Cathy Malkasian’s Temperance

by John Holbo on December 20, 2010

Here’s another best of 2010 comics entry for you. Cathy Malkasian’s Temperance [amazon] is like Franz Kafka’s The Castle meets Little House On the Prairie and goes drinking. No, it’s like rewriting Pinocchio as several Flannery O’Connor short stories, including (but not limited to) “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” and “Good Country People”. No, that’s not it either. Good thing there’s an 18-page preview from Fantagraphics (pdf). And here’s a very interesting interview with the author. She talks about how, in a strange way, this whole phantasmagoric nightmare tale is a meditation on the virtue of moderation. Strangely, that seems right.

A couple years ago I reviewed Malkasian’s first book, Percy Gloom, and said I liked it but felt the author could do even better. Well, I think Temperance is better. It’s not as funny. Percy was funny. But it feels – full and complete – whereas Percy felt like it wanted to be bigger and more serious, but wasn’t, and was sort of trying to compensate for that with the funny bits. Looking back, I notice that I said Percy Gloom – the character, an ‘aspiring cautionary writer’ – was a cross between Kafka’s Hunger Artist and Elmer Fudd. I probably should have added that he’s also a cross between Charlie Brown and the protagonist of Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts. If they went to Oz. At any rate, I am consistent in my sense that, somehow, Malkasian is Americanizing the Kafkaesque. Or perhaps I am merely so impoverished, adjectivally, that I fall back on that last refuge of the inarticulate scoundrel: ‘Kafkaesque’. Anyway, it’s weird as hell. This stuff.

{ 6 comments }

1

zhava 12.21.10 at 9:14 am

“Americanizing the Kafkaesque…”

It’s already been done. Check out Washington.

2

John Holbo 12.21.10 at 11:59 am

Well, yeah, but you’ve still got to write the fiction. That’s what we’ve got reality for, after all. To put it in books.

3

Shelley 12.21.10 at 5:47 pm

Speaking of gloom, apologies for being off-topic this once, but it might be a good time for us to do some Paul Revere-ing on the Internet–today the FCC is passing down the first of the Net Neutrality rulings. Al Franken on HuffPo (scroll down middle column there) says we should be outraged, and he doesn’t usually exaggerate. The Internet should not be headed toward corporate blogs buying the fast lane and the rest of us stuck in slow.

Not sure where to make our voice heard, by emailing the White House or maybe the FCC page with How To Make ECFS Express Comments? It might be good if non-corporate websites had a community way for us to alert each other when something important like this comes up. Please consider passing it on.

4

des von bladet 12.21.10 at 7:25 pm

like Franz Kafka’s The Castle meets Little House On the Prairie and goes drinking

I once saw Bleak House and The Mysterious Affair at Styles having a drunken brawl, which kind of soured me on drunk-building fiction. But thanks for the heads up.

5

zhava 12.21.10 at 9:09 pm

I’m a big Kafka enthusiast and Amerika is a great read. It began as a short story The Stoker and morphed into Der Verschollene or The Man Who Disappeared. It’s an unfinished novel but is the one fictional connection of Kafka to the emerging continent. Check it out.

Seasons greeting to Crooked Timber contributors and commentators.

6

Enid Ballard 12.24.10 at 1:12 pm

like Franz Kafka’s The Castle meets Little House On the Prairie and goes drinking I once saw Bleak House and The Mysterious Affair at Styles having a drunken brawl, which kind of soured me on drunk-building fiction. But thanks for the heads up.

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