The beauty, the beauty

Heart of Darkness (graphic novel)

By Joseph Conrad, Catherine Anyango and David Zane Mairowitz

Like many literature students, I had to read Conrad’s groundbreaking novella twice before I understood its importance. Not only did I need to get my head around what was actually going on, I also had to spend time understanding that Conrad’s obfuscation was deliberate. For the first time here was a writer marrying content to form: the impenetrable nature of the Congo’s forests and people (to a European) were reflected in the language used to tell the story. Ingenius!

Of course, since Conrad published his tale in 190X, the graphic novel has become the dominant form of literature. (What do you mean it hasn’t?) Or at least, a significant player in storytelling. Indeed, where prose writers almost find it impossible to break boundaries of form in 2011, graphic novelists and cartoonists are still able to push their form further and further. Such is the achievement of Catherine Anyango in her arresting and disturbing visual retelling of Conrad’s famous story. David Zane Mairowitz has adapted the text itself, using Conrad’s memorable descriptions and dialogue, but it is Anyango’s images that win the day here.

In what appears to be charcoal or pastel, Anyango has managed to capture the shapes of this story. The action is not always clear in every frame – in fact, hardly ever – but that is an achievement, not a drawback. Anyango’s challenge was to translate Conrad’s confusing language into images. And she has done so expertly. Even taken out of context, these images are stunning, unnerving and even frightening.

The earth moved

after the quake

By Haruki Murakami

Alan Bennett, stridently opposed to library closure, may use curious language to make his arguments, but the fact is that libraries bring a great deal of joy. Most recently, my library brought me joy’s Japanese herder, Haruki Murakami.

When a friend remarked that the recent quake and tsunami in Japan will inspire a great deal of cultural production from that country over the coming years, I was reminded that Murakami had written a collection of stories after the 1995 Kobe earthquake. The same evening I passed my library, which is running a Murakami promotion, and there in the window sat the very same book, after the quake. A few moments later, after an impulse-loan, I was striding down the high street with the book in my hand. Had the library have been a bookshop requiring money, I would have passed on. So, yes, libraries rule OK.

As does Murakami. His perfect and delightful prose is so absorbing that it took me no time to devour this little collection. The book includes a handful of stories about characters affected in one way or another by the earthquake in Kobe. We’re not talking about the endeavours of rubble-scouring firemen or the horror of trapped victims. Murakami is more interested in the deeper, psychological impact of the quake. So he talks of a woman who fears the quake may have broken her marriage, and a man whose very imagination may have caused the quake. What a ride.

Murakami’s controlled and structured stories feel light, like a skilled dancer who appears to float. His words are only occasionally hindered by cliché (which may be due to translation); mostly they dance and delight. But he’s about more than just le mot juste. His stories are often surreal, even daft – but they are always genuine. They are viewpoints on modern life, so subtle in their delivery that you barely notice them. A beautiful, accomplished collection.