Daniel Clowes has already gotten some love here at Multiversity (you can check out Brian’s Friday Rec for “Wilson” over here), but I thought I’d add to Brian’s thoughts on one of Clowes’ earlier works, “Ghost World”. Like Brian, I encountered the book as a teenager and loved the bajeezus out of it — not to mention the movie, which I must have watched about fifteen times. I too revisited the comic later, and while I still loved the thing, found that the feeling wasn’t the same. Far from being a reflection of the comic’s quality, though, I think that this is a sort of side effect of the book’s greatest strength. Like Catcher in the Rye, “Ghost World” is an insider’s look at adolescence, a highly insular and eccentric look at the problems faced by one maladjusted teenager, Enid Coleslaw. It’s just so damned spot-on in the portrayal of that quiet angst that it kind of fails to compute with those of us who have managed to move past that way of seeing things.
At the same time, though (and this is what I think makes “Ghost World” such a great work overall, and still enjoyable once you’ve dropped that -teen from your age), it’s a portrait of a small town and its semi-suburban sprawl, as well as the odd ducks who inhabit it. The fresh-out-of-high-school Enid becomes obsessed with a a fake 50s diner and a sex shop, an astrologer and a couple who she’s sure are Satanists, and all the while we’re getting a good look through her eyes at what is truly weird — and, in a backward way, kind of awesome — about everyday life in a boring town. At core, Enid’s probably so into these things because they seem to reflect some originality of spirit, some kind of genuine impulse in a world with she mostly perceives, like Holden, as phony — but the beauty and strangeness that she frames for us hit home time after time. Enid’s got a keen eye, and after experiencing her perspective it’s hard to look at your own hometown the same way again.
Meanwhile, Rebecca acts as a neat foil to Enid, sharing her perspective at times but also calling her on her most extreme opinions and unfounded obsessions. The breakdown of their friendship is a kind of shadow drama overarching the whole story, as Rebecca adopts what could be a more grown-up way of seeing things — or a more staunch and unimaginative one.
The drama of the story wouldn’t be much, though, if it weren’t for the sheer verisimilitude of the thing. I can remember wondering when I first read it why Daniel Clowes knew how me and my best friends spoke and acted, and now, I think it’s a testament to Clowes’ genius that the work stays completely immersed in the world of its protagonists. It all crystallizes in the dialogue, which flows so naturally so that you can almost hear it — from Enid and Rebecca’s banter to the ranting of a local bigot.
It feels odd to address the art after rambling on so enthusiastically about the story, but the truth is that Clowes style is so subtle and so perfectly tailored for the ideas he’s addressing that it’s hard to separate the two. The most striking aspect of the art style in that respect is the character portrayals. Enid and Rebecca have realistic and variable expressions and gestures, and each of their overall looks changes subtly over the course of the narrative to reflect their changing perspectives. But the minor characters — particularly the oddballs — are broad, almost grotesque caricatures, bearing big bulging faces that jump right off the page. We’re seeing these people the way Enid (and sometimes Rebecca) see them, and they are fascinating. And then, of course, there’s the eerie limited colour scheme, just teal and white, reflecting Enid’s detachment and estrangement as well as lending the whole look a beautiful simplicity.
Really, the book holds together so well — even though it was published as a back-up story in “Eightball”, over the course of almost four years — that it’s hard not to think of it as a kind of monument or tribute, a teen story or an outsider’s tale or something else iconic like that. But looking it over again as a twenty-something, this book’s still got surprising range. It’s a character study and the story of a town, in addition to a story about a girl who doesn’t fit in. And, in that respect, I think you can say that “Ghost World” is a book for maladjusted teenage girls — so long as you’ll take into account, and I think after reading “Ghost World” you will, that there’s a maladjusted teenage girl in all of us.
