Gemma Bovery

This is another Posy Simmonds graphic novel, though not as good as Tamara Drewe. With this one, I think she was getting her feet wet with the whole classic-set-in-modern graphic novel genre. The text to picture ratio was too high and the characters were too similar looking to the ones in Tamara Drewe. Also I feel like she didn't trust her readers to follow the parallels to Gustave Flaubert's best-known work (probably a legitimate concern) so she spelled everything out. The nosy, creepy local baker shouts from the rooftops the similarities between the new English couple Charlie and Gemma Bovery and the literary couple Charles and Emma Bovary. On the other hand--and I loved this--Simmonds leaves great loads of French untranslated, or succinctly translated, so that a lot of the colorful French is left intact like an Easter egg for bilingual readers to enjoy. I don't think that detracts from the enjoyment of the story.

Most of the French is translated, though some of it still reads like a translation, the words not quite right somehow. I would think that would be a hard thing to pull off as an author, but Simmonds does it wonderfully. I love that the horrible baker spends a lot of his time with a good English-French dictionary trying to make head or tails of the deceased Gemma's journals. There's a great scene when he's trying to translate "wanker" and can't find it. Wand...wane...wangle...want...merde, ce n'est pas la. He has better luck (and a better dictionary) with "snogging."

Joubert the baker is an extremely creepy character. He becomes obsessed with Gemma and her trysts, to the point that he's spying on her. He's repulsed and also fantasizing about her, about becoming her lover. Simmonds refines this character in Tamara Drewe, as the writer-in-residence who's less creepy but knows all. She even draws them the same. It was easier to see that characters good points, even if you didn't like him much.

This story follows the familiar Emma Bovary plot and, yes, there's death and guilt and boring provincial neighbours, and debt and sex, and more guilt. But there are some nice, modern twists and an English angle. It becomes less of a morality tale and less depressing than the original. The throw away ending is really stupid, though. In the last paragraph, Joubert wonders about the new neighbours replacing the Boverys. They're English too, like the Boverys. A couple. He's older than her...Her name is Jane. Jane Eyre. LAME. Don't say I didn't warn you. At least Posy Simmonds didn't pursue this little thought and went on to write/draw the superior Tamara Drewe.

It's hard to talk about the writing in this without the support of the artwork, but I did like this excerpt from Gemma's diary:No reason at all I get totally freaked. Today it started with seeing a tick in the bracken--remembered ticks are bad news. Also bracken spores give you cancer. Then couldn't stop hearing every rustle and twig snap behind me...started thinking: Rabid animals...rapists...French murders, like in the papers--killer is always local half-wit garagiste or else bloke in a coat who asks the time. I love 'half-wit garagiste'. The string of illustrations that accompany this are great.

I hope Posy Simmonds keeps going with this genre because I'm having a lot of fun with her work so far. Things have been a little grim this spring so I'm having trouble hitting the right tone in my reading. I think good graphic novels are a perfect antidote for the time being.