I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: WE ARRIVE ALIVE-My Friend the Bombmaker (2012).

Of the three EPs, on the bands bandcamp site, this is my favorite.  There was no band member listing on the first EP, but on this one, the band is a five piece: Andy, Neil, Ben, Michael & Adam.

This EP has four songs.  It opens with “My Friend the Bombmaker” in which the drums and bass have a bit more prominence but as soon as the guitars kick in it is clearly We Arrive Alive.   They seem to have made this sound their own.  I enjoy the way they mix things up on this song–some staccato parts which then jumps into a slow part with a bass line that makes the song seem more positive than it might.  A bright guitar line echoes that sentiment.

This EP features the two shortest songs recorded by the band.  Each is around three and a half minutes. “A Lethal Black Ooze” opens with some keyboard sounds and swirling guitars. The actual riff feels far more ominous than the previous song.  This one ends in an odd way—sort of abruptly.  “Zombies” opens with a great guitar riff. I love the way the bass thuds along in this one too.  Then the song kicks into high gear and simply propels itself along.  It comes and goes so quickly that when it does end at just over 3 and a half minutes you’re sure there will be more (and you want more).

The final song is slow and the bent guitar notes and rumbling at the end are ominous indeed.   “Dachau” may be a little too intense as a title, but the song is still effective and does evoke a sense of horror.

I really enjoyed this EP.

[READ: March 21, 2015] Fatherland

More than the story, the thing that struck me most about this graphic novel was the art.  Bunjevac has a beautiful realistic style that is uncanny in its use of lines and shading.  This book is simply gorgeous to look at (the cover indicates the kind of art inside).  I was constantly drawn in by the crosshatching, marveling that it was never “perfect” despite how perfect it looked.  It was these little “flaws” that made it look all the better.

The book opens in Toronto in 2012.  The narrator (shown on the first page drawing) is startled that her mother has come by unannounced,  but she uses the opportunity to bring up something that has been bothering her for many years.  Her mother has selective memory about her past (the narrator’s childhood).  Her mom can easily remember celebrities and other minutiae but her own life she doesn’t seem to recall.

And then we flash back to Welland, Ontario in 1975.  The narrator is the youngest of three children.  Her mother, after years of being unhappily married, begins taking precautions against the night–pushing a wardrobe in front of the window.  She once tried to flee from her husband (who was abusive), but he promised things would be different.  And they were, briefly.

Eventually, she decides that she will visit her parents in Yugoslavia–it has been a long time since she has been there and the her parents would love to see the kids.  Her husband says that she can go with the girls (including the narrator, who is the youngest), but the boy stays with him).  This puts a crimp in her plans, but she goes through with it.  Leaving her son behind, she takes her girls and flees the country.

It is a shocking transition from the plenty of Canada to the want of Yugoslavia–there are no jobs and the narrator’s mom has a very hard time finding work.  They stayed with her mother’s parents.

After they are there for a few years, they receive a telegram that the girls’ father has died in an explosion (their brother is safe).  We learn that he was part of a Serbian sympathizer group .  I have to admit I got a little confused by the politics here (so I’m not exactly sure what he stood for).  There are interesting maps and visuals, but I was puzzled by the different names of the groups and am generally unfamiliar with the politics of the region.

What is so interesting about the way the story is told is that the second part of the story is the story of the narrator’s father–as she has reconstructed it.  She barely knew her father, and she does the research to track down his life in Yugoslavia.  His father was born in Indiana, but when he contracted tuberculosis, his family sent him back to Yugoslavia believing that the country air would heal him.  With no real parental supervision, he quickly became the town drunk, and yet the narrator’s grandmother still fell for him.

After they married, her grandfather began with near daily beatings.  One beating killed their unborn child and rendered his wife barren.  The only child was the narrator’s father  And as Yugoslavia suffered a coup and then war her father watched it all.  After a young adult hood filled with military actions and dissidents, Peter was exiled to America.

Seeking a penpal, he wrote letters to the narrator’s mother and they fell in love without meeting.  They are eventually married, but he never let go of his dissident beliefs.  We learn a but about his life when his daughters were in Yugoslavia.  But mostly we learn about the kind of violence he was involved in.

The way the story was told was quite cool–from personal to political and back again.  Even though I didn’t fully grasp the politics of the situation, I still found the story compelling and quite tragic.  But it’s thea rt that will keep drawing me back in.  I will have to look for more work by her.