Week 11 - “To Be Fair, You Have To Have a Very High IQ to Understand [Asterios Polyp]”

I skimmed through Fun Home and Are You My Mother by Alison Bechdel, as well as Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli, decided to read the latter in its entirety, and completely regretted it.

I gravitate towards the quiet introspection of lots of mature comics, which is what pulled me into Alison Bechdel's work. I thought the same for Asterios Polyp, as the beautiful colors and thoughtful compositions was what guaranteed so. But the nature of Asterios Polyp is just plain obnoxious.

I’m going to talk about how much I hate Asterios Polyp. The tone is consistently exclusive, self-righteous, and pretentious. But wait, isn’t that the whole point of the story? Yes, but it's excessive.

Asterios Polyp interpreted life through principles and dualities. He spent his entire life thinking about what could have been if his brother had been born instead. By the end of the story, he begins to accept reality for what it is and not in theories… but he’s still unlikeable because the only person he really redeems himself to is Hana. He never questions how his obsession with duality has warped his entire view of the world or how he patronizes people.

The dialogue between the smartie-smarts in this comic is a real test of patience. I understand there is a time and place for sophisticated conversation, but every person with an expertise in this comic is so mind-numbingly unbearable. The problem with Asterios Polyp is that the entire story relies on the subtlety and nuance in the dialogue, which is supposed to foreshadow what’s to come, which is awful because dialogue should be a device that aids the visuals, and not the other way around. There’s just too much symbolism in pompous dialogue because there’s not enough actual substance that drives the plot forwards.

(Disclaimer: I get super personal and super triggered.)

Asterios renaming his wife “Daisy” is a total bigot move. He reinvents her name to give her a more dignified identity. Rather than accepting it as it is, he genuinely believes he’s doing a service for her, because he calls her by that name the entire time. The worse part is that Hana never makes any notion of disliking that.

I just hate Hana with my entire being. She’s not endearing to me. Her logic is twisted. It’s weird how the director’s perverted gestures towards her totally freaked her out, but when Asterios made up pretentious excuses for filming their sex life, she somehow sympathizes with that sentiment. Well, a pervert is still a pervert, regardless of occupation.

Also, “looking for a white knight” is not a personality trait. She knows she’s surrounded by jerks, yet she finds Asterios “different” and finds flimsy excuses to work for that creep of a dance director. She doesn’t want attention, but she is desperate for affirmation. She wants to be appreciated as a person, not as an artist. While I can empathize with those feelings, she’s still a weak, pathetic person. She’s insecure when no one actively defends her, yet she doesn’t want to recognize her worth. She could have been a character of redemption, but it’s Mazzucchelli’s fault for reducing Hana to a weak “exotic dream girl” stereotype who can never stand up for herself.

What defines a literary piece of work is a bit vague. Just as long as it has words that form an idea in a lyrical sense, I think even scribbly 4-panel comics can be a literary piece. To add on, a work worthy of literary merit should “stand the test of time, have emotional complexity, and concern with the truth”. So yes, they are… but even those evaluations are subjective.