Customer Reviews

Burma Chronicles

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is Delise's richest book yet, and probably his most detailed. It's another travel journal, similar to Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea and Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China, this time with a Doctors Without Borders-style group in Burma. Even though his drawings are deliciously simple and compact, with his pen, Delise evokes a real sense of place and the culture, character, and quirks of the people. I love his work.

Once I started this book, I couldn't stop sneaking off to read it. It actually sucked me in and my whole world for 3 days was Burma, in black and white,

Not much else to say except that it is really like a blog with drawings and humor peppered here and there. Very easy to digest, and would be a great addition to any PoliSci course or literature course looking to go multi-modal or just change it up a bit.

I loved the fact that the hardcover does NOT have a (useless and gratuitous) dustjacket. The image that would be on the dustjacket is actually the hard cover.

Burma Chronicles is the travel diary of Québécois cartoonist Guy Delisle*. He is married to Nadége, a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontières, and she's assigned to Burma (Myanmar). Guy and Baby Louis follow. Hilarity ensues.

This is definitely one of the best graphic novels I've read. The artwork is black and white, but it's so detailed and inventive, I never really missed the colors. Delisle's outlook on Burmese life is funny and light, which is refreshing considering the heavy subject matter that living in a totalitarian state entails.

For those of us who read and enjoyed the book, there are some really interesting goodies in Delisle's website, including photos of the real-life places featured in the book: [...]

I received this for Christmas from a person with great taste so I suppressed my initial anxiousness about receiving a graphic novel for the holidays. I was thoroughly charmed by this book. The stories were a nice blend of personal expression and social commentary. Neither was heavy handed. I felt informed about the idiosyncrasies of Burma/Myanmar but also fascinated by the exploration of a different culture with an open mind and critical eye.

I have traveled a lot in the last 5 years so this may have made the book even more interesting for me, but I believe anyone with a sense of humor, curiosity, and a fondness for their fellow man would love this graphic novel.

That the book is not titled "Myanmar Chronicles" should be your first clue that there will be more than one look at the growing tyranny of the military regime. In a style like that of Pyongyang, he pecks away at the truth underneath the surface of cordial greetings and polite pretending that Burma is not in crisis.

However, in an environment not quite as accustomed to totalitarianism, the underbelly is not quite as easy to find as in North Korea and you will get a feeling that the author is not digging deep enough. After all, he is the tourist and the wife who is seeing all the strife, sickness, and poverty.

With that said, you will receive both a sense of how it feels to live there and what sets the people apart from others making them unique. There's also more information about the author himself and his motivations when traveling than in previous works, especially in understanding his style of art.

Altogether, this is definitely an engrossing work with more experimenting in the author's art and writing style that has some nice payoffs even if it is not as dark or dramatic as Pyongyang.

An absolute delight! If only other books were treated this way. A very interesting story of trials and tribulation but mixed with a lot of light moments too.
A warmth in the telling and in the drawings which is a great combination. Keep it up Mr Delisle!

This was the second book I've read from Guy Delisle (the first being Pyongyang) and it was just as good as the first one. The author's refreshing style of capturing his adventure combined with his great sense of humor makes this book a must-buy. Looking forward to reading the next release!

After I read Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle, I wanted to read more of his graphic fiction. This past weekend I read Burma Chronicles, which tells the story of Delisle's time in Myanmar with his wife Nadège, who works for Médecins Sans Frontières, and their infant son Louis.

I did not find Burma Chronicles as amusing as Pyongyang. For one, the subject matter in the North Korea graphic novel was already well known to me and even though I had not yet visited the North Korean capital I was still rolling around in laughter. Another reason that Burma Chronicles was not as funny was that it centred on Delisle's uneventful life in Myanmar while his doctor wife was out in the field living a life of adventure. I found Burma Chronicles in many instances a boring read. What made Pyongyang such a riot was reading Delisle's comic asides as well as his insetted comics-within-a-comic as he tries in vain to deal with North Korean bureaucracy. There is a sizable chunk of red tape to deal with in Myanmar, but one can cut through this red tape with blunt kiddie scissors. The red tape in North Korea needs a blade sharp enough to cut through diamonds.

Burma Chronicles was funny in Delisle's account of how the country's right-hand drive vehicles had to change, overnight, to driving on the right side of the road. The illustrations of right-hand right-lane driving were hilarious. In Myanmar's humid conditions, Delisle's illustrations portray himself as sweating away twice his body weight in perspiration each day. Truly a destination where air conditioning is a must, everywhere there is a generator and an outlet.

Delisle's done better (eg - 'Pyongyang') and at times his observations of such minutiae as the constant humidity, military controlled oppression and betel nut chewing of his year in Burma borders on the repetitive, but at the end of it all you'll very likely come away with a much better understanding of one of the least known pockets of the world.

Guy Delisle spent a year in Burma with his wife, who worked for Medecins San Frontieres, and their infant son. He took care of the boy and drew about his experiences. This collection is (in hardcover anyway) beautifully printed, and is an often charming study of expat life. One can learn about modern Burma from Delisle's discussions of the junta and its repression of ethnic minorities in the north, or about heroin addiction in the large parts of the country that grow opium poppies, but this is not primarily an educational work; you could learn more from 15 minutes with wikipedia. It's primarily a study of the expat lifestyle, charming as Delisle discusses his time with the son, irritating when he slips in an "I'm so authentic here, unlike those tourists" mode.

I have a number of friends who work for NGOs like Medecins San Frontieres, and I've spent some time in east Africa, in countries where they operate in large numbers, but this was probably my most intimate view inside one of the organizations.

Altogether a worthwhile book.