Last week in ASTU 100 we went on a trip to the UBC archives, specifically looking at the Kogawa fonds related to her book Obasan. We have been reading Obasan for ASTU the last couple of weeks and have been discussing the book in class. In her book Joy Kogawa provides an insightful view of what it was like in Canada during the Second World War as a Japanese Canadian; and what life was like in the internment camps. During our time at the archives examining all kinds of documents that people sent to her relating to her book. These documents ranged from letters sent to her by young children still in elementary school to letters from the prime minister himself. Today we will be discussing how these documents change how we as readers of the book view the books place in Canadian history.

Obasan on its own provides a previously relatively undiscussed part of Canadian history to the forefront and the documents in the Kogawa fonds not only support this claim but they also strengthen it. As a symbol of the power that and influence has on Canada is the fact that the leader of the NDP party read a passage from it when the Canadian government officially  apologized to all the Japanese Canadians in the camps. This shows us that that the book on its own has tremendous gravitas. So how could this book become any more important? However all the letters and documents in the Kogawa fonds do just that. All the letters from the children who read her book are above all inspiring as the people who read them are so innocent and not yet plagued by the problems of the world. The letter from the Prime Minister is a recognition to how the country values Kogawa as a writer making her work ever more important.

All the documents in the Kogawa fonds not only restate that Kogawa is an influential writer to Canadian history but also someone who affects people from all walks of life in Canada no matter the ethnicity or rank in the nation. Everyone can relate to what is written in her books and in our case specifically Obasan.

Some questions for this topic:

Do all books benefit from having a fond to support their value?

How important is it to keep all of these documents for other peoples work and what is the extent of their meaning?

Over the past two weeks in ASTU we have been reading Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Goražde, which looks at events that transpired in the region in and around the area looking at the struggle of the people of the area during the time of the war in eastern Bosnia. Sacco does so in the form of a graphic novel, very similar to Satrapi who describes how she saw the revolution in Iran in the form of a graphic novel. However both authors differ extremely on how they draw their images in their respective books. Sacco goes though great lengths to show immense amounts of detail in each frame whereas Satrapi has a much more simpler style and rarely goes into much depth in her frames and leaves the visualization of the events to an extent in the minds of the reader. Today we will be looking at each of these styles and their values and restrictions.

Sacco in his book Safe Area Goražde goes to great lengths to show the detail of not only violence and trauma, but also happier moments such as parties and every day life in the area for people. this becomes apperant from the very beginning of the graphic novel as on the title page each of the people has a face and emotions.

This amount of detail can be seen throughout the novel. This is good because it gives the reader a very vivid experience into what Sacco was witnessing himself and makes the visualization of the area and the conditions that people were living in very easy for the reader. However much of the book is Sacco’s visualization of some one else’s story, meaning that he was not really there and as a result his vivid drawings are misplaced as he can only infer from the telling of another about what happened. This results in Sacco showing the reader his visualization of the story that someone else has told him meaning that his representation is not 100% accurate, this is however what his drawings can persuade the reader to believe.

Satrapi on the other hand does things much differently. Satrapi takes the approach of simple drawings in her graphic novel Persepolis. She argues that this is the case because she was a child during the Iranian revolution and saw the events through the eyes of a child. This gives the stencil work in her book a certain innocence that one associates with a child, this is especially apparent when she describes how a man was tortured and cut into pieces:

Despite the visual  representation being accurate to the events as all the events are things that Satrapi had experienced in her time living in Iran. However the lack of more graphic and accurate visualization of people and events gives the reader too much to interoperate as Satrapi lived through these events she could give a more accurate account of the events by adding more detail to her stencils.

To conclude, Sacco does an excellent job in providing a vivid account in his stencil work although it is at certain times in the book misplaced as he did not actually experience all the events and stories that he portrays. Satrapi on the other hand whilst trying to keep her stencil work in the mind of what she thought of the events at the time that they transpired could be more vivid and leave less to the interpretation of the reader as she actually lived in Iran during the time that they transpired.

What questions can we derive from this:

To what extent is it acceptable for the author to show as much or as little detail as they do and when should this change?

How does the different styles of drawing shape the experience for the reader?

As always comments are appreciated.

Bibliography:

http://ghareebkhana.blogspot.ca/2015/01/the-bosnian-tragedy-and-graphic-novels.html

http://english251hya.blogspot.ca/