Never thought Auster's work would lend itself so well to this format. Excellent. ( )

This is great, but I wish they'd done the full New York Trilogy. ( )

" ... molto piu' tardi avrebbe concluso ... che niente era reale ... tranne il caso." (p. 38)

"E se non possiamo nominare un oggetto qualunque, come possiamo parlare delle cose che ci riguardano davvero?" (p. 106)

Baudelaire: il me semble que je serais toujours bien la' ou' je ne suis pas.
- Mi sembra che staro' sempre bene la' dove non sono.
Piu' brevemente: ovunque non sono, e' il luogo dove sono me stesso.
CLIK
(P. 140-1)
( )

[magyarul lentebb]

On my journey of discovering graphic novels... just kidding, I have no intention of doing that. But I really liked this one. With a foreword by Maus's Art Spiegelman, City of Glass has a great story written amazingly (that should not come as a surprise, it's Auster after all), so it had a strong skeleton. But the graphics were not just illustrations either, they helped the story transform into something new. I found an original idea on every page, in the creative use of the grid, showing the character of a voice, the disintegration of a mind in pictures instead of words while still keeping the importance of language, and it was fun to see the drawn versions of Auster and his family, too. My attention never faltered for a second, this graphic novel had a firm grip on it. Very well done.

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A kép(es?)regények világában tett felfedezéseim következő állomása Paul Auster New York trilógiájának átdolgozása. Valójában nincs szó semmiféle műfajfelfedezésről, csak ez a kettő* érdekelt, de az Üvegváros alapján nem tennék le a formáról. A Maust elkövető Art Spiegelman előszavával megjelent kötetnek persze őrülten erős alapja volt, hiszen Auster írta. Az előszó szerint figyelmeztette is a projekt mögött álló Spiegelmant, miszerint már többször próbáltak filmforgatókönyvet varázsolni ebből a szövegből, mindhiába. Karasik és Mazzucchelli párosának végül mégis fantasztikusan sikerült az adaptáció. Nem csupán illusztrálták a történetet, egy egészen új művet hoztak létre. Minden oldalon újabb eredeti ötlettel találkoztam, a képregény rácsainak kreatív használatától az írott jellemzések képi megjelenítésre cserélésén át (miközben a nyelv semmit nem veszít jelentőségéből) a rajzolt Auster-családig. Egy pillanatra sem eresztette a figyelmem, remek munka.

*a másik a Cheshire Crossing volt, sóhaj ( )

This was recommended to me by a friend. He's introducing me to ontology and told me a great place to start would be this book. I liked it a lot - thank you very much - and thought it made for a terrific introduction.

For one thing, this carries a lot of layers. My reading experience with reading this was: initially feeling a bit confused, pondering it over a couple of days, then reading it again to find it making a little more sense. It's a very intricate system of names, language, and people's communication with God, and I thought that was really interesting.

But, while I greatly admire this adaptation, I can't help but think that it feels abridged, like I could've had a fuller, more natural experience with the original book. Then again, I'm a comic-holic and I know I've definitely wouldn't have committed myself to this extent if it weren't in graphic-novel format.

It made for a great introduction, and I would recommend it to anyone who's in my position (not knowing a thing about ontology). Just know that this is a book that requires a lot of thought, and one that will take time for you to love. ( )