Review (Adaptation Comparison): The Paradise (adapted from Au Bonheur des Dames, by Emile Zola)

Emile Zola’s cautiously optimistic social commentary on the mass culture leviathan of the industrial age, the luxurious department store, Au Bonheur Des Dames, is the basis of the historical drama, The Paradise. Guess which part of that description the BBC executives focussed on. 

By the time they released the series collection it seems they (or at least the marketers) realised they’d not created an adaptation of Zola’s novel, but an economically lavish costume drama. Although the title cards of each episode claim the show is based on ‘a novel by Emile Zola,’ scouring the series' DVD packaging I can find no reference to Zola, his novel, or that this is an adaptation at all. Probably for the best. The reason, in the modern entertainment landscape, to superficially adapt a property is to have inbuilt name recognition. Call me condescending, but I don’t believe many Britishers or Americans have knowledge of 19^th century French literature, much less a knowledge of Emile Zola. ‘Adapted from a novel by Emile Zola’ sells far less than does ‘19^th century costume drama.’

Review: If the Moon Smiled, by Chandani Lokuge

If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.

You leave the same impression

Of something beautiful, but annihilating.

-        Sylvia Plath, The Rival

Born in Sri Lanka, and though now in Australia, Manthri’s never quite left it. Her watercolour childhood crumbles away under her culture’s idea of womanhood. In Australia, with her family, her patriarchal husband, and thoroughly Western children, her life peels away. She finds herself trapped in land that does not support her culture, and trapped in a culture that does not care for her happiness. If she loves her husband, that love sleeps below layers of bondage and despair. She loves her children, but she knows, ‘With my love of [them] I built a husk around me. And lay secure in its warmth. But they skin the husk as it dries, layer by layer.’ 

Review: Au Bonheur des Dames, by Emile Zola

To paint a matter from every vantage and sympathy, to avoid sermonising, that is the trait of a great novelist, rare and to-be-cherished. Towards matters like generational divides and consumerism such impartiality is sparser still, but Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies’ Delight/Paradise) reaches as close to this as possible. He descends to neither the level of moss-eyed reactionary, nor that of the skater gripping the rear bar of Progress’ train. Through exhaustive research and nearly two decades hindsight, Zola explores the bud and bloom of the department store, viewing it personally and societally, from the perspective of the new age’s victors to its losers, from its young to its old.

Review: Strangers in Paradise Omnibus Edition, by Terry Moore

To note: this is a review of the omnibus edition of SiP. Reading the series over a decade, or even all at once, in issue form, would produce a marginally different review to this one. This review comes from reading two 1000+ page tomes. Also, while I will not spoil the events of the ending, I will describe the comic-language and story-telling techniques of the ending. 

On the shelf, a woman’s blackened eye stares at me through a tear in darkness. The eye, reddened and swollen, does not cry, not even quivering to predict tears. Firm eyes, strong spirit, looking out beneath the words, ‘Strangers in Paradise: Omnibus,’ and above the signature, ‘Terry Moore’. Not merely box art, but an image from within the story imposed without, overflowing into reality, as if to say, ‘This is no slice-of-life contained between two covers for easy intake. This is life.’  

‘Epic-length relationship drama’ will likely turn off a large portion (of a certain half) of SiP’s potential readers. A two thousand page exploration of the lives of two women, Francine and Katchoo, whose relationships filial, romantic and platonic bloom, whither and still-birth before us. A good deal of men, I shall generalise, might condemn it, unread, as ‘chick-lit’ (here used pejoratively). I won’t say it is more than that, out of respect to chick-lit*, but I will say it is more than they think of that.     

Written over fourteen years, from 1993 to 2007, totalling 106 issues Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise is comprised of three ‘volumes’, and since its initial publication has been acclaimed as one of comics’ masterworks. The first volume, only three issues long, feels like Moore winding his characters up to see how they run, testing the dramatic potential of their relationships to decide whether a grander undertaking could be set upon.

Review: Wandering Son, by Shimura Takako

This is a years-spanning story of the characters Shuichi Nitori and Yoshino Takatsuki. The former, a girl assigned male at birth, the latter, a boy assigned female at birth. One may think that in Japan, as in the West, the subject of transsexuality would be depicted in a sensationalist if not mocking fashion in popular media. Even in the rare cases where the subject is given the respect it deserves, it can quickly take a turn for the dark, dwelling in bigotry and hatred.        

But read any review or description of this series and chances are you will come across the word 'gentle.' The work's gentle analysis; the work's gentle treatment; the work's gentle story telling. And, indeed, it is this gentleness that makes the series special.

Review (Adaptation Comparison): Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (adapted from The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas)

The grey faced man, with hair running past his shoulders and fangs protruding at every laugh, invites two young aristocrats to witness the heart of the festival on Luna: a public execution. Holding a pardon to his chest and setting three cards face down, each bearing the initials of a condemned, he proposes a game to Viscount Albert de Morcerf: pick a card, any card, and he will save the life of one doomed man. ‘Yes, it almost feels as if one has actually become God,’ says the man, the Count of Monte Cristo. So begins Gankutsuou, an interesting, if increasingly imperfect, Eastern adaptation of one of Western literature’s greatest works.     

Review: Heart of Thomas, by Moto Hagio

We start with the death of Thomas. A suicide, most likely, triggered by the harsh words of Juli, his unrequited love. Devastation grabs the student body, and not a single corner of the boarding school remains silent. Their little “fräulein” was the friendliest, most charming boy one could hope to meet.

                

Juli, a prefect of most upstanding character, however, has no time to dwell on the past. That is until Erich, a boy the spit, but utter opposite, of Thomas, arrives at the school.

                 

To find an LGBT work that never addresses homophobia is a rarity; to find one amongst that rarity of any artistic merit is even rarer. Where most writers who forgo bigotry do so to create non-confrontational trash, Hagio forgoes it because she is not exploring homosexuality. Male homosexuality is one, among many, aesthetic flourishes employed to add weight to her central theme: 'When does a person learn love? When does one awake to love?'*