Spiegelman, Art (2004) In the Shadow of No Towers (New York: Pantheon Books,1)
Non-linear reading is a form of interaction with the text which has become increasingly common thanks to the Internet. It is not a new way of reading – the I-Ching, the inscriptions in Ancient Egypt or Guillaume Apollinaire’s Calligrames offer a kind of interaction where the reader is not forced to follow only one way previously set by the author but he/she can choose the most convenient path, jumping from one text to the other.
In comics, arguably the most common instance may be Chris Ware’s works, whose labyrinthine diagrams plunge the reader into a whirlpool of multiple itineraries that depict the complexity of his characters’ feelings and personal stories. Non-linear narrative makes it possible to juxtapose and combine events and to highlight the interconnection between them as well as to create a comprehensive picture of a given experience. For this reason I consider that this narrative style brilliantly depicts the chaos and the fear during September 11th in Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers.
At first sight, each page is a shapeless mass of frames which is closer to a collage than to a comic. Paces multiply and there are no clear directions to read it. Take this page, for example. Where to begin? With the title? Or with the biggest panel of all, the round one, in the middle of the lower half of the page which effectively draws our attention? If we observe it and read it, the metaphor of the shoe will drive us to the old- fashioned panels which explain the origin of the “dropping the other shoe” saying. Although if we had started with the title, it would have driven our look at the top of the tower which is behind the word “Towers”. In any case, no matter what path we choose. They’re all interconnected.
That twisted and hanging panel behind the word “Towers” uncovers a USA flag which is also reproduced in the panel on the left. This frame is included in a group of three images under the title of “The New Normal”, a short strip which serves as a comment about the repercussion of the catastrophe in North American’s daily routine. The strip depicts a sleepy family in front of the television before the terrorist attack, then terrified in the next panel, when it takes place, and sleepy again after the attack. That is to say, the result of the attack, as depicted in the last panel, is a family (or citizens) affected by the tragedy, as their hairs indicate, but as anesthetized as before – as if terror was now normal.
Only one thing has changed around them – the flag on the wall, which is on the one hand the symbol of the country, of the citizens’ unity in face of tragedy, and on the other a symbol of the strong patriotism that the event arose. A kind of patriotism which is, sometimes, overwhelming, as Spiegelman visually portrays on the 3 central panels, where he looks astonishingly at a gigantic flag on his television at home. Underneath we can read “Logos […] look enormous on television” – Is this the new normal? Terror? Propagandist patriotism?
The analysis of the political use of the tragedy mixes with the fear of a second attack. In a vertical strip, we read on top that Spiegelman himself “was sure [they] were going to die” and as we continue reading to the bottom the words combine with the tower collapse. The fear of a second attack seems both absurd and imminent. On the one hand, as the “etymological vaudeville” explains, waiting for another attack would be like waiting for the other shoe to drop, something unpleasant but nonetheless desired, as if going back to normal would be impossible until it happened.
On the other hand, the fear is powerfully vivid, more real than reality, like the photo of the “Yihad” shoe, which sharply contrasts with the rest of pictorial elements. The circular frame is an indepedent image which does not belong to any strip as the rest do, but it is part of the page itself, that is, it is part of the narration as a whole and it resumes, as a conclusion, the discourse provided therein.The non-linear reading, the jumps between panels, between strips and within the page layout, recreates the chaos of a complex and hurting situation.
Among the images, the reader travels the many paths and alleys that Spiegelman has built for him/her. A paranoid reading which consists of putting the puzzle pieces together to compose the collage of an unforgettable trauma. Among the pieces, the itineraries multiply and it is the readers who must re-create the discourse, each one of us in our own way, until the full picture of the tragedy arises.
REFERENCES
Espen J. Aarseth introduces the concept of ergodic literature in his book Cybertext. Perspectives on ergodic literature (1997) to refer to a text that requires non-trivial effort to be traversed. In the introduction, he mentions the examples of Apollinaire, the I-Ching and the Egyptian inscriptions but also other more contemporary instances like Nabokov’s Pale Fire or Cortazar’s Rayuela (Hopscotch).
Spiegelman, A. (2004) In the Shadow of No Towers (New York: Pantheon Books)
Loved your text! And I think In The Shadow of No Towers is a very good example to illustrate non-linear reading becasuse it’s not as obvious at first sight as Chris Ware pages, or (let’s say) Ibañez’s “13 Rue del Percebe”. You say the effect he achieves by pasting all this strips and panels together is an effect of chaos, and it’s true. I hadn’t realised he deliberately wanted to provoke that effect.
I’m so focused on the “Mundo Viejuno” era of comics (early comics, I mean) that I thought that this page was just an homage to old Sunday pages. In particular, the first time I read this page it reminded me of some Krazy Kat Sundies, where there is a big round panel in the center that attracts your attention even before you start reading the page. The difference between Herrimann and Spiegelman is that the first did it for purely aesthetical reasons, and the second one gives it a rhetorical use (to provoke that chaos effect you mentioned)
Hahahahaha! Can u believe I hadn’t thought of 13 rue del percebe? What a good example!
What I love in this page in particular, apart from the chaos Spiegelman tries to transmit, it’s that tower collapsing together with his words saying that he thought it was the end of the world and how difficult it was for him to go on. That’s a great instance of how words and image beautifully blend in comics and make of this language such a special one ;)
I also consider this page a masterful reinterpretation of the Sunday pages. In fact, “In the shadow of no towers” is closer to a newspaper than to a traditional comic. Newspapers are also other kind of texts characterised by their non-linear reading and it is at this point where both approaches combine :)
That’s what happens with masterpieces, that they are able to host many (almost infinite) and very different interpretations, isn’t it?
I’m glad you brought up the similarities with the newspaper layout, Esther. The “shoe” panel indeed evokes an advert, and there is an old-schoolness about the top three strips or layers, echoing the Sunday funny papers.
I was wondering what you made of the type of thick board in which the book was published. In contrast to the fragility of the newspaper (or serial comic books), here’s a thick board used as support for the pages. How does this affect our reading? It’s not a mere random question of aesthetics or design is it?
Ernesto, glad u bring about the question of the paper. Each time I’ve got it in my hands I wonder the same thing. I don’t know yet why it is so, but I’m gonna try find it!
Personally, I think that the thick board on the cover gives the book an implied ‘weight’ (as well as a physical one), as in ‘this book is a weighty tome; the contents are of importance’.