GRAPHIC BOOKS: Katherine Farmarreviews What It is by Lynda Barr. Jonathan Cape, 280pp, £16.99 and Aya of Yop Cityby Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie. Jonathan Cape, 128pp, £15.99
EVERY SO often, a work of art comes along that defies description, not just because it crosses over categories and blends genres, but because it challenges the very idea of putting art into categories and genres.
What It Isis just such a work. Part creative writing course, part memoir, part free-associative visual essay on the nature of creativity, it invites readers not merely to linger over the work itself, but to use it as a tool for delving into their own memories and imaginations. If there were ever a graphic novel that demanded active engagement from the reader, this is it.
Lynda Barry is best known as a cartoonist, but she has also been a painter, illustrator, playwright and (most importantly for What It Is)a teacher. Her author biography states that she has "found they are very much alike", which goes some way to explaining the approach she has taken with What It Is.
Although the main body of the book is interspersed with snippets of memoir and there is a chunk of handbook pages at the end, most of the pages are collages. They mingle drawings, paintings, handwritten captions, and extracts from textbooks, ads, and children’s homework in a kind of democratic profusion.
The elements of each page are so skilfully arranged and the pages themselves so dense with imagery and so crammed with ideas that each one could be framed and hung in a gallery; but to do that would be missing the point. What It Is is a “work of art”, but the operative word in this case is “work”. To treat it as a beautiful object to be looked at and admired and not touched would be to misunderstand the nature of Barry’s project.
Barry's agenda as a writing teacher, and in creating What It Is, is not to produce professional writers who earn fame and money through the practise of a marketable skill, but to awaken "it" – in her own words: "At the centre of everything we call 'the arts', and children call 'play', is something which seems somehow alive . . . There is something brought alive during play, and this something, when played with, seems to play back".
You could call it creativity, or imagination, or freedom; whatever "it" is, it is what makes us feel as if we are really living, rather than just going through the motions. Thinking kills it, and the purpose of the exercises contained in the latter portion of the book is to short-circuit the rational processes and draw forth an image – a thing to play with that will play back, much like What It Isitself. For What It Is is a challenging and unsettling book. You don't just read it: it reads you. There are very few works of art that make so direct a demand on the reader, or fulfil their demands with so rich a reward.
It’s a bit of a letdown to move from the sublimely unique to the merely excellent; but such is the fate of the reviewer.
Aya of Yop Cityis the sequel to Aya de Yopougunand the second in the ongoing Aya series, chronicling the rollercoaster lives and tangled love affairs of Ivorian girl Aya and her friends and family. Writer Marguerite Abouet was born in the Ivory Coast and depicts her motherland with just the right balance of affection and honesty.
The period when the story takes place is the late 1970s, when the country was going through a prosperous phase that was soon to end. In this volume there are hints of the forthcoming economic decline, but for the most part life in Aya's Abidjan is sunny and pleasant; Abouet juggles farcical soap-opera plots with dazzling ease, aided by Clément Oubrerie's vibrant art; his designs for each character are so alive with personality that, despite the large cast, it's impossible to get confused. But the real star of Aya of Yop Cityis Abidjan itself. Through the lives of their characters, Abouet and Oubrerie bring the city to life: a city that is distinctly African, distinctly Ivorian, so vivid and real that you can practically smell the Chicken Kédjénu – or cook it for yourself from the recipe at the back.
Katherine Farmar is a freelance writer. She blogs about comics at puritybrown.blogspot.com. She is co-author with Ben Murnane of the forthcoming third edition of Dublin on a Shoestring