Literary Lives

Edward Sorel's "Literary Lives" is a collection of cartoons lampooning the careers of ten writers -- in sharp, acerbic, sometimes wildly funny episodes -- and all of them are far from a Classics Comics telling of literary history. Depending on your appreciation of Yeats, Jung, and Ayn Rand (to name three whose tales appear), Sorel's pen skewers or demolishes the reputations of some of the world's prominent literary figures. His first piece, on the life of Honore Balzac, turned out to be quite sad; Balzac spent much of his life trying to win the approval of his mother, and was a very sympathetic character. Not surprisingly, the Balzac biography isn't included here. Sorel told an interviewer it "wasn't funny." The artist decided to bring out the darker and more unpleasant traits of his subjects. Norman Mailer sneaks into the hospital and suggests to his recovering wife she doesn't tell the police the truth, that he stabbed her at a party; it might hurt his New York mayoral campaign. Next to Sorel's child-like script declaring "A Cult Is Born," Ayn Rand holds a biblical tablet emblazened with the words Push Grab Take Keep to frenzied admirers. Sorel can be gently satiric as well: he imagines Proust's hometown filled with billboards advertising madelaines and, in the Illiers-Combray town square, there's a Cafe du Temps Perdu. Whatever a reader thinks of a writer for good or bad, casting a critical eye on the foibles of heroes is great fun in "Literary Lives." It's also a lot more entertaining than the entire library of Classics Illustrated comics.

Although short, this brilliant little book is replete with merciless venom, skillfully directed towards literary celebrities who indeed deserve it, and with a visual skill worthy of comparison with the great caricaturists of the past like Hogarth or Daumier. So far as I can judge, everything he says is literally true. He does not show his targets 'warts and all', but rather as warts, period. Altogether this makes for an exhilarating romp through the depths of human credulity, cupidity and perversity. Totally delightful!

More fun than is probably legal, Literary Lives is Edward Sorel at his very best. The writing is robust, irreverant and spicy; the drawing ferociously alive. I read this in the dentist's chair, on a fast train, in a darkened room and in other unnameable places. I love it, my dentist loves it and my friends love it. A marvelous vista and a delicious read.

Brilliant comic strip biographies of ten famous writers. All the funnier because everything that's said is true.

Edward Sorel has always annoyed me because most of his stuff is political, and his politics are predictable. (I never liked Jules Feiffer, for the same reason.) But Sorel's inimitable line and color--ah! This is a guy whose aim is to produce the appearance of doodle-book spontaneity, and he's willing to redraw something a hundred times to get that effect. So I love his art but hate his potted, derivative opinions. But this is a different kettle of beans. Turns out he's got a very original wit, once you get him away from politics. His low-down anger and meanness skewer Ayn Rand, Sartre, Proust, Jung, Lillian Hellman and others, with a viciousness I've never seen displayed in by a--how you say?--purely typographical critic. The seeming randomness of the selection itself borders on genius. Making fun of Sartre and Hellman--okay, fish in a barrel, right? But Proust, Tolstoy, Yeats, Jung? It's like satire planned by a nutritionist. Most of these little illustrated bios were first printed in The Atlantic Monthly, where I saw one or two. Stitching a number of them together like this enhances rather than dilutes the effect of each one. You get the definite sense of a clear point-of-view, rather than a one-off ha-ha at the expense of a someone far grander than the lowly cartoonist. I suppose he's getting on in years now, Sorel; he was doing political caricatures in Esquire when I was a little girl in the 60s. But I hope this Stracheyesque satire is the herald of a new career phrase, rather than just a small but gorgeous valedictory. (POSTSCRIPT: I was trying to damn with faint praise when I wrote this, I think. Actually I'm a huge Sorel fan and chagrined to know he read my condescending words. I know he read them because he sent me a postcard of thanks (oof!) to my New York address. I am not fit to fill his inkwell. Thanks, Ed...and I'll let my foregoing embarrassment stand as mute testimony to my capacity for blather. Speaking of which, I've been looking over the old Esquire stuff, and it holds up very well.)