Snowspinner
07-04-2006, 09:34 PM
Let me start by clearing up some possible misconceptions.
1. The book definitely features Alice from Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, and Wendy from Peter Pan. These are not female characters that share the names.
2. The book focuses on retellings of their classic stories, only with the elements of the fantastic removed, and replaced with sexual awakenings. Captain Hook becomes a sexual predator with a deformed hand, the Scarecrow becomes a rather unintelligent farmhand, and the Red Queen becomes a dominatrix schoolteacher.
3. The book includes depictions of heterosexual and homosexual sex acts (Both M/M and F/F), threesomes, masturbation, anal, oral, manual, and vaginal sex, bestiality, pedophilia, and incest.
4. It is virtually impossible to answer the oft-asked question "does it glorify X." Alice, Dorothy, and Wendy are all screwed up people when the story begins. They have not coped well with their sexual awakenings. In fact, they were all, in one sense or another, traumatized by them. The book is largely the story of their reawakenings and their learning to deal with their pasts. So their experiences are neither glorified nor condemned.
And now, on to the key question... how is it?
Brilliant. The book is challenging, subtle, and interesting. Reading it on a computer screen - hardly the ideal form for comics - I devoured it in a single day. The book seems poised basically to do two things.
The first is to be erotic. And it is erotic. There are scenes that are, plain and simple, hot.
The second is to be difficult. And it is that as well. Fundamentally, the book is about sexual awakenings - the moment where we go from "innocent child" (If we ever are that, really) to being a sexual being. And the fact of the matter is, sexual awakenings are disturbing. They're things that happen to children, and we like to imagine children as... well... innocent and non-sexual. But they're also things that happen to everyone. And they're things that, after they happen, don't completely destroy childishness.
Lost Girls confronts us with that fact. It reminds us that there's not some magical moment where children become adults, are no longer childlike, and are then "allowed" to have sexualities. In fact, it forces us to confront this fact, by telling the story of sexual awakening through stories that are familiar to us as children's stories. It says, flat out, that sexual awakenings and going through the looking glass are basically the same thing. And it makes us see them, at least for a moment, as the same thing.
That's a heck of a hard thing to swallow. And Moore and Gebbie know it. But it makes for an interesting story. And, with Moore's adept writing and clever (and, as always, experimental) use of the medium, and Gebbie's rich, beautiful art, it's an important story.
It is a mistake, I think, to call the book shocking. It's even a mistake to call it controversial. I would call it challenging. It is a book that, once you read, you almost cannot help but debate. It is a book that confronts us about things that we, as a society, do not like to talk about. And it points out that our silence about them can be destructive. Its end claim is that the trauma and difficulty faced by its three protagonists was, at least in part, caused by the fact that exploration of their sexual desires and sexual lives was something that was denied to them. They could not talk about what had happened to them, and they could not share it. It's not until they meet each other, and do share their experiences - good and bad - that they are able to deal with their sexualities.
As a result, the book challenges us to talk about sex - to not hide behind the comforting illusion that children are innocent, adults are sexual, and it's possible to tell one from the other. And to acknowledge that sexuality is a big, complex thing that has more to it than "use a condom." As I said, a challenging book. And the challenge it gives is a big one.
But a damn good one, and a damn good book.
1. The book definitely features Alice from Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, and Wendy from Peter Pan. These are not female characters that share the names.
2. The book focuses on retellings of their classic stories, only with the elements of the fantastic removed, and replaced with sexual awakenings. Captain Hook becomes a sexual predator with a deformed hand, the Scarecrow becomes a rather unintelligent farmhand, and the Red Queen becomes a dominatrix schoolteacher.
3. The book includes depictions of heterosexual and homosexual sex acts (Both M/M and F/F), threesomes, masturbation, anal, oral, manual, and vaginal sex, bestiality, pedophilia, and incest.
4. It is virtually impossible to answer the oft-asked question "does it glorify X." Alice, Dorothy, and Wendy are all screwed up people when the story begins. They have not coped well with their sexual awakenings. In fact, they were all, in one sense or another, traumatized by them. The book is largely the story of their reawakenings and their learning to deal with their pasts. So their experiences are neither glorified nor condemned.
And now, on to the key question... how is it?
Brilliant. The book is challenging, subtle, and interesting. Reading it on a computer screen - hardly the ideal form for comics - I devoured it in a single day. The book seems poised basically to do two things.
The first is to be erotic. And it is erotic. There are scenes that are, plain and simple, hot.
The second is to be difficult. And it is that as well. Fundamentally, the book is about sexual awakenings - the moment where we go from "innocent child" (If we ever are that, really) to being a sexual being. And the fact of the matter is, sexual awakenings are disturbing. They're things that happen to children, and we like to imagine children as... well... innocent and non-sexual. But they're also things that happen to everyone. And they're things that, after they happen, don't completely destroy childishness.
Lost Girls confronts us with that fact. It reminds us that there's not some magical moment where children become adults, are no longer childlike, and are then "allowed" to have sexualities. In fact, it forces us to confront this fact, by telling the story of sexual awakening through stories that are familiar to us as children's stories. It says, flat out, that sexual awakenings and going through the looking glass are basically the same thing. And it makes us see them, at least for a moment, as the same thing.
That's a heck of a hard thing to swallow. And Moore and Gebbie know it. But it makes for an interesting story. And, with Moore's adept writing and clever (and, as always, experimental) use of the medium, and Gebbie's rich, beautiful art, it's an important story.
It is a mistake, I think, to call the book shocking. It's even a mistake to call it controversial. I would call it challenging. It is a book that, once you read, you almost cannot help but debate. It is a book that confronts us about things that we, as a society, do not like to talk about. And it points out that our silence about them can be destructive. Its end claim is that the trauma and difficulty faced by its three protagonists was, at least in part, caused by the fact that exploration of their sexual desires and sexual lives was something that was denied to them. They could not talk about what had happened to them, and they could not share it. It's not until they meet each other, and do share their experiences - good and bad - that they are able to deal with their sexualities.
As a result, the book challenges us to talk about sex - to not hide behind the comforting illusion that children are innocent, adults are sexual, and it's possible to tell one from the other. And to acknowledge that sexuality is a big, complex thing that has more to it than "use a condom." As I said, a challenging book. And the challenge it gives is a big one.
But a damn good one, and a damn good book.