Albert Monteys

I read Slaughterhouse-Five when I was in my teens or early twenties, and I mostly remember being annoyed by it, with its time slips and alien abductions. Either being older or, more likely, the extreme skill of this graphic novel adaptation has given me a new appreciation for Vonnegut's story. Darkly humorous and sadly still too timely.

Affrontare e riadattare un classico in versione graphic novel non è mai facile. Affrontare un testo difficile come Mattatoio n. 5 ancora meno. In mattatoio n. 5 c'è tantissimo, quando lo lessi pensai, anche troppo. C'è poi uno stile di narrazione quasi schizzofrenico, raccontato con un cinismo non particolarmente velato (così è la vita).
E qui, con grande sapienza da parte di chi ha adattato e chi ha disegnato, tanto di questo viene fuori: colori, uso sapiente di descrizioni e baloon, show more tavole con inserti a contrasto, ecc ecc.
Questo fumetto non fa dire assolutamente "era meglio il romanzo". Sono molto contenta di averlo letto e mi è venuta voglia di riprendere in mano nuovamente il romanzo, per cercare di percepire cose che forse, in quella prima lettura, mi erano sfuggite. show less

A Confederacy of Dunces is one of the stranger books in the American literary canon. It's a...polarizing satire full of awful and grotesque characters, and one that I find easier to admire than enjoy.

I was genuinely curious how the novel would translate to graphic novel, and I have to say that the illustrations are phenomenal. Monteys captures both the city and the characters well; in fact, the characters are so spot-on that people who have read Toole's novel will be able to tell who's who show more based solely on the drawings.

Where I think the graphic novel fails is in the telling of the tale. The text comes from the original novel, but so much is by necessity left out that most of the satire is just gone, leaving us with a book that feels devoid of purpose.

Received via NetGalley. show less

Slaughterhouse-Five, the Graphic Novel (2021) by Kurt Vonnegut, illustrated by Albert Monteys. This is a graphic novelization of Vonnegut’s brilliant anti-war story. Once again we follow Billy Pilgrim as he bounces about through both time and space. By now you have probably read the novel or seen the movie based on the novel, but if not this is an easy doorway into the story if you haven’t had the pleasure of either of those options.
The fictional Pilgrim, like the very real Vonnegut, show more was captured during World War Two and eventually delivered to Dresden, Germany. Dresden was supposed to not be a military target. There was no arms manufacturing complexes, vital services of any kind going on there, nor was there likely to be any time in the near future. Yet it was a target of the most massive firebombing of the war. The city was decimated, the population all but obliterated, and almost nothing but smoke and rubble left behind.
Out of the destruction crawled American prisoners and some of their captors. Vonnegut/Pilgrim survived but in the latter’s case, became unstuck in time. From this point on he ricochets through his life. Marriage, children, plane crashes, his optometry business, being taken by space travelers who experience all of time at the same moment, nothing is in sequence for him. Somehow Billy manages to manage to handle this discontinuity with a level of aplomb that is both surprising and admirable.
Our hero here is little more than a pinball, unable to control his destiny, but comes to accept it regardless. He is like you and me, but perhaps more accepting of his fate.
This adaptation of the novel is a worthy addition to both Vonnegut’s legacy and Albert Montey’s resume. show less