Building Stories by Chris Ware
v.
May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes
v.
May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes
Judged by Caity Weaver who is a writer for
Gawker and mental_floss. She lives in Brooklyn and reads on the train.
Now we’re into the quarter finals we are seeing
some very different books faced off against each other which makes judging them
very hard, I can only imagine!
I do not envy Caity judging these two books, one is
my favourite book this year and the other would be if I could ever get around
to getting a copy! Purely cos it’s in a box!!
Appearance-wise, I agree with the judge that you
feel very clever reading May We Be Forgiven,
purely based on the cover!
As for Building Stories, she really loved the fact
that you can throw a chapter or two in your bag as they are so small!
She felt that ‘the intriguing thing about Building Stories is that its
plot isn’t—at least not on the surface.
The main character of the narrative (though there
are many, including a bipolar bee and an old stone building) is an unremarkable
young woman whose life we observe through Ware’s detailed (and often
impractically sized) artifacts. We view all the rooms in her Chicago brownstone
simultaneously, as we would a dollhouse. We view her from above, like a spider
on her ceiling, and read her through the thoughts of other characters. We
travel backwards into her past and ahead into her future. Her trajectory is not
exceptional (marriage and baby), yet it is incredibly compelling. The drawings
are intimate; the loneliness is poetic.’
As for ‘May We Be
Forgiven, it’s the story of Harold Silver, a childless
professor abruptly called upon to step into his younger brother’s shoes
(figuratively as an ersatz father, literally when he sets up camp in his
brother’s home and begins wearing his clothes, a detail that always struck me
as odd) (personally I loved that part of his personality! But I’m not judging
this quarter final!) after George Silver, a successful TV executive, is removed
to various rehabs.
Caity felt that after all the excitement of the
first half of the book, it was far too calm whereas I loved that part!
She thought ‘the characters and situations of Building Stories felt much more
realistic, cartoon renderings though they were. Its lines provided a much
smoother read—at least in a literary sense.’
While both novels had their shortcomings, the
winner, then, is unquestionably Building
Stories, for its ability to convey more humor, tragedy, and emotion in a
comic about a bee getting trapped in a soda can than an entire novel was able
to with storylines about murder, money, and suburban swingers nights.
I completely disagree though I have never read
Building Stories so I should really shut up!
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