[HAU]⋙ [PDF] Free Building Stories Pantheon Graphic Library Chris Ware 9780375424335 Books

Building Stories Pantheon Graphic Library Chris Ware 9780375424335 Books

Download As PDF : Building Stories Pantheon Graphic Library Chris Ware 9780375424335 Books

Building Stories Pantheon Graphic Library Chris Ware 9780375424335 Books

Chris Ware always comes through and aims to please as a talented writer, and an amazing artist. This treasure chest of graphic artwork is delivered in a beautiful boxed set of items, including 14 unique books. One can become mesmerized by his gorgeous art, and display his works in different places of your choice. This wonderful treasure is a great gift for yourself, a friend, or a family member. I immediately thought of a birthday gift, or Christmas gift for someone special. They will enjoy every moment, and appreciate the fine art that it represents. For the icing on the cake, it should cost much more than it does. It certainly is worth much more than it sells for, and many would agree. Chris Ware's work is Outstanding, and I always crave for more. Highly Recommended to anyone who enjoys the works of a Great artist and writer!


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Building Stories Pantheon Graphic Library Chris Ware 9780375424335 Books Reviews

I'll first mention that my experience with graphic novels is extremely limited. (I've read all of "The Walking Dead" novels, and I just finished the first "Game of Thrones" graphic novel.) So, I'm perhaps not the ideal target audience for a work of art such as this, but when I read so many glowing pre-publication reviews last week, I was immensely intrigued. The $30 price was, honestly, a bit daunting, but holding this collection in my hands, it feels like a bargain.

There are fourteen distinct "pieces" in the collection - books, pamphlets, comics, etc. 's description notes there are 260 pages in total. Be sure to look at the group of six photos near the middle of the product page to get a feel for the items that are included, although the photos do not do this work justice. The pieces can be read in any order, and in fact, that randomness will impact every reader uniquely.

"Building Stories" examines the lives of four people (and one bee!) living in a three-level Chicago apartment building. The stories flash back and forth in time, and the primary focus is on a single female tenant. The title can be taken quite literally, as in life stories that occur in a building. Of course, a more apt interpretation is the idea that people are "built" by a series of sometimes seemingly mundane (or not so mundane) events, as captured in this collection.

I read today that Ware spent ten years working on "Building Stories." I'm not surprised, as his dedication and passion shine through on every beautiful page.
This is the first graphic novel I've ever read. I was captivated.

The thing that strikes me most about this format is the way it can play with time. There are complicated scenes where a character is carrying on a routine daily activity, such as taking a child shopping or to the park, while also carrying on an intense inner dialogue with herself. The drawings add a dimension that words alone couldn't quite capture, but the scene wouldn't work as well in film because time can't slow down to accommodate a slower pace that allows for reader/viewer reflection.

I loved this book. I'll read it again.

(Note it includes nudity and adult themes.)
Like all of Chris Ware's stories they are meticulously crafted visual tales that really hammer home the desperation and solitude of every day lives. The art is so flawlessly precise you'd think it was mechanically generated. The stories are slow, abstract and open to interpretation in many ways but mostly they reflect the poignancy of the solemnness of everyday life. This particular collection presents a myriad of tales revolving around several characters that live in the same apartment building but each aspect of their individual stories are presented in different formats within a beautifully designed box. You might find a portion of the larger story told within the format of a children's book designed like a classic GOLDEN BOOK for example. You can read each snippet in any order you want and digest the individual tales without a predefined structure, literally "BUILDING STORIES"
Reader, this "book" comes in a box 16" long x 11 1/2" wide x 1 5/8th" deep. For best results, approach it as follows

Step One. Before unwrapping, turn the box over and read the text carefully. Think about it.

Step Two. Open the box, remove the fourteen items that make up its contents, place each one on the floor -- most tables are not big enough -- as shown in pictograph.Then...

Step 3. Read below.

Chris Ware's new graphic novel "Building Stories" is made to order for game players with a literary bent. Call the game "Follow the Story Line - If you Can!" The author provides a pictograph on the bottom of this box full of treasureWare with, he says "suggestions as to [where] appropriately [to] set down, forget, or completely lose" its contents. Accepting the challenge, I cleared a space in my study and set about putting the pieces down as shown in the pictograph. In the process I discovered that Mr. Ware had pulled a couple of fast ones. It requires duplicates of four of the pieces to match all the images in the pictograph. Moreover, in my set, one of the pieces has no exact mate.

The story follows the protagonist from "wondering if she will ever move from the rented close quarters of lonely young adulthood to the mortgaged expanse of love and marriage". I'll call her "Chris" -- after the author because he gives her no name. So the trick is to match the pieces of Chris' life to its trajectory from young Chicago art student to Oak Park soccer Mom. It took a bit of doing to come up with the right order for placing the fourteen pieces in the trajectory. If you try it, leave a comment. It will be fun to see if we agree. As Ware suggests, the place to start is the book shown top left in the pictograph and the place to end is the piece titled "Disconnect" at the lower right. Among the rewards for your effort, a nice surprise as you come to the end.

What about the novel as story? Is it as good as the graphic art that has gone into it? It starts with a nice touch. The initial point of view is that of the one hundred-year-old three-story Chicago apartment building where Chris lives on the top floor. The building ticks off one interesting fact after another from its 100 year history "301 tenants, 178 trysts, 469 feelings of being watched, 29 broken hearts" (including, one assumes, Chris's.), 104 writers, 4 criminals" and the list goes on.

Then each of the building's occupants has a say starting with the land lady (first floor), the unhappily married couple on the second floor and then Chris. Ware does this neatly, going from one floor's occupants to the next as the day, September 23, 2000, goes by, clock hour by clock hour. Then, he returns to the building as narrator "Better to take each day as it comes," I tell myself, "and revel in the remaining time of my old woman, my married couple and my girl." The last page fast forwards to 3.p.m. April 20th, 2006, to reveal Chris driving by with her baby daughter in the car. She notices a for sale sign in the building's window and thinks back to her days there "God I was so wretched and miserable when I lived there." There are five vignettes on the back cover, the central one showing a wrecking ball taking the first bite out of the old building.

This is the way Ware tells his story. You have to stay alert, no fast flipping through the pages or you'll miss a key fact. The novel hides its secrets in this way. Part of the reader's pleasure comes in discovering them, in keeping track of the convoluted story line. So there's a start. I'll let you take it from there.

In his introductory note on the back of the box Ware writes, "the book is sure to sympathize with the crushing sense of life wasted, opportunities missed and creative dreams dashed which afflict the middle-and upper-class literary public." So, to answer my question, judged by the goal Ware set for himself, the novel as story is as good as the art.

End note. Book arts, the graphic design elements that add texture and delight to the printed page, are in vogue. Chris Ware is in good part responsible for this development. His 2002 break-out book, "Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth" (Pantheon), embellished by one of the decade's most wondrous book jackets, helped bring about the new regard for the arts of the book. The jacket unfolds to reveal, on the inside, a short graphic history of Chicago. The endpapers are equally ingenious. Another of my favorites is "Diary of an Amateur Photographer A Mystery" by Graham Rawle (1998, Penguin). Both books are still available on the Internet.
Chris Ware always comes through and aims to please as a talented writer, and an amazing artist. This treasure chest of graphic artwork is delivered in a beautiful boxed set of items, including 14 unique books. One can become mesmerized by his gorgeous art, and display his works in different places of your choice. This wonderful treasure is a great gift for yourself, a friend, or a family member. I immediately thought of a birthday gift, or Christmas gift for someone special. They will enjoy every moment, and appreciate the fine art that it represents. For the icing on the cake, it should cost much more than it does. It certainly is worth much more than it sells for, and many would agree. Chris Ware's work is Outstanding, and I always crave for more. Highly Recommended to anyone who enjoys the works of a Great artist and writer!