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Loading... Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (2009)by Guy Delisle
A glimpse into the mysterious world of North Korea, the most isolated country on the planet, through the eyes of cartoonist Guy DeLisle.  LibraryGirl11 | May 4, 2013 |  A picture is worth 1,000 words, and it's fascinating to learn about this part of Korea. (  ) bookweaver | Apr 21, 2013 | I've spent a lot of time in Seoul but none in North Korea--naturally, I am curious. The idea of presenting a perspective on North Korea in the form of a graphic novel struck me as an insightful choice. This story of a Westerner's encounter with the most closed society in today's world is great! ( ) nmele | Apr 6, 2013 | Good, but slight. I read it as a companion to Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. They cover some of the same ground in describing life in North Korea, but Delisle never manages to get out of Pyongyang and Ordinary Lives goes into more detail. And it's more compelling to read anyway. Pyongyang is fine, but no more. (  ) AlCracka | Apr 2, 2013 | Not bad. The graphics are good. But having said that, [a:Guy Delisle|46027|Guy Delisle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1234452984p2/46027.jpg]'s work fails to shed any new light about the life of people living in North Korea. It might have been a revealing work when it was first published but almost all the things mentioned in the book about North Korea could be found easily on the internet in present times. Being a cartoonist, [a:Guy Delisle|46027|Guy Delisle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1234452984p2/46027.jpg] visited North Korea for 2 months on a work visa to supervise the animation of a children's cartoon show. And yes, it also seem to me as some reviewers have pointed out here that he was not open enough towards people of different ethnicity than him (i.e. Non-Westerners such as, the Chinese, Mongols, Egyptians and especially the North Koreans he met there). But I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as this was his first work and I am planning to read his other graphic novels [b:Burma Chronicles|5596923|Burma Chronicles|Guy Delisle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328302383s/5596923.jpg|5768272] and [b:Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China|210946|Shenzhen A Travelogue from China|Guy Delisle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1330445378s/210946.jpg|2398408] pretty soon. I might be able to develop a firm opinion about him after that. 3.5 stars Further reading about North Korea: [b:Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea|6178648|Nothing to Envy Ordinary Lives in North Korea|Barbara Demick|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320449375s/6178648.jpg|6358552] by [a:Barbara Demick|785914|Barbara Demick|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1325069453p2/785914.jpg] (which in my opinion is the best book written about North Korea that I have read) [b:The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag|69951|The Aquariums of Pyongyang Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag|Chol-Hwan Kang|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1347466523s/69951.jpg|67774] by [a:Chol-Hwan Kang|5646854|Chol-Hwan Kang|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66-347709e8e0c4cd87940bf10aebee7a1c.jpg] [b:Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West|11797365|Escape from Camp 14 One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West|Blaine Harden|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1347954566s/11797365.jpg|16750147] by [a:Blaine Harden|541490|Blaine Harden|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-M-50x66-88f044bbc71480ca4e6dee980381ec7a.jpg]. ( ) Veeralpadhiar | Mar 31, 2013 |
 I appreciated seeing such a personal view of a country I’ll never visit. I love comics that can expand my boundaries this way. Delisle's evocative pencil drawings are suited to depicting a colourless, twilight world in which the state is all, with his rudimentary characters inhabiting vast and much more detailed architectural environments. Less well drawn are the inner lives of Pyongyang's citizens.  North Korea is a country suffering in more ways than the author makes note of and I’m sure any reader could surmise this from his account, but rather than mine the heart of this suffering, Delisle achieves the literary equivalent of hiding a paraplegic’s wheelchair. So while Pyongyang reads like cartoonist Craig Thompson’s breezy and introspective European travel diary, Carnet de Voyage, its content dictates that it be filed beside political artist Joe Sacco’s hard-hitting, from-the-trenches graphic novels about Sarajevo and Palestine – minus the first-hand accounts of violence, drama, and abject poverty. Because while a city can’t cry for help, maybe the odd cartoonist can act as a proxy.  This is a graphic novel so well crafted that the text begins to work as secondary illustration: propaganda begins to flow freely from each cell, like the canned music and broadcast exhortations that trail into the 15th floor hotel rooms; a small frame exchange between Delisle and his handlers perfectly sets up a full-page illustration of the dialogue’s own irony.
No descriptions found. One of the few Westerners granted access to North Korea documents his observations of the secretive society in this graphic travelogue that depicts the cultural alienation, boredom, and desires of ordinary North Koreans. |
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