BOOK REVIEW: Black Water Lilies by Michel Bussi; Adapted by Fred Duval

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Black Water LiliesBlack Water Lilies by Fred Duval
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Release date: October 11, 2022

This is a murder mystery novel by Michel Bussi adapted into a graphic novel. It’s a bold move to transform it into a graphic novel because the story is so setting-dependent, that setting being the timeless tourist village of Giverny in France, a village that served as the model for many of the paintings of Monet. That said, the book worked for me. I found it engrossing from cover to cover.

A trio of police detectives arrives in Giverny to investigate the death of a man who was stabbed and subsequently bludgeoned, his corpse found in a picturesque stream. So, one has this small town where everyone knows everyone else — and the secrets and the rumors, except these outsider detectives who must learn what they can from questioning locals who are used to keeping things to themselves. The detectives aren’t even clear about whether the victim was done in by his womanizing, his attempts to acquire rare paintings, or some unknown cause. Therefore, they have to purse multiple lines of investigation at the same time.

I found the story to be well-crafted in terms of how information is concealed and revealed and how the loose-ends and anomalies are tied up in the end. The art is beautiful and green, and captures the scenic appeal of Giverny. Though I should note that I don’t read many mysteries and those who do and who have intense attention to detail might find problems that I missed altogether.

I’d highly recommend book. Those with an interest in art will find the book particularly intriguing.


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Into the Light [Free Verse]

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crawling from the cave,
like Plato's untethered shadow man

a portal to perfection,
as perfect as anyplace can be:
meaning, it has depth
&
credibility

the day is cloudy,
and yet it's blinding,
blinding to eyes attuned to 
the light of dancing orange flames,
flames seen secondhand --
bounced off a wall,
a dark, dank wall

what amazing sights
must there be -
out there

don't disappoint me
now

DAILY PHOTO: Crane Fountain, National Orchid Garden

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Taken in Singapore at the National Orchid Garden of the Singapore Botanic Gardens; October 2016

Snail Stealth [Haiku]

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snail on a stone wall
remains still for hours on end;
on my next pass, gone

The Optimist [Limerick]

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A man laid down with a wound to the head.
The doctor claimed he was already dead.
"It's really not so bad.
This one time I had
two swords in my brain," the optimist said.

DAILY PHOTO: A Few Prominent Buildings of Washington DC

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The Whitehouse; Taken in May of 2009
Smithsonian Institution; May 2009
Library of Congress; May 2009
Lincoln Memorial; May 2009
Federal Reserve; May 2009

Abbey Moon [Haiku]

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Kirkstall Abbey by Moonlight; Walter Linsley Meegan
(1899)
moonlight dances
upon the gliding waters,
before stout ruins

BOOK REVIEW: Bolero by Wyatt Kennedy

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BoleroBolero by Wyatt Kennedy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Release date: August 2, 2022

This speculative fiction graphic novel follows a struggling millennial, Devyn Dagny, as she leaps through parallel universes in search of a better life. This plot device, being presented with a key that allows one to escape one’s current world and try others on for size, is a brilliant way to show that one can’t fix one’s life by changing one’s scenery — one has to change one’s self. Otherwise, attempts to escape are just exercises in Einsteinian insanity (i.e. doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.)

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel this was the lesson conveyed. It seemed like the lesson in question was that it’s impossible to escape one’s history and that world-hopping in the hope that some external environment will align to make everything perfect is a valid approach. In the back-matter there’s a line written by the book’s artist (Luana Vecchio) that says, “Most of our traumas come from our parents.” That philosophy explains the story arc without character growth. Nothing is my fault, everything is my parents’ fault — ergo, I’ll forever be broken unless someone else can come along and make everything alright for me.

I will admit that I might have missed the intended point of the story because the book reads chaotically. It’s not so much the jumps between parallel worlds, but jumps around in time and in relationships.

The art was nicely drawn. There may have been palette changes to distinguish different times and / or worlds, but besides the red of the interdimensional space, I couldn’t keep them straight – i.e. there were either too many different palettes or they lacked distinction. Am I in a flashback, a flashforward, and alternate dimension? I couldn’t always tell.

I have mixed feelings about this one. Some will love it and others will find it frustrating. The premise and much of the execution was splendid, but the helter-skelter feel and missed opportunities for character development and growth resulted in a dissatisfaction.


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Lightning Strike [Haiku]

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Oak Fractured by Lightning; Maxim Vorobiev (1824)
shapeless darkness
erupts in blinding form
for an instant