Guldemond, Marcel – Aporiatica

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Aporiatica

I usually don’t have to come up with a reaction to a book I just read, it’s already there. I liked it, I didn’t like it, or I was indifferent to at least some degree, those are the usual options. When I was done with this one I had a different reaction completely. Have you ever been at a play, or a spoken word show, or a comedy club of some kind, and had the performer or performance end before you were ready for it? The show was over, the curtain came down or whatever, and you were left feeling… incomplete, I guess? That was the feeling I had after most of the stories in this one. Everybody else was clapping and I was just left there wondering about what I’d just read. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, but this definitely falls under the category of a book that I would enjoy immensely under an ideal set of circumstances. A certain clarity of thought is needed to really get this book, and that’s something I’ve been sadly lacking in the past few weeks, or some would say forever. Here’s the website before I continue, because I’m completely aware that nobody is going to know what I’m talking about until they read some of his stuff. The critics are right, he does have a unique approach to graphic art. He has a lyrical, poetic quality to his writing and art that almost everybody is lacking, or at least they communicate it in a different way. There’s a story in here about himself as an old man (maybe), another man having a normal start to the day, poems and drawings in the end, an essay on Borges’ work with all kinds of other stuff going one, and one that has a little to do with Orpheus. Maybe I should hire somebody to write for this site who has some communication skills… Anyway, this really is a unique experience. I recommend reading it on a day when everything seems to come into focus.

My main man Mike Bradecich has posted a rebuttal to my review of this book. Maybe he’s right, maybe I gave the guy too much credit. Maybe I’ll read it again at some point and tear it a new one, or maybe I’ll read it again and tear Mike’s review a new one, or maybe I’ll never read it again� I do remember that the poems in the end kind of bugged me though, I don’t think I mentioned that before. Anyway, without further ado:

AN open letter to Whitey: I don't think you should be so eager to place the blame on your own clarity of mind for feeling unfulfilled by APORIATICA. I found what samples I read of the book to be, more than likely, cryptic for the sake of sounding vaguely important. Like the movie musicals of the middle portion of the century, a string of random (but pleasing to the artist) images (as opposed to songs) were tied together in an all but haphazard manner. Then a concerted, but still forced-seeming, "plot" was created to act as a weak adhesive between the separate pieces as little more than an afterthought.

However, in the role of self-imposed devil's advocate, there are three reasons I would urge the reader to accept my comments with a grain of salt: first; I credit the original reviewer of this book with the necessary intellect to realize that this half-hearted attempt at plot and structure was just that, were it the case. and, had he found it to be so, he would have so stated. I will even go so far as to disregard the insecure modesty with which he assumes the fault lies with his interpretation, rather than placing the blame on the material itself for its vagaries.
Second, I have seen only a portion of the piece, and a very small one, so I have no fair concept of what the context of that limited material might be.
Thirdly, I am quite intoxicated and incapable of even undoing my own trousers before defecating. And my grandma told never to trust a drunk with poop in his pants, so there you go.