Graphic Enjoyment

Yesterday Noi and I went down town to Takashimaya, in my case to spend some time in Kinokuniya, the rather tasty bookshop there. I've been intending to buy From Hell the graphic novel dealing with the Jack the Ripper case by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell for quite some time and since this is the start of a sort of holiday week (no actual teaching, at least) I finally did so. It's quite a substantial tome (part of the attraction for me) and I started reading it as soon as we got in. It has not disappointed. The artwork alone is worth the price. Campbell's scratchily detailed black and white panels draw you into the sordid world of Whitechapel as well as the grandeur of London in 1888. I suppose I expected this sort of quality having glanced through the book previously, but what has surprised me is how well Moore's storytelling works. He doesn't pretend to offer anything like the usual rather dreary solutions to the Ripper mystery. In fact, the Ripper as William Gull is established almost from the get-go. What is refreshing is that clearly Moore does not believe in his guilt at all. Rather the story-line functions as a kind of foundation on which to hang a series of atmospheric riffs on the murkiness of society & life in late-Victorian London. Conjectures on what really took place remain just that, and that's as satisfyingly real as you can get on this subject. It's all highly entertaining and accidentally educational. The only problem I've got with the book is how to ration my reading sensibly so I don't rush too much.

With that in mind I'm balancing my trips into From Hell with dips into Archie Ammons's long poem Glare and odd poems from Seamus Heaney's District & Circle.