Wednesday, March 31, 2010

3.31.10 DRIVEN BY LEMONS- TANDEM REVIEW. (JF & TD)

DRIVEN BY LEMONS- TANDEM REVIEW.
By Josh Cotter, 2009, Adhouse Books. (http://www.adhousebooks.com/books/drivenbylemons.html)

Driven By Lemons is a 'stream of consciousness sketchbook novella' by Josh Cotter, author of the ongoing book Skyscrapers of the Midwest. here, now, is an informal review of the book... several months past the hype:



JF: This might be the most frustrating book I have ever read.

TD: haha, i don't know what to make of it. It's like a Loch Ness monster that kept coming to the surface, then diving. but i don't know if it's a real monster or a hoax.

JF: That's a good way to put it. It seems to constantly be skirting this line between genuinely pushing work and pretentious psychedelic drivel. Or maybe it's more simply another exhibit in the evidence pile for people who believe that comic artists can't and should not write.

TD: i think part of the problem might be in the in-between nature of the book. Is it a sketchbook? is it a graphic novel?

JF: Maybe. I know that's what got the book so much attention when it debuted.

TD: i've tried to figure that out as well. it seems constrained in both directions. And i think part of my reaction to it is the tried-and-true letdown after built up expectations.

JF: That seems to be the name of the game these days. I think you're right on the money though with the constraints in both directions. As a sketchbook it's limited by an obvious sense of narrative purpose, but as a graphic novel that narrative purpose is ultimately far too vapid to keep through the whole book.

TD: flipping through a random page here or there, some spreads do stand out/alone as sketchbook pieces, but i don't know that any go too far, and really, i'd like to see six or ten page runs that are nothing but sketches which maybe later, in reflection, gain some narrative weight. Also, i've never been a fan of 'giant scribbly mazes' as a valid form of expressionism.

JF: Really? Those were some of my favorite parts. That's where I really saw the promise of the whole thing. The way they would weave in and out of the little scene vignettes with all that energy kept me turning the pages and I like that I can keep coming back to them and pick out little details from the larger explosion of lines.

TD: yeah, clearly i'm missing something. i know so many people who love that stuff. to me, i kept looking at it over and over trying to detect what the 'real' drawing was, the drawing it seemed to me he was trying to cover up with scribbling.

TD: i did like it in certain parts. when it started as a word bubble, vomiting out off the little guy's mouth, or whenever. but at other times it reminded me of the Smoke Monster from Lost. and god, i do not want that.



TD: the thing i thought about while reading it was this: i'm not against stream of consciousness. no. and i did wonder what your reaction would be to it, just as i wondered what my reaction to it would have been if i'd read it 10-15 years ago.

JF: As a stream of consciousness piece, it seems far too self aware and contrived.

TD: right. you can sense his consciousness, almost, getting caught up on familiar comfort memes and other things that his id or whatever would deem 'cool'. worthy of writing about. not true stream of consciousness but instead some sort of semi-self conscious stream. i think everyone's got these phrases and ideas in their brains, so i'm not faulting him for it, but what it comes down to is this: if someone wants, in the 21st century, to put out a stream of consciousness style narrative, maybe they need to take a couple stabs at it in private before putting something out in public.

JF: Yeah. Not every acid trip is worthy of public scrutiny.

TD: i mean, i guess for the comics community maybe stream of consciousness hasn't really been done? and i'll admit it sort of inspired me to try it on my own. i used to do stream of conscious morning pages, but just a page or two each morning. not a book length thing.

JF: And I think the book length is really what kills it. Because this isn't a narrative emerging from a years worth of dream journals; something along the lines of American Elf.

TD: well i looked up any interviews i could find after the fact, wondering if this was sprung from some accident he'd had or some other sort of 'real world' conflict. it might be in there, but i couldn’t find anything on that.

JF: Well the last chapter seemed to reference a psychedelic experience, and that adds another level of banality to a lot of the writing.

TD: i know . :(

JF: On the other hand, there are these moments of sheer unadulterated kick ass hot sauce. The cat creature that would go on long armchair psychobabble diatribes only to interject panels of hopelessly awesome were cartooning bliss.

TD: i wanted sturm and drang! i don’t want to kill this thing in this review. it was a bold effort and it is, i think, something that hasn’t' been tried (much, at least) in modern comics. and yeah, there were moments when it really started to hint at some big WOW moments. I know if i'd seen it at the convention, before the murmurs started, i know i'd’ve joined in on the praise.

JF: Also, the art itself is absolutely gorgeous. It's kind of a double edged sword because sometimes reading through the book cover to cover it really felt like this psychedelic stream of consciousness story was really just tacked on to justify a bunch of formal experimentation and I don't know that I want to support that. On the other hand there's stuff that he does inside these vignettes that can just take my breath away.

TD: what did you think of the Faulkner title? offhanded or woven into the narrative in some way i'm missing?

JF: If it was woven in, I missed it.

TD: well the real quote is 'man is a creature driven by Demons'. so..i mean i guess he pops at least the quote riff in at the end. the little cartoon lemon guy. but i mean, i guess i would’ve enjoyed the book more if that lemon guy kept popping up thoughout as a demon stand-in?

JF: Well there was that cat creature that warmed my heart, and I guess you could see the whole narrative as the bunny being tormented or perhaps driven by demonic forces, and the absurdity of trying to make it all make sense.

TD: yeah. i guess my takeaway from the whole thing is, i'd like to see more people attempt this, because despite any shortcomings i might've found, it's still pretty impressive when i step aside from it all. So i'd like to see it grow as a ---what, subgenre?--...i just think i'll be more pick and choose in the future.

JF: I would definitely like to see more books like this, yes. And while I'm in no rush to read it cover to cover again any time soon, I find it is a book that I can return to over and over again for a page or a scene or two and find a very satisfying read.

TD: i give it a B-.

JF: I'm philosophically opposed to grading systems and thus cooler than you.

TD: i'm ....what? damn.



End.