My New York Diary by Julie Doucet – considered a classic graphic novel, included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list - 8 out of 10

 

My New York Diary by Julie Doucet – considered a classic graphic novel, included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list

 

8 out of 10

 

I am not a fan of graphic novels, although their brevity makes them easy to read – sure, there would be very long ones out there, but the few included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read are accessible – and then it helps that we can see the rooms, people, background, and we get into the atmosphere, maybe we should call them immersive

 

Then the conclusions are simple, based on what you prefer, Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/12/memoirs-by-kingsley-amis-author-of-take.html had trouble with Joyce (I do too), Proust (one of my favorites), Lawrence (I agree), Updike, Bellow and Nabokov, so ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’

Julie Doucet writes about herself, and the first part is about her days in Montreal, when the characters seemed outré, asking to go to the park, then there is no beer, so this is fine so far, but then this fellow, keeps on about being to the hospital, but he is all right, he can still…get it up, he has had an operation, but it is all good

 

Not that our heroine cares, but she wants to meet people, being in a convent, she had not had the chance to meet any boys, and those we can see, there are drawings of them, this being a graphic novel, are commenting on the convent…’I bet she never went all the way, then I bet she never kissed, but she says yes’

However, one of them talks about kissing with the tongue – we do have this erotic, perhaps, element in there, she will be nude, having sex, the New York boyfriend will take photos of her in the nude, and then later on talk about masturbating to them, when she refuses to have sex, so there is this sexual atmosphere…

 

The main character then goes to the place of one who looks rather old to me, but maybe I just do not interpret those graphics correctly, and then she is about to see his paintings, and one thing leads to another, there is the intimacy element I have just mentioned, and they have sex, she is curious, has not had it yet

It appeared somewhat troubling that the (old?) guy keeps on about ‘not having that in mind’, ‘I swear I did not have that in mind’ – in the old days, we had here this stupid theory, that one has to go easy, and the ‘scheme’ was in these words – you keep trying to seduce, making it come ‘naturally’ and then she will ask

 

‘What are you doing?’ and you insist it is ‘nothing’, while things move forward, but that was because they wanted to be assured, they want a fellow who is an expert, he knows how to smooth his way and so on…this was at a time when boys were meant to be what, sexist, chauvinist, and all the rest, that was the ‘lesson’ for them

 

The young woman says ‘she felt nothing’, but still, was rather satisfied with ‘not being a baby anymore’ she had had sex (if we could call it that, seeing the lack of emotions, sensations, well, anything pleasurable) then it is art class, which is not what she expected, but eventually, it will be her career, we can see that

She is a successful author, and those classes must have helped, there is evidence, what we discover in Outliers https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/05/outliers-by-malcolm-gladwell.html the classic by Malcolm Gladwell

 

The magic formula is ten thousand hours of practice, exercise over ten years, which translates into three hours every day, and then if you have talent, and meet some other conditions, you can be at the very top, the cases of Mozart, Beatles, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and others are analyzed, plus the culture of Asia and the focus on work

While in the West (which for this purpose included Russia) the most important crops would be maize, wheat, which require effort from spring to autumn, but then farmers could relax somewhat, in large parts of Asia, the main resource had been for millennia rice, which is very demanding, you need to give it attention and work always!

 

Let me come back to Julie Doucet, who gets close to this philosophy student who knows all about the world, and describes the catastrophe awaiting the world, nuclear Armageddon, one colleague is so bizarre that he takes a bath, puts the dishes in the used water, in order to avoid wasting hot water, which is not the only delicate detail

Further on, the heroine is out, and she is bleeding, with just some toilet paper, so we have that award detail, but hey, this is modern, genuine, right, feminist too, not for the ultra-conservative, Orange Jesus or Vance types, true was not really crazy about that special aspect, but there is another gloomy side…

 

Julie suffers from epilepsy and she has seizures, at one time, there is one when she is taking a bath, and thus this quite repellent boyfriend claims that he saved her life, came to see about her, and she was about to drown…nevertheless he is one God damn negative personage, keeps doing drugs, wants to keep her when she is already beyond it

He has no money, takes some part time jobs painting apartments, insists on living in a dangerous, ugly part of New York, and threatens suicide, even makes some cuts to his wrists, he looks like taking her down with him, unless she does something drastic and escapes, moves out, which she writes about, but does not do…

 

At least for some time, maybe she will get the courage, she also feels pressure, because this boyfriend uses blackmail, he could not live without her (obviously, he can and will, finding a new girlfriend very fast) but she might escape…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”