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Loading... The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumbby R. Crumb
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Graphic novel depiction of the book of Genesis from the Hebrew Bible, done in black and white. Really brings the story to life though the characters and faces used are a bit grim. Of course, a great deal of interpretation goes into illustrating any text, and Genisis is no exception. This version makes it much harder to skim over passages, so I think reading it was one of the closest readings to the book I've ever done. It would be interesting to see a version of this for other books, too. This takes 'illuminated manuscript' to a whole other level. Monks of old would spend a lifetime carefully copying just the text, word for word, with frilly, intricate capital letters at the start of each chapter, sometimes depicting a single iconic scene. Crumb took five years and not only hand lettered the text of Genesis, but illustrated each verse in his own distinctive, detailed style. As a non-Christian, he approached the task not from a reverent point of view but as a straightforward illustration job. He studied three different translations and consulted biblical scholarship and archaeology to be sure that he understood the meaning behind the various words and that he got the architecture and clothing as close to historically accurate as possible. The result is an honest and beautiful illustration of the text. Nothing extra is added, and nothing is left out (when the text says that Lot's daughters get him drunk and have sex with him, he draws Lot's daughters getting him drunk and having sex with him). I wish he could have made it through the entire Pentateuch, or even just Revelations, but I can see not wanting to devote another 5 to 20 years to such a project, and of course the whole bible would take more than a lifetime at this level of detail, and I've heard him say in interviews that he has no intention of doing so. No doubt faithful to Genesis, but all that begatting--basically a recitation of names (for which Crumb supplies made-up, mainly bearded faces)--is no more interesting in comic form than in print. Not Crumb's fault, except for taking on this admittedly prodigious project. And given who he is and what he's done previously, you can't fault the reader for hoping Flaky Foont or Mr. Natural will appear in the next panel, to at least break up the unrelenting succession of flowing white-bearded patriarchs and their capricious god.
For all its narrative potency and raw beauty, Crumb’s “Book of Genesis” is missing something that just does not interest its illustrator: a sense of the sacred. It's a cartoonist's equivalent of the Sistine Chapel, and it's awesome. Crumb has done a real artist's turn here — he's challenged himself and defied all expectation. Genesis doesn't need an R. Crumb to provide perversity and failure. It's got enough all by itself. This is one reason that Crumb could play it straight with his art, no cloacal Snoid comedy, no gratuitous sex. Yes, there is sex -- men and women are shown discreetly coupling. But no irony, no joking around here. Just one pen-and-ink panel after another until Joseph -- he of the coat of many colors -- dies and the book ends. How strange it all is, how ordinary. How biblical, how Crumb. The power of "The Book of Genesis Illustrated" resides in Crumb's decision to play it straight, to frame this ancient creation myth on its own enduring terms.
References to this work on external resources.
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(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:47:07 -0400)
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