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January 25, 2005
Subway Reading: Clyde Fans
Clyde Fans Book 1 - This book was written and drawn by cartoonist Seth. I had never read any of his work; my knowledge of him began and ended with two items. One, he was the designer for and one of the main forces behind Fantagraphics' beautiful complete Peanuts library. Two, he was the author of a book that I had never read, but whose title has long stuck with me as one of the greatest titles ever: "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken." Sit and cogitate upon that line. That's poetry. I'm sort of afraid to read that book because it can't possibly stand up to the magnificent story that my imagination has conjured up around those 8 words.
But, as usual, I digress. Clyde Fans is split into two chapters. Each chapter focuses on one of the Matchcard brothers, Abraham and Simon, and their work as salesmen for the electric fan company founded by their father Clyde. The first chapter is set in the present day. Clyde Fans has long since closed, and the elderly Abraham travels ghost-like through the company's office and the upstairs apartment where his parents and younger brother lived. The entire chapter, in fact, consists of Abraham talking directly to the reader, sharing lessons on his sales techniques along with memories of the business and his younger brother Simon. Abraham's disdain for his brother is evident. The younger Matchcard comes off as an aimless and irresponsible dreamer, especially compared to Abraham and the work he did selling for and eventually running the company.
The second chapter moves back in time, following Simon on his doomed attempt at selling for Clyde Fans. Desperate to prove his worth to his older brother and to find a steady career, Simon travels to the town of Dominion with a list of leads and a sample case. Each sales call goes worse than the one before it, and soon enough Simon is out of leads and facing the fact that Abraham's predictions of Simon's failure have been fulfilled.
Seth draws with a deceptively simple yet highly communicative line. He proves himself to be a superb designer, and not just with his tightly-organized layouts. The book itself is a beautiful package, with covers and endpapers that contribute quite a bit to the plot and tone. the interiors are 2-color (printed with blue and black only), but Seth's careful duotones and halftones give the artwork a remarkable amount of depth and richness.
The story itself takes a long, hard look at the profession of sales. My dad was a salesman for a long time, and he was pretty successful at it. I've always been simultaneously fascinated and repelled by the job. It makes unique demands on a person; you need to be calculating and opportunistic, yet genial and trustworthy. You need to withstand an unfathomable amount of rejection, both gentle and outright hostile. The perpetual travel alone is enough to wear down even the heartiest soul. In the opening chapter, Abraham looks back on a life in which he withstood the demands of the sales life. But at what cost? Despite the amount of people that he met, a lifetime of glad-handing and sales pitches has left Abraham lonely and regretful. Pondering the volumes of receipts and purchase orders that he has signed and left throughout the province, Abraham muses, "It occurs to me that these papers probably have a more meaningful relationship with the outside world than I do."
The other big theme in Clyde Fans is the relationship between older and younger siblings. While sending Simon out for his first sales trip, Abraham admonishes him with his opinion that "Another salesman is missing out on a commission so that you can take this little jaunt." Simon is cowed by his brother's scolding, and the prospect of facing Abraham and confirming the elder's fears becomes more terrifying than the failure itself. In his old age, though, Abraham's opinion of Simon has grown more philosophical, tempered by regrets about his own life. "I could imagine Simon living the quiet life of a monk. While I went out and piled layer upon layer of hypocrisy upon myself." Seth communicates the distance and differences between the brothers by showing them in separate chapters and eras. It's instructive that so much of each brother's mental energy is devoted to the other one.
Seth examines these ideas in an understated and subtle manner. This is a very quiet book; the drama sneaks up on you rather than smacking you in the face. The risk with this kind of storytelling is that the reader may lose interest and wind up overlooking some of the nuance. For the most part, Seth bounces up against this line but stays on the correct side of it. I could have lived with about half as many tone-setting cityscape panels in the second half, for example. but that's a minor quibble against an otherwise impressive effort. A "Book Two" is supposedly going to follow, but this graphic novel stands on its own as a compelling and haunting character study. 4 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at January 25, 2005 03:04 PM