Customer Reviews

Epileptic

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

To people who reject newer narrative forms, I have always said that genius surfaces in every medium. The graphic novel MAUS is a good proof. Now, I have found another one in this fine work by David B. Epileptic is the life story, actually, of the author/artist, and his family as they go through the profoundly moving events surrounding David's older brother's epilepsy. I must say that the casual cruelty to which this child was subjected by the community was shocking. While it is true that that is the basic core around which the story develops, it is also about David's coming to grips with his own personal fears and demons, along with his development as an artist. It was interesting to see how much quackery his family was subjected to -- the desperate parents who love their son so much that they try anything at all that seems to offer hope. At any rate, I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the subject, and also anyone who is interested in outstanding graphic work.

This has got to be one of the most inventive and stirring "graphic novels" ever published. (Actually the term graphic novel is a misnomer here because it's a non-fiction memoir.) The story concerns how David B grew up in France under the shadow of his brother's illness. His brother had severe epilepsy, with serious seizures every day, and ended up chronically ill and unstable, both physically and mentally. While the family wasted their time and hopes on all sorts of homeopathic quacks and mystical charlatans, David B felt himself battling insanity and loneliness, perhaps convinced that epilepsy would get him too, after already destroying the stability of his family. It's a unique life story, but what possibly matters more here is David B's incredible artwork. His work is overwhelmingly dark, with a great amount of black ink illustrating both literal and allegorical darkness. His style also greatly utilizes frightening surrealism, and he has a great ability to illustrate fear and frustration symbolically. My favorite example is David B's depiction of his brother's epilepsy as a Chinese dragon that erupts from his brother's body and looms ominously over the family, while his brother himself is later depicted as a dark and threatening bogeyman when his behavior is damaged by seizures and psychosis. In addition to being a truly scary and saddening story of how regular people must deal with a loved one's terrifying illness, this book is also a feast for the eyes, with superbly eye-catching and thought-provoking artwork. [~doomsdayer520~]

I read this book from the perspective of having a family member with epilepsy. Not only is this a great "graphic novel," it accurately portrays the experience one has living with a family member that is afflicted. It was astonishing to me that the author's family was so heavily involved with alternative therapies. I can identify since that has been a factor in our family too. Macrobiotics played a prominent role in both cases initially but without effect. Reading about their journey left me not knowing whether to laugh or cry since so many of those experiences are familiar.

I knew I was going to identify with this book after reading page 10. On that page is a picture of many doctors making a big ring around the patient and his parents. It is so typical of the endless search for a treatment that will bring back the person that we knew before the seizures started. One phenomenon this book so accurately captures is a feeling of near helplessness as the seizures come and go in spite of medical therapy. Then with poor control the afflicted individual can slowly slide down a path of mental deterioration.

I was impressed with how many alternative therapies were tried before the family gave up. Each new alternative therapy was like the hope of a "cure" dangling just out of reach. They seemed to go through the range of conventional medical therapies offered at the time as well. Possibly, frustration with conventional medicine, due to unrealistic expectations, leads one to explore the other paths of unconventional treatments.

The artwork is magnificent. The symbolism is wonderful. To grasp it all would require a reading dedicated to pondering each image, and possibly the reader would need a personal experience with a family member or friend that was afflicted with epilepsy. I enjoy flipping through the book now to relive the experience I had reading it the first time. The drawings bring back the emotions.

I highly recommend this book. For those that would try alternative therapy for epilepsy, to the exclusion of what modern western medicine has to offer, the outcome of the book might make them think twice.

David B., Epileptic (Pantheon, 2005)

Let's stop for a moment and reflect on the fact that the first two books in this review edition were both published in 2005, and I'm reviewing them in 2005. I don't think that's ever happened before.

That aside, here's Epileptic, a graphic novel from the somewhat prolific pen of L'Association co-founder David B. Originally released in six parts in France, stretching between 1996 and 2003, it's now been released in an English translation by Pantheon, so those of us on this side of the pond, not to mention the Brits and other English-speaking folk over there who don't know a lick of French (do any still exist?), can see what all the fuss is about.

What the fuss is about is, for the most part, the drawings themselves. That's what all the rave reviews harp on. David B. is an exceptionally talented artist, one who can integrate, interpret, and regurgitate just about any artistic school, or specific artist's style, to which he sets his mind, as well as having his own style, which is pretty uniformly dark and brooding. (Think of an illegitimate cross between Frank Miller and Rich Little. On second thought, don't, because I don't want to be responsible for you being struck simultaneously blind and insane.) There's also the storyline, but, I mean, it's a memoir, whether my library has it in the fiction section or not; there's a knack to writing about your family so that someone wants to read it, but when it comes right down to it, when writing a memoir, you don't have to go that far for material.

What most impressed me about Epileptic is that it's the first graphic novel I've read since Watchmen that really has a strong sense of time. It's not so much that it's linear; David B. jumps back and forth in time on a fairly regular basis. It's that you know what he's doing without needing any special tricks to proclaim it (though he does tell you every time he starts relating a dream). Even in David B.'s phantasmagoric world, the symbols are so deeply ingrained, and so well-rendered, that the reader can tell where reality ends and flashback (or forward) begins with no problem. There's none of the sense of impressionism that seems to have taken American graphic artists by storm. And thank heaven for that. Epileptic, as a result, is an incredibly readable piece of graphic art, and one that comes highly recommended from this camp. *** ½

The Kindle edition is literarilly unreadable. The resolution is very bad and it is impossible to read. I own the 9in kindle, I can't imagine how this could look in the 6in Kindle.

Deep inside, every creator wants to complete a single, definitive piece of work which encompasses all of his or her greatest skills - something by which he or she will be remembered. If they're lucky, they will manage this task and have the completed effort lauded and shown much support and respect. For L'Association's David B., Epileptic is doubtless the artist's coup de grace. The concept of the book stuck in Monsieur B.'s head for twenty years prior to its publication, and this incubatory period is quite evident in the reading.

Epileptic is unapologetically autobiographical. Young David B. (née Pierre-Francois) grew up in France with a younger sister and an elder brother, the latter of whom was diagnosed with epilepsy from about the age of seven. During this time, very little was known about the disease outside of medical circles, so David's brother Jean-Christophe was doubly-cursed; He would fall down in the streets of Orleans (or Bourges, or Paris), and would face harassment from passers-by to police officers, who thought the child was simply "fou" (crazy) or on drugs. Eventually, he was abandoned by his friends and certain non-immediate family members.

His immediate family, of course, held on to whatever hope was offered. Going beyond the traditional medical field of the time, Jean-Christophe's parents involved the children in a multitude of holistic healing approaches: Macrobiotics, acupuncture, massage... practically anything being offered in 1960s France held a glimmer of hope for the suffering child and his family. "It was the only thing we had left," says Mrs. B. "We soon realized that we had far fewer means than many to care for Jean-Christophe... I was blindly groping for an answer."

However, Epileptic isn't merely 350+ pages of self-indulgent pity. It is the story of one child's management of the illness of a close friend - his brother. The book details the life of an entire family, inextricably infected by the illness of the eldest child. On display are the bouts of depression induced by helplessness, humiliation, and disappointment. Also shown are the small glories of life, the insights provided through introversion, and the rebirth of one boy's self-image time and time again. Though the book covers the artist's life from the year 1964 through 1994 (with the primary focus on his earliest years), the narrative flows in such a seamless manner that the passage of time does not become obvious until Jean-Christophe moves away from the family, his frequent seizures and psychotic impulses becoming too much for the family to handle, toward the book's conclusion.

That said, it should be noted that - from time to time - the natural flow of the book is impeded by verbose descriptions of the various holistic treatments and theories surrounding the attempted cures of Jean-Christophe. Sometimes, such a descriptive passage will extend for several pages, only to have the actual "treatment" itself abandoned shortly thereafter. Was this a deliberate attempt by the author to frustrate the reader in order to trigger some inate ability to empathize with his own despondency? Perhaps, though the author is too subtle to admit it.

As a whole, though, Monsieur B. allows symbolism to speak those things for which there are no words. The lingering sense of loss after the passing of his grandfather, for instance, is symbolized by the spectral appearance of a "goony bird" in the mind's eye of the author's childhood. The struggle of his family facing the ostracization of "polite" society is represented in the child's multitude of battle drawings, from the Algerian War back through the days of the Samurai. Jean-Christophe's epilepsy is seen on some pages as a mountain to be scaled, and as a wicked demon on others. The symbols can be as fluid as the impressionable mind from which they stemmed.

Though not without its flaws, Epileptic is a shining point within the autobiographical graphic novel genre. This is one to be read over a period of several sittings because, just as the concept lay within the author's head for quite some time before it was made manifest, the material requires time to ferment within the readers' minds as well.

Very powerful and honest. David B. seems like he is really telling everything in his autobiography even though it revolves around his brother. His powerful narrative is helped along with the art, which although simple, conveys his ideas very well. One of the best graphic novels I've read, second only to Jimmy Corrigan.

david b. is a master when it comes to conjuring up the dark side of the imagination with this book about his brother's lifelong struggle with epilepsy, and the various, sometimes strange, adventures that it brought along. david's drawings will evoke a sense of twisted reality that is very effective in allowing the reader to understand the raw feelings david has with his brother's disease, and his unique perspective towards it. i found this book very intriguing and engrossing. this one is definitely one of a kind.

None of the individuals portrayed in this story emerge intact, including the author David B. I was left with the impression that either David B. is so fully aware of this that he purposely (and perhaps brilliantly) avoided communicating how messed up everyone in his family is, or that they are so messed up that he has no idea how messed up they are. Clearly he is angry at his family for spending his entire childhood revolving around his brother and his illness, but that's perfectly normal for someone who has grown up with a seriously ill family member. But David B's self awareness seems to end there. The damage is more extreme and disturbing because his family's approach to illness and guilt is more extreme and disturbing. This book is not "light reading" in any sense - There were times when I was only able to take in a page or two in a sitting. The art is so rich and complex and the story is so complicated, I needed to take breaks or I wouldn't know what I was reading anymore. The book is brilliant, beautifully translated from French, and like nothing I've ever read.

I find it quite peculiar that graphic novels such as Maus and Persepolis receive so much review and acclaim and "Epileptic" less so, for I find that this graphic novel is by far the most experimental in the content and structure, very much a "mental exploration" of life and disease than "the usual" more external exploration of life and the injustices of the world. It takes such intense emotional attachment and imagination to construct surrealistic, metaphorical representations of a chronic (and mysterious) disease, and to just list a few whimsical metaphors in a review does not do any justice. Mental manifestations of epilepsy and the attempt to understand it has led to an emotionally exhausting visual experience. The author is offering a gateway that allows me to EXPERIENCE epilepsy, not just read about it. I wish with all my mind's heart that this book becomes an animated film... it is the material of Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman, and the like. Those film-makers who understand that the external universe is merely a construct of a unique inner mind.