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Underground > Comic Books >

La Perdida

  
 
matsya
03:00 / 29.03.05
Has anyone else been reading this? It's a great, thought-provoking and layered story that at its surface is about a young, naive american woman coming to live in mexico and, in an attempt to become more in touch with "authentic" mexico, cutting herself off from her ex-pat American friends and becoming more and more involved with two mexican guys. Her desires to "purge" herself from all that is "first world" about her cause her to demonise her expat friends for being imperialist, rich and white, and at the same time allow her to idolise her mexican "friends" and forgive everythign that they do. It's a really interesting exploration of cultural identity.

Anyone else had a look at this book? More from Jessica's site.

m.
 
 
sleazenation
07:53 / 29.03.05
I was not quite so impressed.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautifully designed book with wonderful, evocative art reminiscent of David Mazzucchelli, but I was never quite convinced by the narrative, or rather, I was never quite engaged by it. On the surface it’s about a relatively wealthy, naive American girl wanting to live an authentic ‘Mexican life’ with all the corruption and lack of opportunities that entails and on another level it’s about how she can’t because she is a relatively wealthy, naive American girl. I didn’t find that much of a revelation.
 
 
Mr Tricks
15:58 / 29.03.05
"La Perdida" traslates, most closely, to "lost girl."

I read the online intro and my curiosity was peaked. I've been checking the book out at the local comics shop but will probably wait 'till they do another one of their "graphic novels 40% off" sales...

or should I know bother?
 
 
matsya
21:28 / 29.03.05
I didn't think it was so much about her failure to integrate because of her being a naive rich young white thing, as it was about her world-view, ie her desperate desire to shuck off anything that she recognised as being part of the 'problem' to the extent that she lost sight of what was happening around her. I saw it as a meditation on self-centredness more than a story about first world/third world whatchacallit - that first/third thing is the way that Carla looks at the world, and of course how her communist manipulator Memo sees it, and we see the story partially through that filter, but the strength of Abel's story-telling is that there's more to it than that, and she manages to incorporate that extra level of depth into the story.

m.
 
 
sleazenation
12:38 / 30.03.05
SPOILERS for those who care about such things…


I read it that Carla’s world-view was a product of her being a naive rich young white thing; that the two notions were very much linked. I think part of her self-centredness is that she thinks that she can transition almost seamlessly from a US culture to a Mexican one if she wants to. Further, if we accept that La Perdida is a meditation on the self-centredness of youth, it appears to be a selfcentredness that Carla doesn’t really grow out of. At the end of the story, the Carla we see back in Chicago is still unable to pinpoint quite where she ‘got lost’ in her Mexican adventure, she even appears a little wistful for her past self whose foolishness got one ex-boyfriend kidnapped and another one ‘disappeared’. I would also add that I had a fair few problems understanding why Carla went out with Oscar in the first place, let alone why she continued to stay with him.

I’m not wanting to knock Jessica Abel; I really like her work, and while I don’t think La Perdida is an unmitigated success, it is still an interesting book. I would, however, go so far as to recommend people buy it read it and then join the debate. I'd like to hear Flux's opinon on the book since I recall he was also impressed by it.
 
 
matsya
21:10 / 30.03.05
In terms of Carla's naivete and arrogance coming from her being american, how do you think that relates to a character like Sylvia, who's presumably from a similar background, but who seems pretty onto things, relaxed and fairly "integrated" into Mexican culture (able to get Carla a job, an apartment, &c)?

I figured that Carla's relationship with Oscar was about control (or the illusion of it) - a need for superiority that was satisfied by her having the moral high ground of working to "support" him while he mooched off her, and also by her perception of herself as much smarter than him too. Also, he was pretty cute. And a bit dangerous (when you take into account the characters he "ran" with). Which has its own appeal.

She's a pretty dysfunctional character all round, which is why I didn't mind that there wasn't a resolution or epiphany at the end. After all, it's only been a year. Typical Carla to think that because she's been through an experience like she has that she is automatically a better person for it, without ever having put any effort into understanding how she might have been responsible for what happened.

I think her detached playing with the skeleton puppet while in detention is a good indication of how much denial and ignorance and la-la-not-listening is in her character.

m.
 
 
sleazenation
19:14 / 06.09.05
Since the latest issue of TCJ features a big interview with Jessica Abel I was thinking that this might be a good time to revisit this thread on her most recent long form work La Perdida - have more people found her work since this thread first bobbed up to the top? Has anyone got another perspective on La Perdida?
 
 
Persephone
19:29 / 06.09.05
Is La Perdida collected at all? I never got into La Perdida because a) it sounds sort of annoying, and b) Part One was out of print. Flux was always wanting me to read this, though.
 
 
sleazenation
19:33 / 06.09.05
Not yet - hardcover is slated for release next April. details here.
 
 
Persephone
19:43 / 06.09.05
Eh, I called the comic shop & Part One is back in print, but now Parts Two and Four are out of print. I guess I will mark my calendar for ...next April. Because I'm so good at waiting.

Recommend me something else in the meantime?
 
 
sleazenation
20:10 / 06.09.05
You could try getting the 'out of print' issues direct from Abel herself at jessicaabel.com... outside of that you could try out some of her earlier work on her miscellany, Artbabe - you'll probably be able to find a few issues at Quimby's...
 
 
sleazenation
20:14 / 06.09.05
I suppose a new comics recommendation thread might be an idea too...
 
 
Persephone
01:53 / 07.09.05
Hey, I got them. Quimby's had all of them.

I will read them on vacation.
 
 
sleazenation
06:34 / 07.09.05
Which did you get? Artbabe or La Perdida?
 
 
Persephone
10:46 / 07.09.05
La Perdida. That guy at Chicago Comics ~lied to me.
 
 
Persephone
06:19 / 09.09.05
Okay, well. How about if I write some fast impressions first & then follow up with something more thought out? As a whole, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. In fact I thought the story gathered storm pretty effectively from the middle to the end. Had I just picked up Part One in the store, I doubt that I'd have even bought the book & I certainly wouldn't have stayed with this stupid girl & her story for any length of time.

Between what matsya and sleaze are saying, I kept thinking that it all depends on the author's intent --i.e., what she thinks about this character, what she wants you to think about this character. This is not clear to me, and it leaned more towards that she wanted you to sympathize with Carla. It's not such a problem that Carla is a horrendous person, but it is a problem for me that Carla --as the first-person narrator-- is not clearly presented as a horrendous person.

I did think it was a good story, in the end. And I was also thinking that perhaps this story was particularly not well-served by the comic format. I really think that this would have made a really good movie --and may yet, as far as I know. If you can imagine, the camera would give you a view from the outside in --whereas the comic gives you a view from the inside out. (There would be no voiceovers in my movie version.) And actually, sometimes, you get a really weird view from the comic --e.g., here's this girl telling you her story, and here's a panel that shows her ass. What's that about?? I may be too easily distracted, but that just pulls me out of the story to think about stupid questions like If she's telling this story, who's drawing this story? Is she drawing this story? Whose gaze is this? Was she, like, thinking about her ass in this scene? If it were a first-person novel & all of a sudden you got a description of the first-person narrator from the back, it would raise these same questions.
 
 
Krug
06:06 / 11.09.05
I've read some of Jessica Abel's shorts but her writing and characterisation just doesn't connect with me. There's no real emotional resonance or power to the stuff I've read.

Should I try again with something else?
 
 
sleazenation
12:39 / 11.09.05
To finally reply to something that Matsya said earlier -

I think the difference between Sylvia and Carla is that Sylvia is happy to be an American living abroad - unlike Carla, she hasn't embarked upon the foolish and arrogant mission of living 'like a real Mexican', or effectively attempting to become Mexican.

It strikes me as a story about whiteness and privilidge. It could be that Carla's ongoing ignorance, arrogance and lack of self-awareness merely serves to underline that whiteness and privilidge.
 
 
sleazenation
14:52 / 11.09.05
Persephone

Interesting stuff there, particularly about the problems of the form of the comics. Yes, if the text is supposed to be in some way the view of a flawed narrator then we do need to ask where the images are coming from - using the art-equivilent of a 3rd person 'objective' perspective... breaks the integrity of the whole thing somewhat.

Having said which, I'm not sure how best to narrate events from a first person perspective in a form that is so labour intensive. Comics may be a dynamic artform, wonderfully suited to depict action, but they are not particularly great at documenting events as they happen. Comics are not a natural language of the diaryist... although there is the notable exception of Posy Simmon's Gemma Bovery - have you read that Persephone?
 
 
matsya
21:46 / 11.09.05
Carla --as the first-person narrator-- is not clearly presented as a horrendous person.

I kind of thought she was pretty unabashedly horrendous, especially in the bookends to the story where it's a couple years later and she's in a Mexican neighbourhood reflecting on the events of the story, and it's clear that she STILL hasn't understood why what happened happened, that rather than understanding something about the nature of whiteness and privelige, she's still whining about how hard her life is.

How would you change Carla's depiction, Persephone, to make it clearer that she was horrendous? This isn't a rhetorical question or intended to be patronising or antagonistic, btw - I'm interested to know what you would change.
 
 
Persephone
22:46 / 12.09.05
Oh god, yeah --Oscar is dead, Harry is deranged. But look how neat it is that Carla knows now how to roll a taco.

I do want to slightly change something that I said --viz., I'm not so concerned with the author's intent, I'm more concerned with the intent of the work & what this work is trying to say about this character.

And I just want to clarify that it's not that Carla doesn't come across as horrendous in this work. What doesn't quite come across is how aware this work is of that. Like how, say, Crime and Punishment is aware of Raskolnikov, which is not a totally fair comparison. To me Carla is more like Elizabeth Wurtzel in Prozac Nation. I'm not even totally convinced that Carla's supposed to be an unreliable narrator. I kind of don't think that what's being said with this framing device is supposed to be If you see this woman, please push her under a passing train. I really think that it is supposed to be "Poor lost girl." That last wordless panel in Uptown just kills it for me, I'm looking at that & all I can think is La Perdida 2: The Edge Of Reason...

But you know, benefit of the doubt --I'd say that this story needs an objective presence to work. I'm not saying that it has to be narrated by Che Guevara. It can pretty much be accomplished by taking out the subjective presence id est Carla's narration. I think it's just a liability. It undercuts the authority of the story for no good reason. This would also solve the problem I had with the story's gaze.

I'm fifty-fifty about the framing device. I guess if I really wanted to bury the character, I'd keep the frame. It's just so stupid that she goes to Pilsen for her Mexican fix. It really does make me want to push her under a train.

That said, I also think that there's stuff in Carla's character, in the text, that was oddly unexplored. She's not just a white girl who thinks that she can fit in anywhere. She's half-Mexican. She has a Mexican last name --which she changed, and changed back. Growing up, she thinks that her brother is "a totally embarrassing little wetback." All this could absolutely inform her need to feel fully Mexican & instead it seems like everybody's getting a "white privilege" vibe. Not to project, but I think the thing about Carla ought to be that she embodies both privilege and difference. It's just weird that these pieces are in the text & they don't seem to be put together.
 
 
matsya
01:18 / 13.09.05
That's a really good point, the privelige/disadvantage angle, and I think it would be interesting if Abel had explored that.

But I think the way you've reacted to Carla, the whole "please push her under a train" thing, is evidence that the author has achieved the characterisation of Carla as horrendously clueless. And I really like the subtle way it's done, without an objective judging voice anywhere in the story. If you're already wanting to push her under a train, hanging a sign on her to that effect becomes redundant.

Initially I wasn't sure about Abel's intent - were we supposed to sympathise with Carla or not? - especially with issue one, but as the story progressed it just got so out of control that I was left with no doubt in my mind that this woman was being held up as problematic.

I guess she was so grotesque that I couldn't believe that Abel was unaware of the ugliness, but that may have something to do with the fact that I've read a lot of her other work and have some preconceptions about her as someone who couldn't honestly believe that Carla was in any way a sympathetic character.
 
 
Persephone
09:06 / 13.09.05
Nnnn, I think that it's evidence that Carla comes across as very punchable. I don't think that it's evidence of purpose. I don't think that you can take any strong reaction as evidence that you're right where the author wants you. I mean, I think that Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula is hilarious & I'm pretty sure that it didn't mean to be laugh out loud funny.

I did say that I didn't want Che Guevara to narrate! I'm definitely for less narration. In a way I think that Carla's narration and the framing device are like hanging a sign on the story, if the intent is to be a searing indictment of white privilege.

Clearly I'm not a La Perdida fan --I'm enjoying talking about it very much, though. And I went through a similar progression as you as the story unfolded, just lower down the affinity scale. Where you went from being unsure to having no doubt as to the story's intent, I went from thinking this was total bollocks to being willing to give the story the benefit of the doubt. Personally, I think this shows that Abel was not as in control of her story in the beginning & her control gets better as the story develops.
 
 
Persephone
09:10 / 13.09.05
Sleaze: I have not read Gemma Bovary. I am also wanting to look into Persepolis now.

Thinking about it, I think it's the language of the diarist that does not suit this story & the comic format is probably okay.
 
 
sleazenation
19:03 / 13.09.05
I'm not sure if i have much of value to add I like and rather agree with Persephone's Carla/Elizabeth Wurtzal analogy...

But, yeah. I have a further difficulty viewing La Perdida as a searing indictment of white privilege, mainly because it isn't all that searing. It's more of a gentle, almost wistful, loveingly detailed portrait of white privilidge. And as nice an subtle as that all is, it's hardly a revelation. Solipsitic white twentysomethings are not exactly that thin on the ground.

I was going to ask people why they thought the whole Burroughs sub-plot disappeared so abruptly, but I guess the Burroughs stuff was very much a manifestation of Clarla's American boyfriend and how he was attempting to live the Mexican life, disappearing as soon as he dropped out of the narrative...

But, yes, Gemma Bovary is interesting, but Persepolis is brilliant - I read it in one sitting ignoring friends at the pub until i had finished it. I actually bought the second volume in SPAINISH so i could see what happens next before I was finally able to get my hands on a publisher's proof copy... How can you not love a book about a girl who attempts to fool The Guardians of the revolution into thinking that a picture of Michael Jackson was really a picture of Malcolm X, the leader of muslims in America...
 
 
matsya
22:04 / 13.09.05
Oh, I don't think it's a SEARING indictment. I just think that Abel's intent is pretty clear.

Thumbs up to Persepolis, too. I haven't read the second volume yet, but I just checked Satrapi's latest - EMBROIDERIES - out and it's good. It's a peek into the conversations had by Satrapi's parents, aunts and older women friends around the samovar, kind of a 'secret women's business' thing. Nicely told and composed.

I'm also intrigued by Gemma Bovary and will hunt it down.
 
 
sleazenation
22:12 / 13.09.05
Perhaps I should bump up some Satrapi...
 
 
Persephone
13:54 / 14.09.05
I just think that Abel's intent is pretty clear.

That could be, matsya. I don't know Jessica Abel that well. I was going to be stubborn and say that a text has to stand on its own, but that would mean there's no such thing as intertextuality...

On to Persepolis!
 
 
sleazenation
15:31 / 07.06.06
La Perdida has recently been collected by Random House into a single volume/graphic novel -

So, have more people read this now? If so, what did you think?
 
 
PatrickMM
18:18 / 03.07.06
I just finished it and I enjoyed it, but I felt like there wasn't quite enough there for such a long story. Most of it covered the same territory over and over again, though I did like the final chapter, which raised the stakes a bit. However, a lot of the time I was wishing that Abel would cut down on the amount of text and just let the pictures speak for themselves. I know that most of these Fantagraphics style indie books emphasize the novel more than the graphic, but nearly every page was filled with enough dialogue and captions to make Chris Claremont look concise. My favorite moments of the book were those when she had the more finished art style and let the images breath a bit, like the party on the rooftop or the end of the first chapter with the Burroughs reenactment.
 
 
Spaniel
18:33 / 03.07.06
I know that most of these Fantagraphics style indie books emphasize the novel more than the graphic

They do?
 
 
PatrickMM
20:36 / 03.07.06
Yeah, the cartoonist centered books I've read, a lot of which are put out by Fantagraphics, are more likely to be structured around a narrator telling the story than your average Vertigo or superhero book. The fact that you've got a story based around narrative captions makes it feel more like a prose novel than a movie, which is what a lot of DC and Marvel books are going for now.

La Perdida's panel layouts reminded me of 60s Marvel books, where the whole page is just crammed with captions and dialogue. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but I just felt like it could have used a bit more room to breathe.
 
  
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