I guess most people who read a Jim Woodring book know what they’re getting into. I guess this stuff is written for people who like to pour over every page of a book time and again, drawing meaning from little hints here and there.
I am not one of these people. I’m not sayin
g that a book that warrants re-reading is not a good one, but I find books that REQUIRE it to be unnecessarily challenging.
This book in particular is one that I can’t help but find confusing. If forced at gunpoint to identify a theme, I would say, “Pig Man sticks his head into a hole, finds himself involved in odd tableau. Repeat.”
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It’s sort of the same way I feel about what they call Language Poetry. Take this excerpt from poet Jorie Graham:
The man held his hands to his heart as
he danced.
He slacked and swirled.
The doorways of the little city
blurred. Something
leaked out,
kindling the doorframes up,
making each entranceway
less true.
he danced.
He slacked and swirled.
The doorways of the little city
blurred. Something
leaked out,
kindling the doorframes up,
making each entranceway
less true.
Okay, I know that means something. Definitely something. But I don’t know what.
Not knowing is okay, but if I don’t know SOMETHING I’m not really compelled to take another crack at the mystery, especially when the reward for solving said mystery is solving said mystery and nothing more. And it’s not really like a logic problem because there is no right or wrong answer.
Which brings me back to Weathercraft: the book with no right answer.
There’s something dirty and pretty about Jim Woodring’s art, no doubt. Kind of like Crumb in some ways, but if the human characters in Crumb’s stuff occupied a more fantastical world. I can appreciate
that. I can appreciate the level of detail in the drawings, and reading this book does give you a feeling if not a logical path to
retrace how you arrived at that feeling.
By the end, though, I just need more. For me, it’s forgettable because there’s nothing I really remember other than to say, Dude, that was fucked up.
I guess if you’re into it, have a couple shrooms and go to town. This would be a pretty great book to do it with, although I don’t know why you couldn’t do it with a book that also has a more apparent story, like a Chris Ware book or something from Tony Millionaire.
I don’t know what there is to say about this other than it’s not bad, but it’s definitely not for me.