Graphic Passions: Being Literary with Auster

So while we's being literary in the graphic novel department - let me mention "City of Glass".

It's an adaptation of Paul Auster's novella of same name... by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli and published in the UK by Faber. (Click here for link to Paul Gravett piece on Mazzucchelli.)

The Old Man gives this to me as a Christmas present and as I start to look at/read it... (Does one "read" a comix book/ graphic novel? Well I guess that I would argue that you can "read" a painting... so maybe "read" is OK.) ..as I be sayin ...

I begin the book and I realise that I did read Auster's original novella. Because I do occasionally read a work of literature you know, and Paul Auster be a writer I do read. So take that, all youse out there who do think I do nothing but watch telly and filch Mrs D's thrillers...

Anyway, anyway, what I want to say is that I really like it. It's a splendid adaptation with a visual, graphic structure that works well as a translation of the book. This edition has a forward by the revered Art Spiegelman explaining how the project came about.

And by the way... for those of you with access to BBC's podcasts you may want to download the broadcast of Radio 4's Book Club of Feb 5 2012.... in which Spiegelman talks about his major work "Maus", without which......