Just Fantastic: Palestine

I wish I had read this sooner.

Palestine, written and Drawn by Joe Sacco, is an odd sort of a graphic novel. It is almost 300 pages long and divided into only nine chapters. The chapters are fragmented adventures of a journalist who has set out to record his experiences in the form of a graphic novel. Sometimes the story goes on for twenty plus pages and sometimes the story is only a page long. And most oddly, there isn’t a lot of action. The cells are almost entirely filled with faces. 
 
When I received this book as a Christmas present (two years ago) from none other than the great Mr. Karl T. Lake (someone you have never heard of, but a good friend that will enjoy seeing his name in this review), I said thank-you and thought “a 300-page, politically focused, black and white graphic novel, from a journalist’s prospective — maybe I’ll wait and read it after New Year’s.” 
 
I was an idiot.
 
This is one of the best graphic novels I’ve ever read, because it effectively conveys the lifestyle and sentiment of refugees. The simplicity of the artwork did not captivate me early on, two chapters later I began to feel like all the faces were the same, and by the end of chapter one I realized that was the point. Sacco drew each face with a flare or individuality, but they came from a template. Each person he spoke to during his time in the refugee camps shared a religion, lifestyle, and experience. No one person was a great hero or suffered more than the other: the grieving mothers, the unemployed men, the angry rock-throwing boys all with similar faces and clothing. Everyone suffered and prayed for deliverance. 
 
In a brilliant storytelling maneuver the narratives gave me the opposite sensation: each one was completely new and solitary. I must have seen and read the story of a dead son or lost homes a half dozen times, but it never felt that way. I know we heard from a Palestinian refugee who threw rocks at Israeli guards and went to prison for a few months once per chapter (at least it felt that way). 
 
Additionally, Sacco conveys his thoughts on his position of journalists in their world and in America. He punctuates moments of bravery with “think of the comic.” In the later chapters he lets readers see his master plan and itinerary: skipping one meeting to make another or mourning the loss of a contact or guide.  
 
Palestine, more than any other work I’ve read, illustrates how powerful the medium can be: I don’t think you could reproduce the same effect in a traditional book. For me, the faces would blur together because you couldn’t flip back or forward ten pages to check out the drawings. I would have skimmed the repeated stories instead of reading with intent. The lack of a central plot would have forced me out of the book by page 100.
 
This is the graphic novel anyone can read: nothing fantastic with strong writing that sucks you in and keeps you there.

 

Just Fantastic appears the second and fourth Wednesday every month.