It might seem odd to you, dear reader, that this column that celebrates the smaller press and non-capes and tights related books has not yet discussed Craig Thompson’s latest effort, Habibi — especially after the original version of this column so heartily celebrated his last major effort, Blankets (back when this was just written by David and no one else).
The reason for that is quite simple: this book is so monumentally impressive, writing about it seems like a task beyond daunting.
I’m going to give it a shot anyway, after the cut.
I am probably the only person on the planet who thought Thompson’s Blankets was “just alright.” It’s not that I thought it was particularly bad, but given the immense hype surrounding the title, by the time I ended up with a copy in my hands I felt instead that I was reading a book going through the motions of events similar to those that all of us have lived at one point or another as opposed to something truly special. I’m told that this is partially the whole idea of the title anyway; that blatant familiarity of first love captured in such a raw form is what speaks to many of its readers, creating a personal relation to the book through the story. I suppose it was just bad timing on my part when I read it, then. Certainly if I was younger, it would’ve struck a much more raw emotional chord, but given the circumstances that found this book on my plate (which, really, was the result of “everyone is talking about this and telling me I should probably read it, so I should probably read it already”), I was left rather underwhelmed with it’s story content.
However, as much as I didn’t particularly care for the plot, what impressed me about Thompson was his impeccable understanding of how to shape the story. If you take out the plot entirely from Blankets and instead look at it as just a work of art, it’s rather impeccably beautiful. Thompson is able to draw some of the most fluid motions and emotive characters in his work, and where the story of Blankets lost me the visual component kept me throughout all 500 or so pages of it. That’s why I still recommend the book to friends who I know haven’t read it; it doesn’t really matter that I don’t like the story, because Thompson is still a rather impressive talent, and certainly one worth watching and following through his career.
Now we have Thompson’s latest effort: Habibi. For all intents and purposes, Habibi takes all of the faults that I had with Blankets, corrects them, and then ups the ante about a thousand fold, creating definition of what I could comfortably call a true graphic novel in today’s marketplace. Simply put, this is Craig Thompson’s true masterpiece, and if taking seven years is what it requires to put out a piece of art as beautiful as this, then it should be a requirement for all creators to take seven years minimum before putting out anything.
Habibi follows the tale of Dodola and Zam, two former child slaves growing up in the Middle East in an undefined period of somewhat assumed modern time. We follow both Dodola and Zam as unrelated young children in slavery to their eventual escape, resulting in their move to a boat resting solitary in the midst of the dunes. The story isn’t fully told in sequential order, however, as we also see Dodola and Zam when they’re older and separated for various reasons, each on their own journeys of growth both literal and spiritual. Interspersed with the tales of these two wanderers is a rich retelling of various Islamic myths, stories and legends from the Koran, which seeks to aid and enhance the story of Dodola and Zam, as well as the beautiful of infusion of Islamic culture with the use of religious geometry and calligraphy.
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To say that Habibi is rich in content is to put it quite lightly. Habibi is one of the most dense and interwoven graphic novel that I have ever come across, immediately drawing in the reader to this unfamiliar landscape of mythology and life in a foreign land. The story of Dodola and Zam is both brand new and familiar, as the various tales from the Koran (themselves fairly familiar to anyone with a tertiary knowledge of religious mythology) help bring to light some of the inspiration for Thompson in creating this tale. In the same way that Blankets found Thompson exploring the good and the bad of Christianity and coming up with a potent answer of how to celebrate religion in a cynical modern world, Habibi does the same for Islam (which is the fairly obvious modus operandi of the comic). For a culture so actively demonized within our own, Thompson manages to shine a light on a cultural element most wouldn’t think to explore, and the result is beautiful. The immediately recognizable tales with subtle differences are all incredibly poignant, and effectively put the average readers assumptions or prejudices aside in place of a more appreciative knowledge of foreign concepts.
It’s the rich culture behind Habibi that truly helps the book thrive. Heavily enveloped in very apparent research into the subject, Thompson lets his love of culture fly loose in Habibi, giving a down to Earth portrayal of life on the other side of the world with the utmost respect and purpose. At no point in reading Habibi does it seem like Thompson has any sort of apparent bias towards a foreign culture for better or for worse (despite a few obvious stereotypes at times). The book simply seeks to be as believable as possible, and it is. Habibi is a story that is effectively timeless, existing both in the past, in the present and within myths and legends. That is the ultimate success of Habibi — in a book filled and bursting at the seams with culture, Thompson has in turn created his own mythic tale of love and family in the dunes.
Even beyond that, the story of Dodola and Zam is rather beautiful. Where Blankets found Thompson relating a more auto-biographical tale, Dodola and Zam’s is brand new and just as (if not more so) lovely. The relationship between Dodola and Zam is complex, ever evolving throughout the book and constantly reminding the reader of inherent human flaws within us all. We follow the two through densely rich lifetimes, both making impossible decisions that require just as difficult actions, and the journey envelops the reader to such an extent that you feel as if you are going through the same emotional turmoil that the characters do as the story unfolds. Thompson’s Blankets had the obvious advantage of feeling real due to it’s inherent nature, but the story of Dodola and Zam feels real if only because it, like the legends surrounding and affecting it, becomes real as you read it.
Thompson lets his love of the visual medium sing within the pages of the book. Adopting different visual techniques per chapters and sequences (such as the sequence pictured above and to the left, which shows Dodola and Zam growing up in the boat), the book is richly engulfed in visual metaphor and layers that effectively enhance the experience of the story. Each legend from the Koran takes on its own life within the book, reflecting on the main story in unique ways that take the book beyond a novel and thrust it appropriately into the land of a grahpic novel. That’s perhaps one of the most interesting elements of Thompson’s story here; on the one hand, he has effectively written a novel and published it in comic form. However, where Thompson rises above the average layman in the world of comics is in his ability to utilize the visual medium as a device as important and effective as the written narrative. You simply can not have one without the other here: without the illustrations, Habibi is just a story, and without the story, Habibi is just a picture book (albeit beautiful). Putting the two components together creates this dynamo of emotional storytelling that says to all other books on the stand, “I am graphic novel. Hear me roar.” While that comment might seem obvious, try picturing Habibi as a film with live actors — it would just never work as potently as the book does.
Continued belowThompson even goes so far as to develop the book its own language. By adopting spiritual grids as a narrative device, playing with calligraphy as a visual device and surrounding pages of the book in impeccably designed borders, Thompson adds a new dimension to the book that can exist only within the visual medium. The book is a champion of design; from the very first page (picture below, to the right) to the very last, Thompson has crafted a layout that is just as important as the illustrations and the written narrative. That extra level of detail and effort on Thompson’s part sets him apart from the average comic storyteller, and truly enhances the reading experience.
It is a bit difficult to fully capture the importance of the visual components of the story beyond simply taking pages and thrusting them in the face of a potential reader. In fact, it is a bit difficult to write at all about Habibi in a manner that truly captures the emotional resonance the book immediately grasps hold of. However, from a mere personal experience, I find it quite easy to note that I can’t remember the last time a book so voraciously captured my attention and imagination. Given the amount of comics that I read on an average (weekly) basis, I do like to pretend that I have developed a rather specific/perhaps even slightly refined taste for what I like and what I don’t, yet even in that regard the average floppy I subscribe to comes and goes month in and month out, only demanding my attention for the amount of time that I sit and read it (outside of a few exceptions, of course). In the case of Habibi (which has the unfair advantage of being released as a graphic novel), the story was so powerful that I found myself reflecting on it long after I had put the book down, which I was only able to do for need of sleep or food, or that I had to do some real work. In fact, this article was written and rewritten, if only because I wasn’t sure if I could actively capture the quality of the book in the words I had written about it — but I have certainly done my best.
Habibi is a book that, in no shorter terms, demanded my attention and was not willing to let go until the last page was reached (something Blankets did not do for me), and for that it holds a special place in my heart, memory and shelf.
To put it fairly bluntly in closing, Habibi has taken in one fell swoop every possible award I could think to give for Book of the Year 2011. Telling a rich and multilayered story in a real but unfamiliar world full of culture and dramatic integrity, Habibi is one of those books that everyone should have read before the year is out. To do anything otherwise is to willfully remain ignorant of the capabilities of the sequential art medium, and anyone who pretends to enjoy comics even partially should be so lucky as to read a book like this in their lifetime.
To say this has quickly become a modern classic is to undersell it, but it’s certainly a start.
