t have day without night etc. This is why I like living in Minnesota and having seasons; I think I would get depressed if I lived somewhere where the weather was always nice.
The art really varies in style and technique. Forgive me for I’m not an Art Person so I don’t know all the terms but some pages have a lot of cross hatching, some have none, some are pointillism (those were my favorite). Some are crude and cartoonish with simple straight lines and some are extremely detailed with lots of texture. Some are abstract shapes, some are realistic. Some are surrealist bizarro scenes and sometimes the dullness is the point. Really the only thing that gives it aesthetic consistency is the color palette, which is GORGEOUS. Idk if Buzzati did the coloring for this or if it was updated for the NYRB release but it looks great. Lots of light yellows and peaches, light greens and blues, and many different pinks. It’s very different from what you’d expect from HELL which is typically so dark and red and brooding.
There are a lot of naked women, like a LOT. Everyone likes to see beautiful women but I was having a debate as to whether I thought it was reaching a point of misogyny or not. It’s typical for heaven/hell to have lots of naked women running around because that’s what everyone desires, and that does fit in with the core concept that if it’s everywhere it’s boring and not even enticing any more. However I did side-eye the moment in which the Coat is offering Orfi his pick of women, and every girl gets a name, but with the one black woman is presented as “a black girl”. She doesn’t get a name and she’s presented purely as an exotic enticement. The drawing of her, at least, is beautiful and you can tell he put much more work into her drawing than the other girls in the display. But that’s kind of a small consolation. Other than that, this is pretty awesome.
thenorpa's review against another edition
4.0
Mam ambiwalentne uczucia wobec powieści graficzniej Buzzatiego. Dzieło zdecydowanie było nowatorskie jak na swoje czasy, co też można przeczytać w posłowie. Bardzo ciekawe obrazy, i narracja traktowana niczym didaskalia. Buzzati zdecydowanie sprawił, że mit o Orfeuszu i Eurydyce nabrał współczesnego charakteru. To, co mnie raziło, to zdecydowanie "męskie" spojrzenie - rozumiany w negatywny sposób. Kobiety są przedstawione przedmiotowo, tylko w relacji do głównego bohatera, poza nią nie istnieją. Ale zakładam, że to bolączka tamtych czasów. Zdecydowanie polecam fanom powieści graficznych i odważnych eksperymentów.
chelseamartinez's review
3.0
psychedelic italian illustrated poem with boobs and grim reapers. i think something was definitely lost in translation for me but musings on death in pastel cartoon form were pretty cool.
bengisue's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
pedantichumbug's review
dark
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
khepiari's review
1.0
Took me goddamn three months to finish, not because I was busy or the story to complicated. When you throw words like comics and poetry together I get intrigued and end up buying books like this. And one never expects a bad read from New York Review Books.
But here we are, this is an extremely well produced disappointing piece of poetry strip book. A retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice myth. A myth I am so well versed in because of its timeless appeal of man versus mortality. Yet there should be a ban on how much people can exploit this myth in name of art and creative writing.
Orfi the protagonist a singer lives opposite a mysterious shape shifting house on a street that can’t be spotted on a map. People avoid the road in night as many people have vanished on this street. And one day his fiancé Eura enters the building.
From there on it’s a tussle between Orfi and the various shades of distractions and temptations in the underworld. I must inform the beginning was beautiful and scary, but it loses its charm after 15 pages into the dry poetry of scattered build up.
Have I ever said how much disgusted I am with human males’ obsession with breasts? Well this book escalated my anger. Big and bigger, round and spherical the comics is full of naked well endowed women trying to lure Orfi.
And that’s it, just naked women, more naked boobies and either helpless looking skinny men ogling at them or fat rich men evaluating them and some random musings of life and death, creativity and destruction, and love and loss bla and bla. After a while the various art styles got blurred in my head and this entire book seemed like a product of mind that had snorted Cocaine and slept in a bed made of breasts.
Was it a critique of extravagance of society and commodification of female sex?
I have no idea. One can critique the bad in the world without catering to the male gaze too. You don’t need to show it. So no, I doubt it achieved anything by parading naked butts that don’t wrinkle and breasts that don’t shag.
But here we are, this is an extremely well produced disappointing piece of poetry strip book. A retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice myth. A myth I am so well versed in because of its timeless appeal of man versus mortality. Yet there should be a ban on how much people can exploit this myth in name of art and creative writing.
Orfi the protagonist a singer lives opposite a mysterious shape shifting house on a street that can’t be spotted on a map. People avoid the road in night as many people have vanished on this street. And one day his fiancé Eura enters the building.
From there on it’s a tussle between Orfi and the various shades of distractions and temptations in the underworld. I must inform the beginning was beautiful and scary, but it loses its charm after 15 pages into the dry poetry of scattered build up.
Have I ever said how much disgusted I am with human males’ obsession with breasts? Well this book escalated my anger. Big and bigger, round and spherical the comics is full of naked well endowed women trying to lure Orfi.
And that’s it, just naked women, more naked boobies and either helpless looking skinny men ogling at them or fat rich men evaluating them and some random musings of life and death, creativity and destruction, and love and loss bla and bla. After a while the various art styles got blurred in my head and this entire book seemed like a product of mind that had snorted Cocaine and slept in a bed made of breasts.
Was it a critique of extravagance of society and commodification of female sex?
I have no idea. One can critique the bad in the world without catering to the male gaze too. You don’t need to show it. So no, I doubt it achieved anything by parading naked butts that don’t wrinkle and breasts that don’t shag.
jimmylorunning's review
2.0
I agree with one of my GR friend's review who said "Adolescent. And not in a good way". It's got redeeming qualities though. Some of the artwork is really good, though it never has the subtlety and the attention to detail that he paid to his other, children's book [b:The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily|83015|The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily|Dino Buzzati|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171035457s/83015.jpg|209145]. In fact, the graphical vibe is very different: it is bold, energetic, random, and erotic. Its weak point is definitely the writing, though. The language is just so cliche and uninteresting (and yes, I know what it's based on, but that's not an excuse). I felt almost no investment in the story.
jeffhall's review
5.0
Dino Buzzati's Poem Strip is great stuff; a distinctly psychedelic re-telling of the myth of Orpheus which explores some unique angels that (to my knowledge) were not part of the original legend. The artwork is simple and occasionally amateurish, but appropriate nonetheless to the trippy tale that Buzzati is weaving. Even in translation from the original Italian, the poetry is rich, fluid and highly complementary to the drawings on each page. Buzzati loves devils, buxom women, and general surreal weirdness, and all of these elements work in his favor to make Poem Strip a highly original creation that succeeds on every level.