Asterios Polyp (Hardcover)

Even by the standards of the graphic novel, this cosmic epic pushes the creative envelope.With previous credits including superheroes for Marvel Comics and the transformation of Paul Auster's City of Glass into a graphic novel (2004), Mazzucchelli returns with a title that suggests a mid-period Pink Floyd song and an illustrated narrative that is every bit as mind-blowing. It begins with a bolt of lightning that destroys the New York City apartment of the title character, a pompous academic who is celebrated (or who celebrates himself) as a "paper architect." He draws plans for buildings that will never be built, and his theories inform many of the panels, rendering them as the graphic equivalent of metafiction, design about design. For many pages at a stretch there are few or no words, as a single panel might stretch across a page or two. Yet the narrative functions something like memory, flitting from the present - in which Polyp finds work in a small-town auto shop, after losing everything in his apartment fire, and inserts himself within a community that proves surprisingly accommodating - through critical junctures of his past. It seems that Polyp was actually a twin, and that his stillborn brother might be providing narration. He has also somehow married a beautiful, talented, Japanese-American artist named Hana, though something went wrong with the marriage well before the lightning bolt. In this graphic novel of fate, chance and shooting stars, Polyp insists that "I am the hero of my own story," yet the art provides plenty of evidence to the contrary.A visual and even philosophical stunner. (Kirkus Reviews)

The triumphant return of one of comics' greatest talents, with an engrossing story of one man's search for love, meaning, sanity, and perfect architectural proportions. An epic story long awaited, and well worth the wait.
Meet Asterios Polyp: middle-aged, meagerly successful architect and teacher, aesthete and womanizer, whose life is wholly upended when his New York City apartment goes up in flames. In a tenacious daze, he leaves the city and relocates to a small town in the American heartland. But what is this "escape" really about?
As the story unfolds, moving between the present and the past, we begin to understand this confounding yet fascinating character, and how he's gotten to where he is. And isn't. And we meet Hana: a sweet, smart, first-generation Japanese American artist with whom he had made a blissful life. But now she's gone. Did Asterios do something to drive her away? What has happened to her? Is she even alive? All the questions will be answered, eventually.
In the meantime, we are enthralled by Mazzucchelli's extraordinarily imagined world of brilliantly conceived eccentrics, sharply observed social mores, and deftly depicted asides on everything from design theory to the nature of human perception.
"
Asterios Polyp" is David Mazzucchelli's masterpiece: a great American graphic novel.

General

Imprint:	Alfred A Knopf
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Pantheon Graphic Library
Release date:	July 2009
First published:	July 2009
Authors:	David Mazzucchelli
Dimensions:	269 x 200 x 30mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	344
ISBN-13:	978-0-307-37732-6
Categories:	Books > Fiction > Special features > Graphic novels Promotions
LSN:	0-307-37732-6
Barcode:	9780307377326

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