Stephanie Kay
Oct 11, 2007, 05:13 pm
<a href="http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5176/lostgirlsep9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5176/lostgirlsep9.jpg" alt="Lost Girls" hspace=10 align=left></a> <b>Reviewer:</b> Alex Groff, al_groff@yahoo.com
<b>Title:</b> Lost Girls
<i>"What we intended with </i><b>The Lost Girls</b><i> was to sever the connection between pornography and embarrassment...." -Alan Moore</i>
<b>By:</b> Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie
<b>Lettered by:</b> Todd Klein
<b>Edited by:</b> Chris Staros
<b>Art Direction by:</b> Brett Warnock and Matt Kindt
<b>Publisher:</b> <a href=http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalog.php?title=219 target=_blank>Top Shelf Productions</a>
<b>Format:</b> 300 page, 3 volume hardcover with slipcase
<b>Price:</b> $75.00 American
WARNING: THIS REVIEW IS VERBALLY EXPLICIT! IF WORDS OFFEND YOU, DON'T READ! MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY!
WARNING: THIS IS A LONG REVIEW. THE BOOK IS 300 PAGES; THE REVIEW, NOT QUITE THAT LONG. PATIENCE IS APPRECIATED.
There is thread in this book. Thread. Now, for most people, bookbinding is an arcane and wholly uninteresting discussion along the lines of electrical work and sewage maintenance: certainly we can't say its unimportant, after all it does hold the books together, but we also don't much care. Yet, it is little touches like this— the binding, the scent of the pages, the illustrious titles and half-titles, the texture of the paper— that make <b><i>Lost Girls</b></i> a impressive book to behold.
Top Shelf always makes fine books, but with their Alan Moore collection, they consistently surpass themselves. I still haven't managed to read through Alan Moore's <b><i>Voice in the Fire</b></i>, but to take it out and flip through it is an experience. <b><i>Lost Girls</b></i> is three hardcover books of about 100 pages each, held together in a slipcase. I used to have books like this as a child— illustrated, oversized versions of <b><i>Moby Dick, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow</b></i>, yes, even <b><i>Peter Pan</b></i>. Like those classics, <b><i>Lost Girls</b></i> is a massive work of art, before you even read a word, look at a picture.
Yes, there are words and pictures too. Funny, that.
<a href="http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/1222/lostgirls2ix9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/1222/lostgirls2ix9.jpg" alt="Lost Girls" hspace=10 align=right></a> Now, I bought this under the impression that it was a work by Alan Moore that contained "a bit" of pornography. I've heard others make similar comments: its "slightly erotic" or it "has some sex in it." Sure, we'd read the interviews Moore had given, heard the hype, but really now, who would spend sixteen years drawing four hundred pages of ****ing? Its probably just literature with a few romps in the woods. "A bit" of sex. Ladies and gentlemen, that would be like saying there's "a bit" of water in the ocean. This book contains every form of fornication that Moore and Gebbie could imagine, and they have quite the minds between them. (Thankfully, they did forget about tentacle rape.) This is a book entirely devoted to debauchery.
Now, I was raised Lutheran, which is sort of like Catholic Lite: less sacraments, the same guilt feeling. Dating Catholics hasn't helped. In the first fifty pages, I'm faced with foot fetishes and geriatric gynecology, marital discord and dissipated lesbians. With the second half of this book— only the first volume, I saw the rather innocent stories I grew up with turned into brazen trollops of the literati. I wasn't sure I was going to read the second book.
By the time I finished the third book, I was thinking about sex differently. I could write pages about the weird relationship between sex and art— I have, <a href=http://pisabound.blogspot.com>here</a>—but this story is more than a cataloguing of methods and techniques. I could mention the double penetrations, the involvement of horses, the use of opium-addled adolescents, the homosexuality and the reverse penetrations-- I could mention all of these things, and still not mention why this book makes such an impact. What makes this book powerful is the way the participants are treated, the way they become alive through these acts, the way these acts kill them.
The plot: three women meet in a hotel in Austria. They have sex, and talk about their past sex lives. Wendy— who is now twenty years older than her experiences in Neverland— lives in a sexless, bourgeois marriage with a husband obsessed with money and shipbuilding. The sadness and isolation within their marriage echoes throughout the story, while her awakening is perhaps its most touching aspect. Lady Fairchild— formerly Lewis Carroll's lover, Alice— has turned into a cynical, in many cases bitter, old woman, in no small part a reflection of a life filled with drugs, rape, insensitive companions and hypocritical aristocrats. Dorothy, visiting from Kansas, offers a sense of youth, vibrance and optimism which is both refreshing and odd. Her American bravado is a striking contrast to the British reserve of the other ladies, while her enthusiasm for life is encouraging in the face of such complexities.
The novelty of the stories— retelling <b><i>Peter Pan, Alice In Wonderland,</b></i> and <b><i>The Wizard of Oz</b></i> as stories of sexual awakening— is interesting, but less so than the lives of the characters. Gebbie's art changes in each chapter to reflect the original artwork from the stories, so that in many ways this book is a collection of beautiful homages. She also mimics with great success famous nineteenth century works of erotica. Yet however impressive Gebbie's replicas are, more powerful and more beautiful are the ways she presents people. These are not implant-laden women, athletically endowed men. They will not fight crime in spandex or beg to be ****ed harder and treated like a whore. These are human beings, and their reactions are natural: surprised, sometimes frightened or embarrassed, most often overjoyed. It is the antidote to today's depraved porn industry.
<a href="http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/333/lostgirls3cd6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/333/lostgirls3cd6.jpg" alt="Lost Girls" hspace=10 align=left></a> Sex, Moore and Gebbie seem to say, does not make us beasts or sinners. It is a part of being human, of being alive. I am reminded of the character of the lion, a farmhand who would, as if in a porn film, insult and objectify women, yet when Dorothy approached him, it turned out he was a cowardly lion: his insults were his fear, his shame. Once he was past that, the corruption we seem to connect to sex disappeared. One could almost say that the cowardly lion was the entire story in miniature. Almost.
What makes this literature— as well as pornography— is the way that these characters are real, fully developed people. Sex is not treated as perfection or perversion, but as a natural part of life— sometimes positive, sometimes negative— but never shameful. Shame is for those who are not living, for those who go through life like dull automatons, to use Eliot's phrase. The end of each chapter dealt with something dark going on during this period, a reflection of what happens when people turn away from love and turn towards hate, war, wealth, power— all of the things that sex and emotional connections undermine. We see the riots at Nijinsky's performance of <b><i>Le Sacre du Printemps</b></i> in 1913; in 1914, we see the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Belgrade; we see the fighting of World War I. Which, they seem to say, is more shameful?
There are a dozen such discussions to be had. I haven't mentioned the character of the author, a hotel owner who also writes pornography, and the role he plays in discussing art, sex and humanity. I haven't discussed the role of monogamy, or the strange path that Wendy's husband follows, or-- the list goes on. One could live in this book in the way one would have lived in epic works like <b><i>Gravity's Rainbow, The Tunnel, House of Leaves</b></i> or the author's <b><i>From Hell</b></i>. It took sixteen years worth of work— one year less than Joyce's <b><i>Finnegan's Wake</b></i> took to write— and if we are to believe Joyce, it should take twice as long to fully understand.
I don't know if it can be fully understood. But I'll let you know in forty years. Like the greatest works of art, philosophy, religion, <b><i>Lost Girls</b></i> is something that opens your mind as you open the pages: it takes you down roads you had not considered, and you may be surprised where you arrived, whether it's when you first finish the book, or when you last think of it, who knows how far in the future?
<b>Title:</b> Lost Girls
<i>"What we intended with </i><b>The Lost Girls</b><i> was to sever the connection between pornography and embarrassment...." -Alan Moore</i>
<b>By:</b> Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie
<b>Lettered by:</b> Todd Klein
<b>Edited by:</b> Chris Staros
<b>Art Direction by:</b> Brett Warnock and Matt Kindt
<b>Publisher:</b> <a href=http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalog.php?title=219 target=_blank>Top Shelf Productions</a>
<b>Format:</b> 300 page, 3 volume hardcover with slipcase
<b>Price:</b> $75.00 American
WARNING: THIS REVIEW IS VERBALLY EXPLICIT! IF WORDS OFFEND YOU, DON'T READ! MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY!
WARNING: THIS IS A LONG REVIEW. THE BOOK IS 300 PAGES; THE REVIEW, NOT QUITE THAT LONG. PATIENCE IS APPRECIATED.
There is thread in this book. Thread. Now, for most people, bookbinding is an arcane and wholly uninteresting discussion along the lines of electrical work and sewage maintenance: certainly we can't say its unimportant, after all it does hold the books together, but we also don't much care. Yet, it is little touches like this— the binding, the scent of the pages, the illustrious titles and half-titles, the texture of the paper— that make <b><i>Lost Girls</b></i> a impressive book to behold.
Top Shelf always makes fine books, but with their Alan Moore collection, they consistently surpass themselves. I still haven't managed to read through Alan Moore's <b><i>Voice in the Fire</b></i>, but to take it out and flip through it is an experience. <b><i>Lost Girls</b></i> is three hardcover books of about 100 pages each, held together in a slipcase. I used to have books like this as a child— illustrated, oversized versions of <b><i>Moby Dick, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow</b></i>, yes, even <b><i>Peter Pan</b></i>. Like those classics, <b><i>Lost Girls</b></i> is a massive work of art, before you even read a word, look at a picture.
Yes, there are words and pictures too. Funny, that.
<a href="http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/1222/lostgirls2ix9.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/1222/lostgirls2ix9.jpg" alt="Lost Girls" hspace=10 align=right></a> Now, I bought this under the impression that it was a work by Alan Moore that contained "a bit" of pornography. I've heard others make similar comments: its "slightly erotic" or it "has some sex in it." Sure, we'd read the interviews Moore had given, heard the hype, but really now, who would spend sixteen years drawing four hundred pages of ****ing? Its probably just literature with a few romps in the woods. "A bit" of sex. Ladies and gentlemen, that would be like saying there's "a bit" of water in the ocean. This book contains every form of fornication that Moore and Gebbie could imagine, and they have quite the minds between them. (Thankfully, they did forget about tentacle rape.) This is a book entirely devoted to debauchery.
Now, I was raised Lutheran, which is sort of like Catholic Lite: less sacraments, the same guilt feeling. Dating Catholics hasn't helped. In the first fifty pages, I'm faced with foot fetishes and geriatric gynecology, marital discord and dissipated lesbians. With the second half of this book— only the first volume, I saw the rather innocent stories I grew up with turned into brazen trollops of the literati. I wasn't sure I was going to read the second book.
By the time I finished the third book, I was thinking about sex differently. I could write pages about the weird relationship between sex and art— I have, <a href=http://pisabound.blogspot.com>here</a>—but this story is more than a cataloguing of methods and techniques. I could mention the double penetrations, the involvement of horses, the use of opium-addled adolescents, the homosexuality and the reverse penetrations-- I could mention all of these things, and still not mention why this book makes such an impact. What makes this book powerful is the way the participants are treated, the way they become alive through these acts, the way these acts kill them.
The plot: three women meet in a hotel in Austria. They have sex, and talk about their past sex lives. Wendy— who is now twenty years older than her experiences in Neverland— lives in a sexless, bourgeois marriage with a husband obsessed with money and shipbuilding. The sadness and isolation within their marriage echoes throughout the story, while her awakening is perhaps its most touching aspect. Lady Fairchild— formerly Lewis Carroll's lover, Alice— has turned into a cynical, in many cases bitter, old woman, in no small part a reflection of a life filled with drugs, rape, insensitive companions and hypocritical aristocrats. Dorothy, visiting from Kansas, offers a sense of youth, vibrance and optimism which is both refreshing and odd. Her American bravado is a striking contrast to the British reserve of the other ladies, while her enthusiasm for life is encouraging in the face of such complexities.
The novelty of the stories— retelling <b><i>Peter Pan, Alice In Wonderland,</b></i> and <b><i>The Wizard of Oz</b></i> as stories of sexual awakening— is interesting, but less so than the lives of the characters. Gebbie's art changes in each chapter to reflect the original artwork from the stories, so that in many ways this book is a collection of beautiful homages. She also mimics with great success famous nineteenth century works of erotica. Yet however impressive Gebbie's replicas are, more powerful and more beautiful are the ways she presents people. These are not implant-laden women, athletically endowed men. They will not fight crime in spandex or beg to be ****ed harder and treated like a whore. These are human beings, and their reactions are natural: surprised, sometimes frightened or embarrassed, most often overjoyed. It is the antidote to today's depraved porn industry.
<a href="http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/333/lostgirls3cd6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/333/lostgirls3cd6.jpg" alt="Lost Girls" hspace=10 align=left></a> Sex, Moore and Gebbie seem to say, does not make us beasts or sinners. It is a part of being human, of being alive. I am reminded of the character of the lion, a farmhand who would, as if in a porn film, insult and objectify women, yet when Dorothy approached him, it turned out he was a cowardly lion: his insults were his fear, his shame. Once he was past that, the corruption we seem to connect to sex disappeared. One could almost say that the cowardly lion was the entire story in miniature. Almost.
What makes this literature— as well as pornography— is the way that these characters are real, fully developed people. Sex is not treated as perfection or perversion, but as a natural part of life— sometimes positive, sometimes negative— but never shameful. Shame is for those who are not living, for those who go through life like dull automatons, to use Eliot's phrase. The end of each chapter dealt with something dark going on during this period, a reflection of what happens when people turn away from love and turn towards hate, war, wealth, power— all of the things that sex and emotional connections undermine. We see the riots at Nijinsky's performance of <b><i>Le Sacre du Printemps</b></i> in 1913; in 1914, we see the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Belgrade; we see the fighting of World War I. Which, they seem to say, is more shameful?
There are a dozen such discussions to be had. I haven't mentioned the character of the author, a hotel owner who also writes pornography, and the role he plays in discussing art, sex and humanity. I haven't discussed the role of monogamy, or the strange path that Wendy's husband follows, or-- the list goes on. One could live in this book in the way one would have lived in epic works like <b><i>Gravity's Rainbow, The Tunnel, House of Leaves</b></i> or the author's <b><i>From Hell</b></i>. It took sixteen years worth of work— one year less than Joyce's <b><i>Finnegan's Wake</b></i> took to write— and if we are to believe Joyce, it should take twice as long to fully understand.
I don't know if it can be fully understood. But I'll let you know in forty years. Like the greatest works of art, philosophy, religion, <b><i>Lost Girls</b></i> is something that opens your mind as you open the pages: it takes you down roads you had not considered, and you may be surprised where you arrived, whether it's when you first finish the book, or when you last think of it, who knows how far in the future?