Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 2001, French-Canadian cartoonist Delisle traveled to North Korea on a work visa to supervise the animation of a children's cartoon show for two months. While there, he got a rare chance to observe firsthand one of the last remaining totalitarian Communist societies. He also got crappy ice cream, a barrage of propaganda and a chance to fly paper airplanes out of his 15th-floor hotel window. Combining a gift for anecdote and an ear for absurd dialogue, Delisle's retelling of his adventures makes a gently humorous counterpoint to the daily news stories about the axis of evil, a Lost in Translation for the Communist world. Delisle shifts between accounts of his work as an animator and life as a visitor in a country where all foreigners take up only two floors of a 50-story hotel. Delisle's simple but expressive art works well with his account, humanizing the few North Koreans he gets to know (including "Comrade Guide" and "Comrade Translator"), and facilitating digressions into North Korean history and various bizarre happenings involving brandy and bear cubs. Pyongyang will appeal to multiple audiences: current events buffs, Persepolis fans and those who just love a good yarn. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Pyongyang documents the two months French animator Delisle spent overseeing cartoon production in North Korea, where his movements were constantly monitored by a translator and a guide, who together could limit his activities but couldn't restrict his observations. He records everything from the omnipresent statues and portraits of dictators Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il to the brainwashed obedience of the citizens. Rather than conveying his disorientation through convoluted visual devices, Delisle uses a straightforward Eurocartoon approach that matter-of-factly depicts the mundane absurdities he faced every day. The gray tones and unembellished drawings reflect the grim drabness and the sterility of a totalitarian society. Delisle finds black comedy in the place, though, and makes small efforts at subversion by cracking jokes that go over the humorless translator's head and lending the guide a copy of 1984. Despite such humor, which made his sojourn bearable and overcame his alienation and boredom, Delisle maintains empathy. Viewing an eight-year-old accordion prodigy's robotic concert performance, he thinks, "It's all so cold . . and sad. I could cry." Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1897299214
• ISBN-13: 978-1897299210
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #25,733 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life inside the worlds only Communist dynasty, January 27, 2006

By	E. David Swan (South Euclid, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (Hardcover)

Since the end of the Korean War, North Korea has become the most isolated, mysterious and fortified country on Earth. Unlike many other remote locations around the world North Korea is not a place many people would want to spend any time. However, thanks to globalization, North Korea's vast supply of super cheap labor and a real need for foreign investment the country has opened its doors just a crack and in peeked cartoonist Guy Delisle for a view at probably the most tightly regulated society on the planet. Mr. Delisle documents his experience in North Korea accompanied by his ever present "guide" and his translator. Pyongyang isn't really a story per se as much as a slice of life glimpse at the daily goings on in North Korea or at least as much of a glimpse as foreigners are allowed to see.

The drawing style in Pyongyang is a minimalist black and white that captures nicely the mirthless life in North Korea. You get a sense that the leadership is desperately trying to maintain a good face for the rest of the world but like the bridge in the book that only gets half painted the rust is bleeding through and the cracks are growing. There could hardly be a better advertisement for Capitalism and Democracy than the sterile, dystopia that is North Korea where airports and restaurants operate without lights and massive construction projects sit unfinished and crumbling. Freeways are built without exits and all the people listen to the same state run radio broadcast featuring music that sounds like "a cross between a national anthem and the theme song of a children's show".

North Korea has the same kind of creepiness as a cult except on a massive scale where Kim Jung Il acts as patron deity and his smiling visage is ever present in society. Each room has his portrait and his face appears on a pin that all Korean's are required to wear. This is a land where worker can advance by ratting on their fellow citizens and slight infractions can cause people to suddenly vanish.

Guy Delisle does a superb job of capturing the bleakness and bizarreness of North Korea contrasting it with his own light hearted rebellious attitude. In the end he tries to retain a shred of normalcy throwing paper airplanes from his apartment window while the people below try and hold it together in a society permeated by fear and mistrust. One of the items that the author brings with him is a copy of George Orwell's `1984' but what he found was the physical manifestations of Orwell's deepest fears brought to life.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Outsider's Look at North Korea, October 14, 2005

By	Yoshi A. Salaverry "bibliovore" (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (Hardcover)

This short graphic novel by French Canadian Guy Delisle managed to be humorous and frightening at once. It's a story of his two-month stay in Pyongyang while overseeing the production of a popular French children's cartoon. Delisle is not lost on the sad irony of his position, and tells his story simply and without pretense.

The book deals mainly with how frustrating life is in the capital, even for a privileged foreigner like him: bad food, constant surveillance, blaring propanda songs, etc.

It's probably most affecting when you get a real sense of the inner lives of his guide and translator. Both are very buttoned-up, proper and repressed. At one point Delisle lends one of them his copy of "1984"; when the guy returns it a week later he seems very nervous and mutters something about how he "doesn't like science fiction." On the other hand, he rejoices when he gets a bottle of Hennessy as a going-away present.

In the most terrifying episode Delisle asks his guide where all the handicapped people are in Pyongyang, and the guide responds that there aren't any handicapped people in North Korea. Yikes!

Highly recommended to any fan of first-person graphic journalism.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Beginning, October 12, 2005

By	Robert E. Davis "21south" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (Hardcover)

This is the sixth travelogue memoir I have read in the past year including Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis books (the best of the lot), Craig Thompson's Carnet de Voyage and Rick Smith's Baraka and Black Magic in Morocco (the worst of the lot). This book is somewhere between Thompson's book (actually more of a traveling sketchbook than story) and Satrapi's tome of her youth in Iran. As with Thompson's book, this is an outsider's view of things we may perceive as absurd (and though I believe most of what Delisle writes about is totally absurd and unbelievable, I also believe his depiction of North Korean existence under a dictator is probably very accurate). This is an excellent beginning for Delisle and may be hard to follow. I highly recommend the book.