The First Step Through the Wall

Imagine, after a night of exhausting work, crawling into bed and drifting away. A dream begins, and it’s your average subconscious compilation of past and present, but after a day or so (dream-time?) it contorts into bizarreness. Lamps reciting John Donne, television sets vomiting the remnants of your sixth-grade homework, your college professor ferrying your classmates across the River Acheron; anything goes. This persists for sometime before your body finally rebels and you jump out of bed, grasping your table lamp around its ‘neck’ to choke out its endless poetry. Three seconds later you relax your grip and realize that you’re okay, and your lamp is as lifeless as it has always been. Welcome to the art of Salvador Dali.

I grew up hearing about Dali, his Persistence of Memory, and surrealism, but I didn’t see my first Dali painting until I was sixteen. I had always liked the ‘idea’ behind paintings, but I didn’t fully comprehend it. My art teacher would try to persuade us of important qualities in art, but I still only saw paintings as paintings. Rembrandt’s The Night Watch was nothing more than a pretentious photograph of outdated men standing around talking. It was of little importance to me when I saw Dali’s Persistence of Memory because I couldn’t see beyond the melting clocks; I couldn’t prescribe any meaning to the painting other than what I could see. It wasn’t until two years later, when my art teacher showed our class the Temptation of St. Anthony, that I actually hesitated and thought about what I was seeing. I remember thinking that it wouldn’t have been the same if Joseph Conrad had written a description of the same images, however eloquent and precise his writing was. The legs of the animals were like stilts trailing off into wispy threads, the altar atop an elephant in the background shone with a brilliant golden aura that drew your gaze to the center of the painting, the defiant tilt of the white horse’s head frozen in place emphasized the immortal moment they were caught in. This was a static image, but this was evocative imagery, this was art.

But why did I react so strongly to a painting? I had never felt this way about a film, or even a book (and I read constantly). Sure, I had defining moments in film and literature, but my reaction to The Temptation of St. Anthony was revolutionary. The story in that painting was there, in one frame. What differentiates a painting from a book or a film is the construction of meaning around that one image. Dali was able to incorporate his symbolism directly — through images augmented by color and texture. No dialogue, no fade-outs, just the sensation of an eternal moment. I was engaged in a medium through only my eyes — all sound and movement had to be imagined. This isn’t just true for Dali — all paintings are engaging to a degree. Sometimes paintings aren’t laden with symbolism; they’re exactly what they show. But others require patient participation and a careful eye; otherwise we might miss the opportunity to understand what they really are.

Overboard by Chip Denham

There is little doubt that Americans have a soft spot for pirates. Children have always dressed as pirates for Halloween and adolescents have adopted the quirky and cliché buccaneer jargon. Just look at the film, Pirates of the Caribbean — it’s one of the most successful films of the decade. Chuck Denham knew he was dealing with a familiar subject when his strip, Overboard, made its debut in 1990. But he added an interesting and humorous twist to the world of pirates — mediocrity.

Denham’s pirates are average, run of the mill people, whose greatest struggle is their own incompetence. They often suffer the ridicule of their green-garbed rival pirates and endure the frequent rejections of the women they seek. The most intelligent member of the crew isn’t even human — Captain Crow’s dog, Louie, often outsmarts the other pirates. The strip is anachronistic, often portraying its characters in modern situations. For example, one strip shows the Captain loading a washing machine onboard after dirty Louie had soiled his bed sheets.

Denham’s humor, though sarcastic at times, isn’t dripping with satire. Overboard is a skillful balance wit and slapstick, providing an accessible and widely appealing strip. The art of Overboard is relatively simple and utilizes round, curved lines to convey a comical atmosphere. Denham uses the same facial design for all characters, even the animals, providing a uniform look. This gives characters like Louie more emphasis and enables them to take on as equally fulfilling roles as their human counterparts. Also, Denham isn’t afraid to breach the third wall, and often includes himself in strips. His interaction with his characters adds an extra element. There are few situations as humorous as seeing Captain Crow erased from the comic because of a scathing comment directed at the artist.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Ken Follett is no stranger to the espionage novel — he’s churned several best-selling thrillers that display his mastery of suspense. His subjects have ranged from bio-terrorism in Scotland to crime trafficking in Victorian England to covert operations in Nazi Germany. His true masterpiece, however, takes readers beyond global intrigue and espionage and into the long-past realm of medieval England. The Pillars of the Earth is historical fiction, like many of Follett’s novels, but deviates from his usual thriller formula. Instead, it is a multi-perspective simulation of what life was possibly like in the 12th century. Follett’s tale is realistically bleak, utilizing the harsh language, Byzantine politics, and chaotic behavior of the time. Death is prominent and cruel characters are abounding. Follett even details, in his own creatively gruesome method, the death of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The move is bold — retelling history is a tricky endeavor — but offers a dramatic twist to a highly relevant historical event.

What separates The Pillars of the Earth from other historical novels is not its realism, but the skillful weaving of multiple tales into one larger chronicle. There are multiple protagonists, each with their own deliberate goal and obstacle. Tom Builder, a mason with a dream to construct a massive cathedral, struggles to find work to keep his impoverished family from starving. Philip, a clever country clergyman, is given the task of maintaining a run down priory in Kingsbridge and must transform the church estate into a profitable asset. Aliena, the daughter of the Earl of Shiring, is flung unto the streets and forced to sustain her younger brother, an aspiring squire, after her father is overthrown by a greedy neighboring lord.

Through the course of the novel, Follett forces the reader to relive a chaotic world in which uncertainty dominates the society and politics of the time. Characters are dynamic in the strictest sense of the word, displaying a broad range of emotions typical of human personality. The feral and awkward child, Jack, is tamed by his adoration of the heiress Aliena. Through a series of encounters with Tom Builder, Jack eventually becomes his apprentice, inheriting Tom’s dream of becoming a master architect. The story’s main antagonist, William, is dastardly through and through, but struggles with the prevailing faith of the time through his morbid and disheartening fear of the horrors of Hell. Philip, who is outwardly warm, hospitable, and religious, develops ambition and is forced to adopt a sterner attitude to match the anarchy of the 12th century. At 973 pages, Follett’s novel is epic — he details their struggles and interactions in a storyline that spans nearly half a century. With the exception of an unexpected shift in protagonists, the story is seamless, offering a balanced blend of suspense, drama, action, politics and history while maintaining a thought-provoking plot. There are more than a few decent historical accounts of the medieval period, but few match the masterful storytelling in The Pillars of the Earth.

 

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