Inarticulate Musings
I promised a
couple
people
that I would report back with my thoughts on
Palomar
after I finished reading it. I've been putting off blogging my
reactions to the book for a while, mainly because I don't think I've
sorted my thoughts and feelings into anything satisfying yet. But
with an extended vacation looming, I figured I'd better get some of my
thoughts out there before I forget them. Plus, there's always the
hope that my rambling rumination will prompt others to discuss this
work in more detail, perhaps uncovering something that's eluding me.
While I really liked
Palomar overall, towards the end I
started to feel as though the focus or tone of the series changed
somehow. I haven't put my finger on it yet, but it was as though
the stories went from being believable/identifiable/human/real to more
surreal -- as though the focus shifted from the characters to the
situations they found themselves in, and those situations felt
artificial or abstracted somehow -- less grounded or recognizable.
Granted, the work was created across discrete points in time, not in
one large chunk, and my own reading of the book was broken up into
multiple sittings, so maybe these factors play into my feeling of
"disconnectedness" about the work. At some point I'd like to sit
down with
Palomar for a second reading and see if I feel
the same way, and if I do, why I feel that way.
Other thoughts? (And, hey, even though the collection came out
last year, most of the stories were originally published in the 80s, so
it would be right in line with
other
comic
works the Comics
Blogosphere has been focused on recently...)
