Describe Containing Books Paul à Québec (Paul #6)
| Title | : | Paul à Québec (Paul #6) |
| Author | : | Michel Rabagliati |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 187 pages |
| Published | : | 2009 by la Pastèque |
| Categories | : | Sequential Art. Bande Dessinée. Graphic Novels. Comics. Fiction |
Michel Rabagliati
Paperback | Pages: 187 pages Rating: 4.41 | 1473 Users | 122 Reviews
Narrative In Pursuance Of Books Paul à Québec (Paul #6)
Rabagliati is a Montreal-based cartoonist and graphic designer who has been making these autobiographical comics for several years about a guy not named Michael, but Paul. I have been reading them very piecemeal, off and on, whenever one wanders into my library system. My system has five of them, so you can see what it is like to read the (semi)-autobiography of Michel Rabagliati. He also writes in French, with what I might call European sensibilities, so while he is a sensation along the lines of Hergé (Tintin) in French-speaking Canada, he is much less known here.This present volume was published originally in French (as they all are) as Paul à Québec in 2009, they take their sweet-assed European time getting translated, there's no hurry, we have two hour lunches to take, we have wine and espresso to get through and we need to read the Montreal papers throughly with the wine and coffee . . . and then, is there any interest in the U. S.? Can we find a publisher that even wants to invest in art/memoir comics where little happens?
So it's like all great European comics, it's 2012 before it gets published in English with a different title. In 2013 it arrives in my library system, in a library twenty miles from my house and it looks like I am the first person to crack this book 3 years later! Doesn't it feel like some story out of Nanook of the North or something, one of a lonely writer's lonely text read by one lonely old guy in Chicago? And this guy is freaking FAMOUS in French Canada, he's the Canadian TinTin!
This particular missive from the Great White North is about Roland, Paul's father-in-law, his life and dying and death, a biography that would seem to be a gift for his family, especially his wife and his one daughter who is almost silent and hardly a character throughout who emerges evocatively as a quiet character whose silent image--wearing grandpa's cap--concludes the book.
The Song of Roland, by a different author, is something English majors might have encountered in a Survey of British Literature course, maybe, though it is French, an epic poem of 11th century heroic deeds. It is the first and most outstanding example of chanson de geste, and the oldest surviving work of French literature. Themes include Chivalry, rules of battle, nurture & companionage, horses & swords, and so on.
French-Canadian Rabagliati's Song of Roland is sort of anti-epic, mock-heroic, about a regular guy who had a terrible upbringing, miraculously survived the streets to become a corporate executive, raised a few "rabbits" (what he calls his three daughters, and grandkids) and liked to play cards. Half of the book documents family get-togethers and Roland telling his life story to Paul, and the second half is about his cancer and dying and death. All feels familiar and NOT heroic. The art and story chronicle an everyman's life, as do all of the Paul stories. There are no trumpets announcing the arrival of a King. This is middle-class life, often without incident, told "without self-loathing" (I seem to recall that phrase from a blurb) as you get usually in memoir comics. You also have to go through 70-80 pages of Roland's slow dying, so don't look for a lot of laughs, but it has a sweetness to it. This memorializes what all humans have to do on this planet, as far as I can tell.
The Song of Roland features wonderfully done artwork, simple and maybe a touch sentimental in moments, but also committed to the every day. My favorite parts are the silent pages, that lift the narrative to poetry, like the breathtaking several page conclusion featuring Paul's daughter visiting Roland's gravesite and herself being visited by the ghost of Roland! (Sorry, spoiler, but as I am one of the few people who has even read this book in English--if you can trust Goodreads, and you can't--I have this feeling I am talking to 6 or 7 of us. . . .:)) Join us! I strongly recommend! But not for superhero escapes from life. This is slice of life comics. IN life, very much so.
Particularize Books Toward Paul à Québec (Paul #6)
| Original Title: | Paul à Québec |
| ISBN: | 2922585700 (ISBN13: 9782922585704) |
| Edition Language: | French |
| Series: | Paul #6 |
| Literary Awards: | Prix du Festival d'Angoulême for Prix du public (2010), Festival de la BD francophone de Québec 2010 - Grand prix de la ville de Québec - Meilleur album de langue française publié (2010), Joe Shuster Award for Cartonnist/Créateur (2010), Grand Prix du livre de Montréal Nominee (0), Prix Bédélys Québec (2009) |
Rating Containing Books Paul à Québec (Paul #6)
Ratings: 4.41 From 1473 Users | 122 ReviewsCriticize Containing Books Paul à Québec (Paul #6)
I received this comic book from a good friend from Canada for my birthday. It was a very thoughtful and appropriate comic for me. I'm an Oncology Nurse and this story is about a man who is dying from cancer and it was a touch of Canadian life (my friend's intent). It doesn't matter how many years I've seen cancer take another life, it still get me. And I teared up with this story too. The thing with this story, it gave you some of the worts too. Dying is ugly and this story gave you some of theThis volume in the Paul series deals with the death and dying of his father-in-law. A balance between the patient experience and the caregiver experience is presented and the passage of time speeds up and slows down appropriately. I liked that readers were getting to know Roland as Paul was getting to know Roland. Their relationship went through a significant change over the course of the book as, at first, Paul only knows Roland formerly, not even calling him by his first name, then Roland
A soft, slow and quotidian walk through the story of a man's life. The magic of this book is how it steadily envelopes you -- I'm still not sure how -- with snapshots of ordinary life and snatches of ordinary conversation so that you get to feel that you really know the man, Roland, and come to love all his quirks and bad temper and magnanimous spirit and love for his grandchildren, just as if you've really known him all your life, so that by the end of the book you are crying real tears of
Our Family has just recently experienced this ...being with and saying good bye to my Father In Law, it's extremely important, if possible, for the Family to be there both in life & death. A thank you to our Daughter for this meaningful gift.
The first 50 or so pages are uneventful, but when the titular character starts dying, things pick up. The rest of the book is spent detailing the final months of his life. Sad and touching, but it's not like there are any spectacular plot twists or major drama.
I finally picked up The Song of Roland by Michel Rabagliati. Ive read his work before and they have been saying this is his best work yet. Rabagliati is most famous for his fairly autobiographical Paul series, The Song of Roland being the story of the life of Pauls father-in-law. The original book is Paul a Quebec, and Im not quite sure why they took such liberties in the translation of the title, perhaps to make allusions to the epic poem of the same name? But, then why not do that in French as
I didn't think I was going to like this as much as I did. I'm happily surprised.
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