Ordinary Victories

great potrayal of angst and neurosis that keeps us awake at night. more than a year after reading this, i am ready for a re-read. a gem of a graphic novel, even in translation. like a perfect movie by an artiste like godard or truffaut, this one is a perfect graphic novel by a french writer.

It's easy to think of "Ordinary Victories" as "Doug" (the old Nickelodeon animated feature) grown up and gone to seed. The artist draws the characters whose air of comic innocence and forgiveness that might lead you to believe that this is a work to be dismissed. But from the first page, where we meet our young, confused photographer-protagonist trying to break of sessions with his rather useless psychotherapist, author Manu Larcenet explores humanity's search for meaning and value. The story is set in beautiful countryside of France in the present. Marc lives alone in an old farmhouse, and has a bachelor's maddening neuroses and self-defeating attitudes. He is prone to debilitating panic attacks that he cannot predict or understand, but that has learned to live with. He smokes constantly, can't seems to find his own artistic voice, is self-absorbed and fearful about change. He does have an eye for photography, but seeks a change from photographing violent conflicts. Marc's character features and flaws set up most of the drama in the work, from confrontations with his newly-found-veterinarian-girlfriend, to the gun-toting nut patrolling his property, to his amiable-if-secretive parents, to his party-hearty brother, to his irritable cat Adolf, to the seemingly-benign old man who lives in an old mill and spends his days fishing. Each character has a story and a secret, which Marc reacts to with sometimes ridiculous exaggeration. "Ordinary Victories" is about the slow motion progress of a human being to deal with family, death and one's own place in the world. It is about the little insults that shape us and mold our characters. It is about love, commitment, and maturity. It does not end on a note of completion, but on the observation that human growth is slow, life is complicated, and insights are few and hard to read. Quite a bit of material for a comic book, n'est-ce-pas?

A book about emotional growth and acceptance, rendered in an appealing and colorful style. I found myself laughing aloud at times, tearing up at others.

I didn't expect this much beauty and feeling from a small graphic novel, so this book was much more than I anticipated. I was pleasantly surprised by the touching story line. The graphics are beautiful.