HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

The Man Without Talent by Yoshiharu Tsuge
Loading...

The Man Without Talent (edition 2020)

by Yoshiharu Tsuge (Auteur), Ryan Holmberg (Traduction)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1445188,433 (4.03)1
"Yoshiharu Tsuge is one of the most celebrated and influential comics artists, but his work has been almost entirely unavailable to English-speaking audiences. The Man Without Talent, his first book to be translated into English, is an unforgiving self-portrait of frustration. Swearing off cartooning as a profession, Tsuge takes on a series of unconventional jobs--used-camera salesman, ferryman, stone collector--hoping to find success among the hucksters, speculators, and deadbeats he does business with. Instead, he fails again and again, unable to provide for his family, earning only their contempt and his own. The result is a dryly funny look at the pitfalls of the creative life, and an off-kilter portrait of modern Japan. Accompanied by an essay from the translator Ryan Holmberg which discusses Tsuge's importance in comics and Japanese literature, The Man Without Talent is one of the great works of comics literature."--Provided by publisher.… (more)
Member:Jess_M
Title:The Man Without Talent
Authors:Yoshiharu Tsuge (Auteur)
Other authors:Ryan Holmberg (Traduction)
Info:New York Review Comics (2020), Edition: 01, 240 pages
Collections:Your library, Currently reading, To read, Read but unowned, Favorites
Rating:
Tags:to-read

Work Information

The Man Without Talent by Yoshiharu Tsuge

None
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 1 mention

English (4)  French (1)  All languages (5)
Showing 4 of 4
I meant to write more of a review of this when I finished it but just haven't gotten around to it. In lieu of that longer "real" review I'll just jot down that I like the way this comic explores how humans have all kinds of strange interests and things they would like to pursue in life that are in no way compatible with profitability, and how being forced to live under capitalism gives those people (and the communities that form around interests of a similar nature) no outlet or opportunity to do so. ( )
  bmanglass | Aug 31, 2023 |
Velleità, speranza, delusione, pigrizia, disperazione: queste alcune delle sensazioni e situazioni che Tsuge sa raccontare perfettamente per immagini, spesso - pare - facendo riferimento alla propria vita. Divise in più capitoli come spesso accade per i manga il libro tratteggia un protagonista tanto inetto quanto memorabile, in cui può forse riconoscersi chiunque abbia cullato qualche desiderio o aspirazione senza la necessaria capacità e convinzione. Molto bello l'uso del disegno, "pulito" o "sporco" a seconda della finalità, così come alcune scelte "psicologiche" (per esempio la moglie sempre vista di spalle nel primo racconto). ( )
  d.v. | May 16, 2023 |
How do you study the nothingness of one's self? How do you disappear completely? To be the man without talent would leave you rejected by society. Societal rejection would be like disappearing into nothing, no? Even in this state we could run away from our lives, vanish completely like the transient, ephemeral clouds of yesterday.

Without guidance, we are wanderers, and slowly unloved and rejected as our lives carry no purpose. Even as we work, if all efforts only lead to disappointment, of failed promises, we still carry that societal rejection. In a sense, however, Tsuge manages to achieve such rejection out of naivete. He was destined to be a failure, yet fails to notice it. And so, he endures as all other nothings do, filling the populace, living without expectations, and forgotten, both to history and everyone he knows; all he has left are his nobody friends and nobody family.

Our lives are ultimately nothing, and as we search for our home, one day we will learn that the only true home that may be found in the ultimate nothingness.

"From somewhere
I hear a crane's cry - but where?
Such is the mist"

e: I don't think this is much of a bad thing. Being alone does not make you lonely. If you were rejected by society, made to disappear into nothing, then it's your responsibility to have your presence known. Hell, do you know how nice it is to be useless every once in a while? To just lay down and not have any expectations put on you? I don't suggest it as a way of living, of course, but we need to disappear every once in a while and enjoy that little death nothingness can gift us.

Furthermore, the act of disappearing suggests that there was a point in which their presence WAS known. Even the forgotten poet had a book published, which was still being read after his death; even Tsuge's friends had semi-working businesses before they fell out of favor; even Tsuge himself has made comics that are still revered to this day, have sold repaired cameras to those in need, had given piggy-back rides to those who wanted to ford over the river, before he tanked in the rock-selling business. They existed!!!! They existed, they did things for people, and their impact is still felt, even if as subtlety and unnoticeable as possible.

I understand the fear of disappearing is very tangible. Everyone wishes that their lives contained meaning, to express it in their labor, and to communicate with others to both feed off of their insight and seek consolidation, recognition of their efforts. But how, in any realistic sense, could someone disappear? I find it unlikely, or captured in systematic oppression, where entire political structures build themselves to oppose a certain person or group, but that's not what Tsuge was expressing. He was looking for the disappearance of a individual through his own efforts, and that I cannot see. ( )
  AvANvN | Mar 27, 2023 |
Fictionalized autobiographical stories revolving around pathetic middle-aged men and the wives who hate them for being such losers. Apparently this sort of navel gazing is its own genre in Japan -- called I-novel or shishosetsu -- and this is the seminal work of one of its most lauded creators.

It might appeal to fans of Chris Ware or Robert Crumb, I suppose, but not to me. ( )
  villemezbrown | Feb 6, 2020 |
Showing 4 of 4
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Information from the Italian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Alas, I have been reduced to selling stones.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

"Yoshiharu Tsuge is one of the most celebrated and influential comics artists, but his work has been almost entirely unavailable to English-speaking audiences. The Man Without Talent, his first book to be translated into English, is an unforgiving self-portrait of frustration. Swearing off cartooning as a profession, Tsuge takes on a series of unconventional jobs--used-camera salesman, ferryman, stone collector--hoping to find success among the hucksters, speculators, and deadbeats he does business with. Instead, he fails again and again, unable to provide for his family, earning only their contempt and his own. The result is a dryly funny look at the pitfalls of the creative life, and an off-kilter portrait of modern Japan. Accompanied by an essay from the translator Ryan Holmberg which discusses Tsuge's importance in comics and Japanese literature, The Man Without Talent is one of the great works of comics literature."--Provided by publisher.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (4.03)
0.5
1
1.5 1
2 1
2.5 1
3 7
3.5 2
4 15
4.5 3
5 14

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,187,695 books! | Top bar: Always visible