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Summary
Summary
With his masterful illustration style, bestselling French creator-storyteller Chabouté ( Alone, Moby-Dick ) explores community through a common, often ignored object: the park bench.
From its creation, to its witness to the fresh ardor of lovers, the drudgery of businessmen, the various hopes of the many who enter its orbit, the park bench weathers all seasons. Strangers meet at it for the first time. Paramours carve their initials into it. Old friends sit and chat upon it for hours. Others ignore the bench, or (attempt to) sleep on it at night, or simply anchor themselves on it and absorb the ebb and flow of the area and its people.
Christophe Chabouté's mastery of the visual medium turns this simple object into a thought-provoking and gorgeously wrought meditation on time, desire, and the life of communities all across the planet. This could be a bench in my hometown or yours--the people in this little drama are very much those we already recognize.
Author Notes
Christophe Chabouté published his first work, Stories , based on the work of Arthur Rimbaud, in 1993 in France. Since then, he has received numerous prizes for his very personal illustration and storytelling style. When Alone , a wholly original work of his, published in France, it was widely hailed as his masterpiece and was an Official Selection at France's prestigious Angoulême International Comics Festival. He is the illustrator-storyteller of Park Bench.
Reviews (1)
Library Journal Review
Leave it to French cartoonist Chabouté (Alone) to turn an idea as seemingly dull as the biography of a simple park bench into a remarkable and unexpectedly moving exploration of humanity and a meditation on everything that either connects us or drives us apart. Spanning decades and featuring a huge cast of regular park patrons, the titular seating is ignored by some and seen as a regular feature by others, a place for friends and lovers to rendezvous, a spot where the brokenhearted can reflect, a hangout for rowdy teens and vagrants. Eschewing dialog in favor of allowing his wonderfully expressive black-and-white illustration to carry the story, Chabouté utilizes repetition to establish the routines that reveal his characters' hopes and dreams as he propels them through missed connections, chance encounters, and cunning visual gags. While some of the character arcs here might be a tad predictable, the clever juxtaposition of lives hinging on a humble bench, technical skill, and the passion the author brings to the work more than make up for it. VERDICT Another stunning achievement from an author who seems to produce only stunning achievements.-TB © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.