Customer Reviews

Chuck Dugan Is AWOL: A Novel - With Maps

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

 

 

I'm a sucker for books with maps, pullouts, and all sorts of ephemera. This particular book is a book of maps, drawn in a very precise, almost quirky style. The drawings are very simple, yet it's possible to be immersed in them for days. Annotations on the maps tend to draw grins: coffee stain, size 14.5 boots, missing wheel.

It's no secret that Eric Chase Anderson is the brother of director Wes Anderson. And if you're wondering if they share the same quirky style - yes, they do. For example, the story itself is about Chuck Dugan - "who has seen snakebite, fear, and a man shot in the knee."

The story is a throwback to detective and adventure novels most of us have read as children. Over-the-top action, plots, usurpers. It's enough to make anyone smile wistfully in memory of reading those books.

Sudden details jump out of nowhere, without any sort of build-up to them. Instead of making it into a weak story, this slightly scattered form of writing, however, only adds to the charm. But even if this form of writing isn't your style, the maps will be.

Chuck Dugan Is Awol is a "novel with maps" - and only when I realized that it's just not to be read like a regular book (or even a graphic novel) did I really understand its significant charms. The difference is that Chuck Dugan isn't so much about following the characters or plot elements. Its about joining Chuck and Sally in a rich and quirky universe that's been created especially for them. I find myself lingering on the illustrations and chapters while the plot sort of materializes at its own pace rather than running at a breathless sprint, which is what I associate with traditional adventure novels. While the drawings locate the reader physically and emotionally, the tendrils of Chuck's world are rules and codes of behavior which run though the narrative. Some rules have to be kept in the strictest manner like the rule of the ocean (of which Chuck of course is a master) and some rules have to be broken (Chuck is, after all, Awol from the Navel Academy in order to save his mother and the family fortune). The villains are the ones who break rules for selfish reasons and do things that just shouldn't be done. What makes this fresh and fun is that Chuck's world is just different enough from our own that the "rules" he lives by feel like a throwback to an alterate-world era that never existed in the first place.

Chuck's been on my bedstand since I bought it back in May, and I'm not finished with it yet; in fact, I'm only on Chapter Ten - "Too Late". If you still haven't "gotten it" take a look at the caption on the illustration of the apple on page 120 -- or the tiny dot that is Rescue Buoy No.49 just noticeable in the right hand corner of the Chapter Eight illustration.

Is it the the story, written with such care, or the illustrations, very obviously rendered with love, that make "Chuck Dugan Is AWOL" the book that will keep you awake at night thinking about time travel, wishing that you could send it back to your thirteen year-old self?

It's just the thing you've always loved about reading: a hero (who seems like someone you could actually BE if you tried hard enough), a mystery, a life of adventure, stalwart friends, wonderfully sinister villains, maps of secret passages, outlandish devices and inventions...

Details clever enough to catapult any story to instant classic are a dime a dozen in the pages of "Chuck". The illustrations will consume hours of your time as you study every detail.

Some things to consider: "The Thorns", "Fraunces", a fatal observatory fire, a "Deputy Assistant Junior Naval Investigator", a birthday telegram from President Eisenhower, and (my favorite) "U-boat X".

This book is dense enough, deep enough, that you'll lose yourself in it for days. It's one of those stories that you just don't want to finish, because you don't want to leave the place where it takes you while you're reading. Buy it for the young reader in your family, or buy it for the young reader in yourself.

This book took me back to being a child. It is a simplistic and wonderful adventure story, that I cannot recommend enough. There should be more books like this, and I look forward to what the author does next. It is a quick read and I urge you to give it a go.

I found out about this book because I'm a huge Wes Anderson fan, and Eric Anderson is his brother. First off, this book is a quick read (I got through it in two sittings; it's got a lot of white space on every page and the illustrations take up a bit of space...), but that's okay, mainly because I didn't want to put it down since I was getting into it so much. The story gets moving very quickly and there is a lot of action and quirky humor to keep things moving. If you're not a Wes Anderson fan or a fan of the art of Eric Anderson, I guess I would mainly recommend this book to young boys. It's a pretty classic adventure novel, with dashing heroes, spy kits and disguises, pirate battles, and young people. There's some light violence, but nothing too brutal that you wouldn't see on any Saturday morning action cartoon.

What really makes this book great is the "maps", which is a pretty broad term in this book. There are maps of places, yes, but also maps of people, jeeps, boats... just about everything. They're colorful and cute, but detailed illustrations that really bring the story to life. My only complaint about them is that they almost always appear before that portion of the story has happened yet (at the beginning of each chapter...), and so you often have to go back and look at the picture again because there is no way of making sense of it without having already read ahead.

Otherwise, it's a beautiful book with a lot going for it; I just wish that it had more for young ladies, because there's really not a lot of social interaction with the characters that doesn't involve getting in fist fights or chasing people...

Eric Anderson is obviously cut from the same cloth as his brother Wes. I understand that this novel with maps is wholly his creation. I still feel that for any fan of Wes's films this book is a must have. The two have such similar sensibilities that I can easily imagine each one building off what the other has done. Wes's films, especially the well composed static shots found in all 4 films, seem to be directly pulled from Eric's illustrations. Eric's art is in The Royal Tenenbaums and his fun color palette seems to have permeated his brother's films to some degree. As someone who has a brother I know that as alike as brothers can be we can still be very different. Eric and Wes seem to be alike at least where their creative sensibilities are concerned. I am very curious about their childhood. What was it like growing up in their home? Was the father absent? Was the mother re-married? Was creativity encouraged? Were they rich, or well to do?

The thing that appeals to me the most about the Anderson brothers is that they create works where the adult world is slightly skewed towards a child's perspective. It's like what we all imagined what it would be like to be an adult as a child. Of course real adulthood is nothing of the sort. Real adulthood is hard and lacks that secret agent pep that we all imagined it would have when we longingly wished to stay up late, or wondered what work was like for our fathers. Charlie Brown, The Catcher in the Rye, James Bond, Johnny Quest, and Jacques Cousteau all play some part in the works, either directly or indirectly. There are many more, like Kramer VS Kramer, Woody Allen, Devo, Classical music, indoor home made tents under blankets all seem to play some part in the works of these artists. After seeing Life Aquatic I felt for sure that it was an adventure film the way a child would make it. Sure enough Anderson and Baumbach say pretty much just that at one point in the commentary or documentaries. There is also a dark side to their work, a part that shows there is trouble waiting at the end of this imaginary childlike tunnel we all go through into adulthood. Suicide, drugs, sex, divorce, money, and death all loom menacingly here and there, peppered throughout. I think it shows in the fact that Wes's next film is based on the Rohl Dahl book "The Fantastic Mr. Fox", a very violent childhood book that I only recently first read to my son. It is wrought with all sorts of danger, destruction, guns, violence, and the like. This book seems right in line with the childish flirtation with danger that is central to their works.

The Novel Chuck Dugan is AWOL is right in line with all the afore mentioned and although wholly an Eric Anderson creation, it could easily be mistaken to have been created by his brother Wes. To me the two are almost indistinguishable, except for the fact that Wes seems to want to create large works for the masses, and Eric seems more content to create on a smaller scale for a more intimate audience. When I saw the Royal Tenenbaums and how it was imagined as taken from an imaginary Novel I wished such a creation existed.

Chuck Dugan is AWOL is that very such creation. An Amazing novel with maps. I want to camp outside with my son this Friday night and decode secrete messages and burry treasure...

Bravo Eric! I can not wait to read more books by you!

E.C. Anderson has written the novel that every 13 year old boy WISHES he could write. This book was a pleasure to read - whimsical, quirky, action-packed, perfect.

I have been enjoying E.C. Anderson's illustrations ever since the Criterion Collection edition of "Rushmore" was released on DVD. His drawings have an innocent charm about them, they really enhance this book. Practically every other page has a nice little diagram carefully illustrating pieces of the story.

My only complaint is that the book is a little light, I would have liked another 100 or 200 pages.

Overall this is a fun read and definately worth picking up. I look forward to many more adventures from Chuck Dugan...as well as E.C. Anderson

It's interesting, quirky, quick, and funny. Not deep reading by any means, but an enjoyable diversion. And the maps really are interesting.