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WORK TITLE: Thoreau: A Sublime Life
WORK NOTES: with A. Dan, trans by Peter Russella
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1985
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: French
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/l/le-roy_maximilien.htm * http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/contributor/maximilien-le-roy * http://blogcritics.org/graphic-novel-review-thoreau-a-sublime-life-by-maximilien-le-roy-and-a-dan/ * http://comicsworthreading.com/2016/05/18/thoreau-a-sublime-life/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born November 29, 1985, in Paris, France.
EDUCATION:Attended School of Applied Arts.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
WRITINGS
Author of other graphic biographies and novels, including Gauguin, La Boîte à Bulles, Faire le Mur, Nietzsche, Vaincus mais vivants, Un mot sur la bureaucratie, Ni dieu ni maître, Dans la nuit la liberté nous écoute, and Mancha, Chevalier errant.
SIDELIGHTS
Artist A. Dan and author Maxmilien Le Roy take a new approach to the life of Henry David Thoreau in the graphic biography Thoreau: A Sublime Life. The large-format book uses comic-style illustrations to chronicle the writer and thinker’s life from his construction of a cabin at Walden Pond in a wooded area of Massachusetts in 1845–the setting that would inspire his most famous work, Walden–to his death in 1862. Because of that book’s description of Thoreau’s desire for a simple, nonmaterialistic life surrounded by nature, modern audiences often think of him as reclusive. Dan and Le Roy, however, seek to show that Thoreau was a passionate activist, deeply engaged with society and politics. He opposed the U.S. war with Mexico in the 1840s and refused to pay taxes to support it, an act of civil disobedience, a term that became the title of another of his best-known writings. He favored the abolition of slavery and helped slaves escape to freedom, and he was acquainted with the abolitionist John Brown, who led an often-violent antislavery crusade and was eventually executed for it; Thoreau deplored Brown’s methods but still spoke admiringly of him. Thoreau also had an appreciation for non-European cultures; the book portrays his interactions with Native Americans in his rural retreat. The captions are drawn largely from Thoreau’s writings and offer his thoughts on all these subjects. The book includes a foreword by Le Roy and a biographical essay by scholar Michel Granger. Originally published in French, it was translated into English by Peter Russella.
Several reviewers commended Dan and Le Roy for bringing audiences a view of Thoreau that counters the stereotypical one. “This lovely book breathes new life into Thoreau and returns to him his true depth, which has been overlooked in recent impressions,” related Eric Norton in Xpress Reviews. Bill Sherman, writing online at Blogcritics, called Thoreau “a humanizing work about a figure who often appears rather rarefied to students delving into Walden for the first time.” A contributor to the Comics Worth Reading Web site noted that in this portrayal of Thoreau, “his concerns come alive not as historical, in the years leading up to the Civil War, but as relevant to those seeking authenticity today.” A Publishers Weekly critic added: “Dan and Le Roy restore a luminous fire to one of America’s most stirring writers of conscience.” The collaborators also received praise for their manner of storytelling. “The scenery is beautiful, capturing the appeal of the woods and the pond and the natural surroundings,” the Comics Worth Reading reviewer wrote of Dan’s art, further noting that “the quiet panels create a feeling of welcome solitude.” Win Wiacek, critiquing at the Web-based Comics Review, reported that the art and text combine to depict “telling incidents of quiet intensity” that “paint [Thoreau’s] character in ways dry facts just can’t equal.”
Some commentators, however, thought Dan and Le Roy too admiring of Thoreau, or found their narrative disjointed. The book is “so uncritical and full of admiration that at times it also reads like a love letter,” remarked an online reviewer at Comic Bastards. In addition, this reviewer said, the work “never delves too deeply” into Thoreau’s ideas, “instead merely presenting them to the reader and then moving on to the next thing.” In Voice of Youth Advocates, Bethany Martin maintained that “at times it can be hard to follow the thread of the narrative,” and she concluded: “Readers looking for an introduction to Thoreau or an overview of his life will be better served elsewhere.” Foreword Reviews online contributor Peter Dabbene offered compliments to the book, along with some cautions about the storytelling method. “The limited use of captions makes one scene seem to fall into the next, dreamlike, a choice that allows the narrative to flow easily, but also relies on an attentive reader,” he explained. He summed up the volume as “a necessary and valuable addition to the graphic literature about Thoreau.” Wiacek likewise concluded on a positive note, saying: “Clever, wise and passionate, this is a fabulous and welcoming treatment of a forward-looking individual increasingly in tune with the times and the people.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, April 25, 2016, review of Thoreau: A Sublime Life, p. 78.
Voice of Youth Advocates, August, 2016, Bethany Martin, review of Thoreau, p. 84.
Xpress Reviews, May 20, 2016, Eric Norton, review of Thoreau.
ONLINE
Blogcritics, http://blogcritics.org/ (August 1, 2016), Bill Sherman, review of Thoreau.
Comic Bastards, https://comicbastards.com/ (August 8, 2016), review of Thoreau.
Comics Review, http://www.comicsreview.co.uk/ (May 14, 2016), Win Wiacek, review of Thoreau.
Comics Worth Reading, http://comicsworthreading.com/ (May 18, 2016), review of Thoreau.
Foreword Reviews, https://www.forewordreviews.com/ (August 26, 2016), Peter Dabbene, review of Thoreau.
Lambiek Encyclopedia, https://www.lambiek.net/ (February 26, 2017), brief biography.
Words without Borders, https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/ (February 26, 2017), brief biography.
Maximilien Le Roy
CMax
(b. 29 November 1985, France) France
Hosni by Maximilien Le Roy
Hosni
Maximilien Le Roy was born in Paris, where he also attended the School of Applied Arts for one year. He settled in Lyon, where he devoted all his time to comics and travelling. He used his trips to Palestina as an inspiration for his books 'La Boîte à Bulles' (2009) and 'Faire le Mur' (2010), while his trip to Rwanda served as an inspiration for 'Mancha Chevalier Errant', that he published under the signature Cmax with the publishing house Futuropolis in 2007.
In 2009 he also published 'Hosni', a book about the son of Tunisian immigrants in Lyon. Together with philosopher Michel Onfray, he made a biographical comic about 'Nietzsche', that was published by Lombard in 2010. A trip to Vietnam serves as an inspiration for his following project, 'Dans la Nuit la Liberté nous écoute' (Lombard, 2011).
As a scriptwriter, he wrote the comics biographies of Gauguin (with art by Christophe Gaultier for Lombard, 2013), Henry David Thoreau ('La vie sublime', with art by A. Dan for Le Lombard, 2012) and French political activist Louis Auguste Blanqui ('Ni dieu ni maître', with art by Loïc Locatelli Kournwsky for Casterman, 2013). He also scripted an historical tale set in the Spanish Civil War, that was drawn by Eddy Vaccaro for Casterman in 2013.
Maximilien Le Roy was born in Paris in 1985. In addition to Les Chemins de traverse, his work about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict includes the collective work Gaza, un pavé dans la mer; Faire le Mur; Dans la nuit la liberté nous écoute... ; and Palestine, dans quel état? In October 2014, when he attempted to attend a comic book festival in Tel Aviv, he was refused entry and barred from Israel for ten years because of his work.
LC control no.: no2013024550
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Le Roy, Maximilien
Variant(s): Roy, Maximilien le
Found in: His Nietzsche, 2012: t.p. (Maximilien Le Roy)
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Dan, A., and Maximilien Le Roy. Thoreau: A Sublime Life
Bethany Martin
Voice of Youth Advocates. 39.3 (Aug. 2016): p84.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
3Q * 2P * S * [G]
Dan, A., and Maximilien Le Roy. Thoreau: A Sublime Life. NBM Publishing, 2016. 88p. $19.99. 978-1-68112-025-6.
Beginning with the building of the cabin at Walden Pond in 1845 and continuing through his death in 1862, this graphic-format biography presents scenes from the life of Henry David Thoreau. Highlighting Thoreau's work as a naturalist, a philosopher, and, particularly, an abolitionist (over a quarter of the book deals with Thoreau's thoughts on slavery, disobedience to a government that supported slavery, or John Brown), Dan and Le Roy seek to dispel the notion that Thoreau was an inoffensive pacifist, "philosopher in the woods." The accompanying essay by scholar Michael Granger highlights the complex nature of Thoreau's ideas and work.
At times it can be hard to follow the thread of the narrative, as the book is more a series of vignettes than a traditional biography. It is often unclear exactly who Thoreau is interacting with or what his relationship to these people is. The reader is meant to get glimpses into the events that shaped Thoreau's ideas, rather than see the full picture of Thoreau's life. The depiction of John Brown and his followers killing slave owners in 1856 is quite jarring, presented, without any indication of who Brown is, in between scenes of Thoreau walking in the woods. Only with the portrayal of the raid on Harper's Ferry and Brown's execution, as well as Thoreau's response to these events, is it clear who Brown is.
This book is appropriate for high school classes looking for supplemental material on Thoreau or 19th-century American political philosophy. Readers looking for an introduction to Thoreau or an overview of his life will be better served elsewhere.--Bethany Martin.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Martin, Bethany. "Dan, A., and Maximilien Le Roy. Thoreau: A Sublime Life." Voice of Youth Advocates, Aug. 2016, p. 84. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA461445239&it=r&asid=4109454ebdcd4042137379a4a22d3f36. Accessed 26 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A461445239
Thoreau: A Sublime Life
Publishers Weekly. 263.17 (Apr. 25, 2016): p78.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Thoreau: A Sublime Life
A. Dan and Maximilien Le Roy. NBM, $19.99 (88p) ISBN 978-1-68112-025-6
Rescuing Henry David Thoreau from the musty stacks of quietly principled American thinkers is no easy task, but Dan and Le Roy's powerful and impassioned graphic biography (originally published in France in 2012) accomplishes it. They argue that Thoreau was no intellectual scribbling in the woods, but a radical "dreamer who had it in him to try to bring down the state." Thoreau's fabled Walden Pond is here, as is the time he spent running his father's pencil factory, all shown in lovely, fluid art. But the authors are more interested in Thoreau the fiery abolitionist, who helped slaves escape to freedom; Thoreau the outlaw, arrested for not paying his taxes in opposition to slavery and the Mexican War; Thoreau the appreciator of other cultures; and Thoreau the revolutionary, who met and agreed with John Brown. Dan and Le Roy restore a luminous fire to one of America's most stirring writers of conscience. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Thoreau: A Sublime Life." Publishers Weekly, 25 Apr. 2016, p. 78. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA450904585&it=r&asid=3944266103577cc4eca6edd0130f64ca. Accessed 26 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A450904585
Le Roy, Maximilien & A. Dan. Thoreau: A Sublime Life
Eric Norton
Xpress Reviews. (May 20, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
Full Text:
[STAR]Le Roy, Maximilien & A. Dan. Thoreau: A Sublime Life. NBM. May 2016. 88p. ISBN 9781681120256. $19.99. BIOG
This work gives readers a chance to meet a more complicated Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) than the usual portrayal of a pacifist sage in the woods. In his foreword, Le Roy raises these typical views of the man and then challenges his audience to examine his subject's contributions over a lifetime to get a better image. Much of the text of this picture book-sized title is drawn directly from Thoreau's writings (Walden), revealing a passionate abolitionist who may have regretted John Brown's methods but, nevertheless, spoke on his behalf. A solitary person for much of his life, Thoreau spent time in his beloved forests with Native Americans as well as in their communities. This biography demonstrates that no brief phrase was sufficient to describe the naturalist and author. Le Roy's earthy colors and Dan's rough-hewn artwork in just a few panels per page match Thoreau's natural world perfectly. The six-page afterword by Thoreau scholar Michael Granger, entitled "Thoreau, a Philosopher for Today," continues the theme of Thoreau as a complex individual.
Verdict This lovely book breathes new life into Thoreau and returns to him his true depth, which has been overlooked in recent impressions. A worthy addition to any library that includes Thoreau's works.--Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Lib., Wisconsin Rapids
Norton, Eric
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Norton, Eric. "Le Roy, Maximilien & A. Dan. Thoreau: A Sublime Life." Xpress Reviews, 20 May 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA458871339&it=r&asid=2e77f0262f0d2b32b7ef87e6457ad81e. Accessed 26 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A458871339
Thoreau
A Sublime Life
Reviewed by Peter Dabbene
August 26, 2016
Maximilien Le Roy and artist A. Dan illustrate the life of writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, in the graphic novel Thoreau: A Sublime Life.
Similar to John Porcellino’s graphic novel Thoreau at Walden, Le Roy begins with Thoreau at Walden Pond, living a simple life as a writer and farmer. However, where Porcellino’s book focuses solely on Thoreau’s time at Walden, Le Roy proceeds to expand the view through action and Thoreau’s own words—his philosophy of civil disobedience, his role as an active abolitionist, and his thoughts about religion and the Native American model of living.
The limited use of captions makes one scene seem to fall into the next, dreamlike, a choice that allows the narrative to flow easily, but also relies on an attentive reader. In a three-page scene portraying the 1856 Pottawatomie Creek Massacre, its leader, John Brown, is not identified, and there’s no link to Thoreau until ten pages later, when Brown and Thoreau are shown talking.
Brown plays a more prominent role than one might expect, as Thoreau defends the violent abolitionist, notably disagreeing with none other than Abraham Lincoln. An afterword by Professor Michael Granger, a specialist in the study of Thoreau, sheds more light on the evolution of Thoreau’s philosophies, including this apparent acceptance of violence in some situations. It’s this more complete view, as delivered through A. Dan’s detailed art, that makes Thoreau: A Sublime Life a necessary and valuable addition to the graphic literature about Thoreau.
Review: Thoreau - A Sublime Life
August 8, 2016
One of the rules for writing a good biography is maintaining some emotional distance from your subject. That doesn’t mean you should only be negative about a person, or positive, or even that you can’t make judgments about that person’s life. I would be wary of anybody who wrote a biography of Hitler, for example, without feeling some level of horror or revulsion. But you can’t let that horror stop you from trying to understand your subject. Similarly, you can’t allow love or admiration of a person to stop you from actually analyzing them.
That’s one of the fundamental problems with Thoreau: A Sublime Life. The book is a ninety-page biography of Henry David Thoreau, mostly focusing on his life at Walden Pond and afterward. It focuses on his philosophy, his antiwar activism, and his abolitionism. However, it never delves too deeply into any of those, instead merely presenting them to the reader and then moving on to the next thing. You can read this entire book and get no closer to Thoreau as a subject; at its worst, it just reads as a selection of Thoreau’s quotes with some illustrations. Furthermore, it practically sprints through his writings and life, giving you just a taste of each but not pausing to examine them.
One of the biggest blocks for this book is that there’s virtually no dialogue, at least in the sense of a back-and-forth. So much of Thoreau’s dialogue is taken from what he wrote that you’re basically just reading excerpts for much of it. How can characters respond to any of that? There’s no room for conversation. Even where Le Roy goes off-script so to speak, none of the characters actually seem to speak: when he’s bailed out of jail by his aunt, she utters some complaint about his behavior, and he brushes her off with a quip. That’s all of the dialogue: people either express disbelief or admiration, and Thoreau goes back to narrating. This actually does a disservice to Thoreau’s ideas, which are deserving of some discussion.
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Unfortunately, civil disobedience, anti-commercialism, even budding environmentalism are all introduced and moved past at a breakneck pace. This also simplifies Thoreau’s ideas or writings unacceptably in some places. The book shows Thoreau going to Maine and his time in the Maine wilderness, but Thoreau draws different conclusions about nature and man’s place therein than what he does in Walden. Nature could be frightening, “savage and awful” in Thoreau’s worlds, not the pleasant forest excursion it’s made to be here. Likewise, the author makes no attempt to understand to what extent Walden was an experiment in minimalistic living versus a manifesto.
Part of the problem is that there are a lot of weird little details that are just wrong in this book. Admittedly, I’m the kind of person who goes hunting for historical inaccuracies or anachronisms, so maybe these won’t bother another reader quite as much as they do for me. Still, if you’re going to examine a human subject, you ought to get their character right. There’s one page where Thoreau drinks coffee with a neighbor, which makes no sense. Thoreau devotes a fair bit of Walden to decrying the consumption of coffee, saying “I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of dashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm coffee…” Or how about the part when people are congratulating Thoreau on the success of Walden? The book several years to even sell 2,000 copies, and while critics were not hostile to it, it didn’t immediately catapult Thoreau into fame either.
Or, more importantly, why does the author set up a conversation between Thoreau and John Brown? There’s no evidence that the two men ever knew each other, and it’s the kind of thing a children’s history book would do. It simplifies the history and tries to make it easily understandable, which then robs it of the importance it had in the first place. You could do an entire book on Thoreau’s abolition, and it would simply be enough to have Thoreau read from “A Plea for Captain John Brown” and parse people’s reactions to it. That would set up an interesting conversation between Thoreau and other people where they could actually debate the merits of violent activism and how far one should be willing to go in the defense of others or one’s beliefs.
This view of Thoreau is also so uncritical and full of admiration that at times it also reads like a love letter to Thoreau. The biographical essay at the back of the book is actually more useful in this regard because it does at least mention a few of Thoreau's blindspots, such as the fact that he had a pretty low opinion of women's intellects and capacities. None of that is in the main pages though, and you shouldn't have to read the explanatory essay of a biographical comic in order to appreciate the comic in the first place. What about Thoreau's tone, which frequently verges on preachy? That seems to escape both the narration and the dialogue.
I couldn’t help but feel that this might have been more effective if it had focused on one aspect of Thoreau in depth, rather than trying to cover his entire life in ninety pages. As it stands, you don’t walk away knowing much more than you would have just reading up on Thoreau through Wikipedia.
Thoreau – A Sublime Life
Posted on May 14, 2016 by Now Read This
By A.Dan & Maximilien Le Roy, translated by Peter Russella (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-025-6
We don’t get nearly enough access to philosophy or big thinkers in comics, but whenever some creator or other does set out to explore deeper issues regarding formative moments in human culture, the results are more often than not splendidly successful.
Author (and colourist of this book) Maximilien Le Roy has clearly given the genre much thought. He was born in Paris in 1985 and, after the usual education and socialisation, he studied Applied Art. Done with that, he began travelling the world, making socially-aware and incisively politicised comics…
His works challenging the situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Hosni, Gaza; a Stone in the Sea, Make the Wall) got him banned from entering any Israeli territory for ten years – from October 2015 onwards. He kept on examining those issues, drawing in other concerned creators to help tell stories and depict issues authorities would rather nobody saw, and ask questions members of the global public would love to have finally addressed…
His other apparent preoccupation is great artists and thinkers, resulting in comics volumes encapsulating the lives and achievements of Nietzche (To Create Freedom in collaboration with Michel Onfray), Gauguin – Far from the road, (with Christophe Gauthier) and, from 2012, this superbly haunting examination of Henry David Thoreau’s thoughts and influence upon the world.
Le Roy’s co-conspirator on La Vie sublime – Thoreau is Daniel Alexandre who prefers the pen-name A. Dan. A self-taught artist, his first work was seen on his blog in 2005. He then began to specialise in animal illustration and naturalistic subjects before working for Joker Editions in 2008 on heroic fantasy Jo-Bo, which he had created with scripter Benjamin Leduc.
A.Dan developed a more humanistic style for Algerian War tale Tahya El-Djazaï and WWI saga Pour un peu de bonheur (both with Laurent Galandon, in 2009 and 2012-2013) and recent historical epic La Faute au Midi with writer Jean-Yves La Nour.
The deliciously oversized (284 x 224 mm) full-colour hardback under review here is not a history or biography text. You won’t learn much about Thoreau’s formative experiences in New England or time at Harvard – although the comprehensive essay and appreciation ‘Thoreau, a Philosopher for Today’ by scholar Professor Michael Granger at the back of the book might fill a few gaps whilst clarifying the American intellectual icon’s place in history and legacy for the modern world.
Briefly then: Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1817. The son of a pencil-maker, he studied at Harvard from 1833 and 1837. He left after refusing to pay a post-hoc fee to receive the Masters degree he had already earned (anybody believe the monetisation of education is a recent thing?).
Thoreau was an author, poet, philosopher, political thinker, working surveyor, historian and development critic who would have loved to have been best remembered today for his writings on nature and ecological systems. He was also an ardent abolitionist and opposed to unaccountable or over-intrusive government – especially ones driven by a profit-motive.
He refused to pay taxes to a government which fought wars of colonialism and supported slavery whilst publicly and hypocritically decrying it. He is now regarded as the father of Civil Disobedience, with Tolstoy, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., and many elements of the Occupy Movement amongst so many other non-violent resistors all citing his writings as the major influence on their actions.
Anything more you need can be gleaned from dozens of books or via the search engine of your choice…
Following Le Roy’s emphatic Foreword, the beguiling glimpse into the writer’s most productive period begins one day in March 1845 as the wanderer returns to Concord, borrows an axe from a blacksmith and wanders off into the woods.
Over the coming months he becomes a virtual recluse, building a cabin home beside a small lake; observes nature in all its wonder and begins collecting his thoughts for the book which will one day become Walden (his immortal treatise on simple living) and the essay Resistance to Civil Government…
Through solitary, bucolic months he toils, writes or reads of other philosophers and foreign belief systems; learning more and more about the natural world by essentially becoming part of it. Eventually he is quietly arrested and graciously submits to prison for refusing to pay taxes to a government he does not approve of.
Determined and unrepentant he stays there uncomplaining until his jailers throw him out. They are uncaring that he has refused liberty. All they know or care about is that is that the principled prisoner’s humiliated relatives have paid the outstanding amount… over Thoreau’s strident protests…
Back at his Walden cabin, he opens his home to abolitionists and continues his studies. In 1849 he begins publicly speaking out across the region against the shameful practice and his slowly-coalescing beliefs on the nature and failings of Government. His works are published but sell slowly as he gradually takes a more active part in anti-slavery organisations…
In 1853 his travels bring him to an Indian enclave and he meets an entire people who are his spiritual and ethical brothers. His pronouncements on business and industry destroying nature begin to make some little headway in a young nation seemingly obsessed with exploitative money-making, and whenever he feels deflated or defeated a return to the woods rekindles his spirits…
Sadly his world is not isolated and many of his like-minded contemporaries do not share all his views. In 1853 militant Abolitionist John Brown begins a campaign of bloody terrorism against slave-owners and their supporters which will culminate on the attack on the Federal Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry (now regarded as the spark which ignited the War Between the States). Despite ardently disagreeing with the zealot’s methods, Thoreau mounts a spirited courtroom defence of Brown…
And so this glorious montage of preciously stockpiled little moments proceeds: revealing telling incidents of quiet intensity – all suitably garnished with appropriate quotes from the great individualist’s writings – which paint his character in ways dry facts just can’t equal, taking the reader through those final critical years until his death in 1862…
As you’d expect and hope, Thoreau- A Sublime Life is naturalistically lovely, lyrically composed and sweetly sensible: highlighting key moments of introspection, inspiration and revelation from one of the world’s earliest ecologists and most-revered rebel rationalists.
Clever, wise and passionate, this is a fabulous and welcoming treatment of a forward-looking individual increasingly in tune with the times and the people.
© 2012 A.Dan/Le Roy/Editions du Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard S.A.). © 2016 NBM for the English translation.
May 18, 2016 Johanna NBM / Papercutz One comment
Thoreau: A Sublime Life
Thoreau: A Sublime Life
This gorgeous hardcover graphic biography tells the life of a classic philosopher with an eye to modern concerns and context. Thoreau: A Sublime Life is written by Maximilien Le Roy with art by A. Dan. Le Roy’s Foreword establishes his perspective, to show the various aspects of Henry David Thoreau’s life as “the father figure of civil disobedience”: pacifist, abolitionist, philosopher, naturist, but one who sought to live his ideas “in concrete, everyday experience.”
By subsuming the reader in Thoreau’s day-to-day existence, his concerns come alive not as historical, in the years leading up to the Civil War, but as relevant to those seeking authenticity today. It’s a heady experience, being so caught up in another’s life so effectively.
Thoreau: A Sublime Life
The reader is positioned as an observer, watching Thoreau establish his homestead and interact with others — the blacksmith, to obtain supplies; the local police, when he’s jailed for a night for not paying taxes; an audience, when he states that he can’t be associated with a government that supports slavery; a Native American friend, who shows him their traditions; John Brown, who challenges his anti-violence attitudes when it comes to ending slavery. Thoreau desires to share his ideas but is distrustful of fame and popularity, which would sell more of his books. He’s a New England traditionalist, an individual supported by his family.
Because we’re primarily watching key events from his life play out, some of his choices are thus left mysterious or undetailed, although using his words as captions give some insight into his motives. A brief, ghostly sequence suggests a past broken heart.
The scenery is beautiful, capturing the appeal of the woods and the pond and the natural surroundings (although one doesn’t have to feel the temperature changes or snow). The quiet panels create a feeling of welcome solitude, joining in Thoreau’s experience. Later, the silence is used for a different purpose, as he helps smuggle slaves to freedom in an atmosphere of secrecy and danger.
Personally, all I knew about Thoreau was that he went to live in the woods. This book showed me why. I learned much about his political philosophy, particularly his anti-business, anti-industrial takes. I sometimes wonder if those that fetishize living off the land as the most pure form of existence regret their choices later, but if Thoreau ever got discouraged by the hard work or loneliness, it’s not on display here. Captions instead reinforce his happiness. In that way, Thoreau: A Sublime Life contributes to the myth of going back to nature as an ideal existence, which seems to reflect the opinions of its subject.
Panel from Thoreau: His Sublime Life by A. Dan
A six-page ending essay by Michel Granger, a professor specializing in Thoreau’s life and work, discusses his political positions and philosophies. Granger makes a case for Thoreau’s status as a rebel that goes beyond the catchphrase of “civil disobedience”. Overall, Thoreau: A Sublime Life is a lovely, informative work that teaches Thoreau’s life through visual experience. (The publisher provided a review copy and has posted preview pages.)
Graphic Novel Review: ‘Thoreau: A Sublime Life’ by Maximilien Le Roy and A. Dan
Posted by: Bill Sherman August 1, 2016 in Book Reviews, Books, Graphic Novels and Comics, Historical Fiction 0 Comments
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Mention Henry David Thoreau to many Americans, and if they remember it, it’s most likely as the name of this dry guy they had to read in high school English. For all of the very real impact the man has had on spiritual and public thought (this was the guy, after all, who set down the principles of “Civil Disobedience”), to many, he’s just a vague figure from the past. Leave it to a pair of French graphic novelists to put some flesh and blood on the man: Maximilien Le Roy and A. Dan’s Thoreau: A Sublime Life (NBM) gives life to what was just a name in textbooks.
Their graphic novel opens in Concord, MA, 1845, with the young philosopher coming into town to borrow an ax from the local blacksmith; he uses it to build a cabin in the woods where we see him begin his explorations into the natural world. Presented in largely wordless sequences, with Dan’s line work ably capturing the quiet beauty of the New England wilds, these early sequences lay the groundwork for Thoreau’s eventual elevation of the natural world over sovereign nations.
But if the man were only a quirky eccentric who spent his days watching ants in a glass, he wouldn’t be as giant a figure in American letters. Thoreau was also a man of conscience who recognized the unjustness of slavery – and railed against it in writings and sermons as well as personal action. Briefly jailed for not paying his taxes in protest against the U.S. government’s support of slavery and its war against Mexico, he also was a participant in the underground railroad, helping to transport escaped slaves to Canada.
His non-violent actions are contrasted in the book with those of the violent abolitionist John Brown, who saw Thoreau’s militant pacifism as cowardice. Yet when Brown himself was captured after unsuccessfully trying to foment a slave revolt, Thoreau publicly and fervently stood up for Brown’s anti-slavery beliefs.
Constantly exploring, Thoreau was unique in his day for his delving into Eastern religion and his impatience with traditional monotheism. “For a philosopher like me,” he states at one point, “all sects and nations are equal.” This “plain-living” man could be a pain in the ass to his family (amusingly depicted in a conversation with the aunt who bailed him out jail and more seriously shown in his last days with his sister), and the graphic novel works to establish his occasional cantankerousness and intellectual restlessness. An ill-fated attempt at a romance is also effectively conveyed in a two-page silent sequence, a testament to Dan’s graphic storytelling skill.
A humanizing work about a figure who often appears rather rarefied to students delving into Walden for the first time: wish I’d had this book back when I was in high school.