Ghost World

Okay so I admittedly didn't exactly recognize myself in Enid and Rebecca, but who among us didn't know others who did talk and act like this, if not ourselves? Here Clowes displays his uncanny ability to capture the essential young adult. Enid and Rebecca come out of the pages and grab you where you know you recognize them: Memory Lane. Daniel Clowes creates such realistic characters, that I felt quite awed at his ability and artistry in concisely capturing the awkwardness, self-doubt, angst, and plain stupidity/cruelty of the Teen. Yet he doesn't create portraits of these characters that are overly-bleak. There is a yearning you can feel the girls go through, and I don't mean sexual frustration, but a dire longing to go beyond that threshold of childhood into... well, something more than what they've known. It's not an easy or pretty journey to make, but in their own ways they attempt. The outcome includes misunderstandings, hurt feelings, reconciliation, confusion, and then, as naturally as they felt being together, they fall into separate paths. The movie is not the same as the book, but it embodies a similar spirit. It's honest, admittedly gritty, and Clowes captures well the outward decorum as well as the inward struggles of the Teen: great chasm between childhoold and adulthood.

Seeing what was one of 2001's refreshing alternatives to the cinema, i.e. Terry Zwigoff's adaptation of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World, was what prompted me to get the graphic novel that inspired the movie, and I was NOT disappointed, believe you me.Most of the scenarios seen in the movie are in the book. The garage sale, the lame comedian, the "Satanists," the 50's diner with "Weird Al," the prank call leading to the fake date, the note on Josh's door, etc. Two of them involve different characters. Enid's visit to the adult shop has Josh as her unwilling escort, while the recipient of the fake date was an unnamed character. Seymour was the subsitute in the movie for both occasions.The interactions between Enid and Rebecca are realistic and human, as the bored duo spend days looking for excitement. Towards the end, their friendship gets frayed, as both have different visions of where they want to be, and the differences between them become pronounced and explored. Rebecca wants to belong somewhere, but Enid isn't sure. The humor here is more human and natural while being profane at times. Certain characters add to the laughs, such as the obnoxious John Ellis, a right-leaning WASP who endorses controversial views and people, such as a ex-priest into child porn. He might as well be a refined Eminem. He constantly taunts Enid whenever they meet. In one conversation, we learn poor Enid's last name--Coleslaw. Enid: "My Dad has his name changed legally!" To which Ellis replies, "From what... three-bean salad?" Now that's funny! Another bit: Enid: "Look how hot we are... How come no boys ask us out on dates?" In the next frame, she says "Maybe we should be lesbos!" to which Rebecca says "Get away from me!"Josh may be awkward and shy, but he is, as Enid tells him, "the last decent person on Earth." Both want to go out with him, but he is put off by Enid's sarcasm and he isn't sure about Rebecca. When pressed on his political views, he says he endorses "policies opposed to stupidity and violence,... cruelty in any form, censorship..." That makes two of us.I've wondered this since I saw the movie, but does the bus stop where Norman finally gets his bus and where Enid goes, symbolizes hope? There's no interaction with Norman in the book, but it's revealed that the bus line has been reopened, while there's no such information provided in the movie. The novel doesn't change the symbolism of the bus stop.Compare the book to the movie, which is different in some ways, but still explores the themes of alienation and growing up; see how perfect Thora Birch and Scarlet Johansson were in playing Enid and Rebecca. Both are stunning. Truly a rare gem of a comic.

Ghost World is short, and I read it in an evening, but the images still resonate in my head. I was particularly touched by Clowes' style of drawing, and how he could evince complex emotions by just the look of a character's face. The world that high school best friends Enid and Becky inhabit seems bleak and empty, but I certainly remember those endless summer afternoons just wandering my hometown with my best friend, looking for ways to waste the time. This is probably my first experience with something that really captured the feel of a time I was growing up in---especially Enid's almost compulsive need to constantly reinvent her image as a way of finding her identity and feeling comfortable in her own skin. Especially in the early nineties, the small world I inhabited seemed rife with the need to be a strange individual and Ghost World certainly made me remember the alternative record store, the pretentious cafe, and my peers obsessing over the concepts of selling out and corporate America. It's sad the way Enid and Becky grow apart, and I think most people can relate to that, and it made me a bit nostalgic for the past. The end, in which Josh and Becky are together, and Enid is alone, leaving Ghost World, exemplifies the necessity of growing beyond some person or some thing---once considered so important to our daily lives---in order to become something more than what we were. And how the future is all at once so empty and limitless and blessedly unknown.

I'd been up almost two days solid, drinking and shouting and carrying on. My eyes were red, my throat hurt and I was tired, tired so I ached in my bones (tired so my aura ached - the very air around me sensitive to pain, the very air around me hurting too). I just couldn't face the book I was reading on the train home. It wasn't the book's fault (I was reading "True Tales of American Life", edited by Paul Auster), I was loving the book, I just couldn't face the thought of words on a page. At the same time, however, I realised that if I didn't have something to occupy myself with I would start to analyse the various aches and pains and arrive at the conclusion that I needed to be ill, and I didn't want to be ill. Which is where "Ghost World" comes in. Lots of people had told me they didn't like it. I know lots of people who have seen the film and loved it, loved it enough to seek out the graphic novel, only for the graphic novel to disappoint them. So I had various echoes of other people's opinions wobbling around my drunken head, but it didn't stop me: I just thought - serendipity: me and "Ghost World" were meant for each other at this particular time. And I was right."Ghost World" is a great book. Not just a great graphic novel (because people use those words as if there is something bad about graphic novels: people hold up graphic novels the way that eighteenth century travellers held up tribal masks in their drawing rooms over tea - oh look, how marvellous, a graphic novel), a great book, a great piece of literature (if that makes you feel better). It made me laugh on a day when the very thought of laughter upset me like bad news. "Ghost World" is Harriet (the Spy) ten years on (and, as everybody - should - know, "Harriet the Spy" is one of the greatest books ever written, a monument to genius, and any book that can be whispered in the same breath is deserving of the highest praise). What more can a tired man say but read "Ghost World" (or: read "Harriet the Spy" if you have already read "Ghost World", or read both "Ghost World" and "Harriet the Spy" if you've read neither; or: read "Ghost World" and "Harriet the Spy" if you've already read them both - you know that your life will be richer from another visit to either.)

Dan Clowes' graphic novel, "Ghost World" tells the story of Enid Coleslaw and her best friend Rebecca during the months between their high school graduation and the following October. The girls curse a lot, obsess over freaks and strange events in their lives and eventually come to realize their childhood friendship may not survive their transition into adulthood. Clowes has an amazing ability to zero in on life's smallest moments and find in them a fragile poetry. He's also not afraid to make his characters fallible, and sometimes, in the manner of callous youth, even cruel. Enid and Rebecca dub a waiter "Weird Al" because of his curly hair, and play a rude prank on a poor boob whose only crime was to gain their notice by placing a pathetic personal ad. And yet you won't hate the characters. They're vulnerable and honest in a very believable way, and their emotional journey through their final months together accurately depicts longing and unease, their nostalgia for things the way they were, and their need for different lives. For Rebecca, it's to hold onto things as they are, and for Enid, it's to go someplace else not to find herself, but to become someone different. The story's also full of humor and mystery. Enid and Rebecca inhabit a world of strange grafitti, of diners and run-down apartments where things tend to happen just outside the frame, or within windows. And Clowes' two-toned, semi-realistic, sometimes cartoony depiction of the various geeks, pervos and schmoes who inhabit "Ghost World" is dead on... the dopey expressions, the sudden crises, the need to feel something and the fear that accompanies that desire... it's all there in his characters' faces. Reminiscent of Will Eisner's work (and just a touch of Charles Burns'), and with a hip, modern feel, "Ghost World" provides a truly amazing and unique reading experience.