| Title | : | A Life Force |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0393328031 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780393328035 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 142 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1987 |
A Life Force Reviews
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Will Eisner is a true master of the graphic novel. The juxtaposition of a man and cockroach (and the life force that animates both to go on) is evocative of The Metamorphosis by Kafka; but in this case it is not rejection by family that is the central theme: it is more a Sartrean rejection of authentic self - and the price that one pays for such a deal.
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The second in Eisner's Contract with God trilogy, historical fiction, set in 1934 as the Depression was well under way and the forces of communism/socialism/Nazism swirled as a response to world economic events. The story, set on Manhattan's lower east side, Drops Avenue, owes much to nineteenth century melodramas, Penny Dreadfuls, and the more serious work of the literature of urban poverty such as Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. Robert Crumb called it a masterpiece, and it surely is a signpost in the history of comics, but it's also a little cartoonshly overdrawn as story and visual.
The protagonist is Jacob Shtarkah, whose existential search for meaning reflected Eisner’s own lifelong struggle. His story is interspersed with facsimile newsprint pages documenting the events of the times. A must read for comics historians and scholars. -
Yet another of Eisner’s criminally underrated and even more criminally under-read classics: A Life Force. Featuring Depression Era U.S.A. in all of it’s ethnic complexity and emotional vibrancy with a uniquely learned pen and pencil that has been dipped in the ink well of human nature, a superbly rich tapestry of life, love, and money is darned. This multi-faceted mosaic well retains it’s deeply human feel decades down the road.
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In the last few years, I have spent some time in the world of graphic novels. Watchman got me started. Since then, I have read graphic format costumed heroes, religion, history, biography and sex. Returning to one of the if not the originator of the genre, Will Eisner is rewarding. A Life Force is book two of his: The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue. I read the trilogy several years back and find it compelling enough for this re-read. A Life Force is a very worthwhile standalone read.
A life force takes place along Dropsie Avenue in a part of a run-down New York neighborhood during the depression. Our central character is Jacob Shtarkah an older, long time married, suddenly out or work carpenter. In the depths of his despair and in the throes of what could be a fatal heart attack he sees a cockroach. It is back doing whatever desperate things it can do to re-gain its feet and continue to live. Jacob is inspired by this need for all living things to live but asks the question is he, and by extension all humanity nothing more than another kind of roach?
The novel will follow Jacob , his wife and a growing circle of equally desperate people, trying to survive and maybe get ahead in a world that is always on the verge of crushing them. Dropsie Ave, is peopled with callus capitalists, union thugs, ill-lead communists, gangsters and decent if not entirely angelic people. Over all is the threat of death, age and the possible disruption in the seemingly good news of the arrival of a long-lost love. At some level everyone is on their back doing whatever desperate things they can do to re-gain their feet and continue to live.
Yes, these people are generally on an edge, work as they will, the life they so want to live can be arbitrary in how it rewards or retards the struggling. Life Force is not a depressing book. Good things large and small can happen. Some unearned, often in ways invisible to the beneficiary. The cockroach will appear with just enough frequency to remind us that we are struggling, but we also survive. Unlike the cockroach we want some meaning and some hope.
Against the charge that this is a nihilist or at least non-spiritual world. Eisner was Jewish as is Jacob. Jews routinely call out to or talk with God. Direct answers are not expected, only some kind of notice. There is a core belief that God has a contract with humanity and another with Jews. Having a contract should mean something about giving and getting. Pay close attention, miracles can happen. -
This graphic novel is a bonafide masterpiece. Eisner weaves a tapestry of tales about the characters living at 55 Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx during the 1930s and 40s. He chronicles the Great Depression, the rise of labor unions, and Nazism.
The illustration is spot on; always gritty, yet somehow tender. The reader knows they're looking at illustrations, but it never feels cartoonish and Eisner heightens the realism and helps set the scenes by including collages of news stories.
A Life Force is one of the standards by which I measure other works that call themselves "graphic novels." -
Wonderful. Eisner is still speaking of the Bronx and Dropsie Avenue, in the second book of the Contract with Trilogy, Eisner focuses on a particular set of people, whose lives interacted and intersected with one another with/without them knowing. While I loved book 1 due to particular stories, as a narrative book 2 works better because of its consistency. I can't wait to see how Eisner lays out book 3. I hope that someone it brings all these individuals and their stories together to complete a whole.
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I loved this book as well.The way he used the graphic novel medium is just fantastic. It shouldn't be too surprising really, since his 'a contract with God' was allegedly the first graphic novel. He looks into history through the lives of people- how it happened , what it meant to their daily lives etc... A very good read
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Touching on the 1930s Great Depression, Nazi persecution of Jews and the growing Communist movement .... and philosophically, the meaning of life of man and cockroach, this was yet another work of art by Eisner.
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Every bit as good as Volume I (A Contract with God) - I can see why the highest honor for graphic novelists is to be given the Eisner Award.
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4,6/5
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This is Volume #2 in the Contract with God Trilogy, and unlike the first book in the series, this one is a collection of linked stories - the characters all interact with each other over the course of the book. The depression years were a bleak time for many, maybe especially for the immigrant residents of Dropsie Avenue. People struggle to make ends meet, and as with all bad times, there are those who make/find opportunities to make a killing (literally and figuratively).
This volume tells the story through the stock market crash and the harsh winter of 1934. A very unsettled time indeed, which brings with it generational issues as many of the young see things differently than their elders. While I loved the art, there was a bit too much text/newspaper clipping style pages for my taste. Still, a historical graphic novel that is well worth the read. -
Brilliant. It creates a mood matched by the best of literary novels. The tenement tales are engaging and rich with period details. Will Eisner sets up the stories and introduce characters in a very lucid, interesting manner. There is so much to learn about plot and dramatic flow even by a short story writer. To call Eisner a master of the form would certainly not be a hyperbole.
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Amazing. I've never read a graphic novel set during the Great Depression, but it seems this is the best!!
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Rereading, I like, even love, this work so much more. Of course, I have aged, too, since I read this in its original serialized form...
Highly recommended. -
We ~are~ a lot like cockroaches.
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Uno spaccato visivo sulla gente comune alla ricerca della sopravvivenza nell America della grande depressione
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Centosessanta pagine che permettono di imparare molto dai personaggi, conoscerli, affezionarsi, amarli e comprenderli, assistendo alle loro vite in modo partecipe e attivo.
La crisi economica, il nazismo, i contrasti religiosi, la voglia di amare e di mettersi di nuovo in gioco, tantissimi sono i temi da cui si può prendere spunto espressi in maniera più o meno esplicita e rappresentati in uno stile in bianco e nero che non invecchia mai. -
I don't know many Jewish or Italian people, but this story seems to feature primarily stereotypes for both. It doesn't really put them in a bad light, it's just that it feels a bit heavy-handed. Other than that, which might just be intentional, everything is perfect. Each new character is introduced separately, but invariably becomes mixed into the main story which isn't clear-cut. Instead, with each additional character, it twists and turns in an organic manner that is entirely enjoyable to read. It's often funny too, but it has a fair bit of drama. There are many obstacles in the characters' paths. Some are insurmountable and tragic, but the way people help each other ensures they get to life one more day.
1934 on Dropsie Avenue is tough after the '29 depression. After being laid off, Jacob Shtarkah has a heart attack and a phylosophical revelation. He sees his life as no more important than that of a cockroach. The story will push poor Jacob to the breaking point on both the personal and professional levels. He may seem a defeatist, but he pushes on, desperate to live just another day and maybe catch a break. -
Will Eisner dedicó su vida a crear cómics que abordarán temas humanos trascendentes, A Life Force es una muestra magistral de esta labor.
Eisner nos lleva a los Estados Unidos durante la gran depresión, una época donde mantener la esperanza de una vida digna representaba un difícil reto de cara a la dura situación cotidiana, como Eisner nos la describe, el vivir se convirtió en una lucha por la supervivencia.
Basta con mirar la expresión y postura en los personajes para darse cuenta del talento enorme de Eisner para el dibujo. La desazón y desesperación es patente en los rasgos de nuestros protagonistas en diversos momentos de esta novela gráfica; lo mismo que son capturadas las pequeñas victorias, los momentos de duda, el enojo, la pasión y toda la gama de emociones humanas que es posible imaginar. Eisner captura la esencia de la vida durante la gran depresión en el dibujo de A Life Force
Pero además Eisner demuestra su capacidad para "escuchar". Los diálogos de los personajes son tan naturales que es posible sin mucho esfuerzo imaginar las, las inflexiones y los acentos de todo lo dicho.
Tomados ambos elementos en conjunto nos encontramos ante una historia de una calidad excepcional que consigue cabalmente alcanzar el ideal de Eisner de crear cómics que resonaran en nuestra experiencia humana. Y lo que hace aún más admirable el logro de Eisner es cómo las historias contadas en esta novela gráfica son lo más mundanas imaginables.
Es importante que aclare, por último, que aunque hago sonar a esta novela gráfica como una historia deprimente y trágica la verdad es lo opuesto por completo. El mensaje de A Life Force es uno de esperanza, vitalidad y lucha, genuino y contagioso.
En resumen, Leer A Life Force deja en el lector la sensación de haber leído algo hermoso. -
I found this graphic novel stunning, perhaps the best graphic novel I've read (although hard to compare to Maus since I read that twenty years ago). The second volume in "The Contract With God" trilogy, it surpasses the first with a combination of sophisticated near-perfect plotting, excellent artwork, and compelling visual arrangements. Like the stories in the first volume, it is set in the tenements the mythical Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx in the 1930s. Most of the characters are Jewish, but it also features a recent Italian immigrant (plus some mobsters) and a down-on-his-luck WASP.
The story is both original but also feels universal, a series of events that snowball from the Great Depression including a man who is on the verge of giving up, a Rabbi that gives him a small project and hope, an Italian immigrant being harassed by the mob, the good fortune of their hooking up with a WASP who was ruined in the crash but has a good idea bout pulling businesses out of bankruptcy--and a whole series of events around this, including a rekindled romance with a German-Jewish refugee--as this cast of characters struggles to make it in America.
This is all drawn in black-and-white, mostly with conventional panels but also some pages of news clippings and other media that create an air of authenticity around the entire book. It is also a relatively quick read. -
This is the second installment of Eisner's 'Contract with God'/Dropsie Ave trilogy. Unlike
A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories which is a collection of stories, this book is one story with various characters and how their lives intersect during one of the bleakest times in our nation's history.
This story spans from the beginning of the depression through the Nazi revolution and how it impacted the immigrant working man. Eisner uses newspaper clippings to build the setting and mood discussing everything from the stock market crash, hunger riots, communist propaganda, and the harsh winter of 1934. The story comes full circle comparing man's will to live with the cockroach.
It was great to get a big city perspective on the Depression years that felt authentic.
Overall, this is a great piece of historical fiction that is moving, informative and still entertaining. The art is fantastic. However, this might be a little wordy for the average contemporary graphic novel reader and the dry journalistic style that Eisner uses along with the newspaper clipping at the start of each chapter might be a bit dull but really did add to the atmosphere of the work and gave it great depth. -
I just came across this thanks to a friend of my daughter's. An Eisner I haven't read - excellent.
Life Force is a novel about characters living in a Brooklyn tenement during the early Great Depression. They are a rich mix: Italian and Jewish immigrants, a ruined WASP, children, gangsters and carpenters. Their individual aspirations and cross-hatched interactions build the very energetic plot. We get love affairs, broken hearts, left-wing organizing, business plans, murders, dealing with the disabled, Nazis, fires, and lots of food.
Above all there are Eisner's character portraits. Such faces, such bodies!
The title refers to one leading character's quest for meaning. Jacob Shtarkah is a Jewish carpenter (ahem) who obsesses over cockroaches and people, wondering how and why we continue in life. Eisner keeps this theme before us throughout the book, nicely avoiding either overwhelming the story or letting the tale devolve into soap opera. Each character confronts this ancient problem, with Shtarkah a kind of framing character.
There are more Eisner tales about Dropsie Avenue? Can't wait. -
Eisner's Dropsie Avenue books, which tell stories of immigrants of New York City during the early 1900s peppered with bits of religion, are not usually a subject matter that I find myself getting very invested in while reading. I also don't care about the plight of teenage girls finding out that they are pregnant. Tell me a story about a teenage immigrant girl in 1920s New York discovering she is pregnant and I'll show you how fast a grown man can pass out from boredom. Yeah, I'm an insensitive jerk. Except that I really like the movie Juno, probably because it had memorable characters and witty dialogue. A Life Force doesn't really have the witty dialogue (come on, Eisner was like a million years old when he wrote this), but it does have interesting characters. I could have done without the religious aspects of it, and I only understood about one of every three Jewish words the characters used, but I still gave this one an above average rating. Needless to say, the art is better than great.
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Hot diggity dog! even better than "A Contract With God." You don't need to read that to read this, but they are connected, if only through the neighborhood they take place in, and perhaps a subtle reference here or there. Eisner seems to have worked out the kinks of the graphic novel medium that he created, in the 5 years between "Contract" and this. The characters are more compelling, the situations more dire, and I like the fact that this was one seamless story, told in 11 chapters, as opposed to the 4 vignettes of "Contract." really great stuff. I'm enjoying this whole trilogy a lot more than I thought I would, I've gotta say. ANd I'll say again, you've got to wonder if Scorcese (especially) read these when they came out. They have that same true connection to the history of the City, and its connections to its residents. Good times.
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I enjoyed A Life Force more than A Contract With God because there was a full story arc. I like how it followed the same characters the whole time. I liked that I was actually able to connect with the characters because of this. This story just felt so much more put together and meaningful and I really enjoyed it. I also loved the inclusion of news articles for background although sometimes they were a bit tedious. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read the 3rd in the trilogy, but seeing as I liked this one more than the 1st, I’m willing to give it a shot.
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English / Français
Not my favorite Eisner work, but still worth a read, especially during a recession. Times are hard, but they were harder then. You really get a feel for what things were really like during the depression- much more profound than the sanitized Hollywood image.
Pas mon livre préféré d'eisner mais ça montre la vrai vie des immigrés New-yorkais dans les années 30s - pas l'image ´nettoyé' d'Hollywood. -
A fantastic exploration of poverty and struggles during in New York during the Great Depression with the backdrop of the Jewish experience and the rise of Nazism in Europe.
Important as a key early graphic novel, it still holds up as a great read. The characters are a little more exaggerated than in A Contract with God which hurt my enjoyment a bit but I'm looking forward to completing the trilogy. -
I spent the weekend reading Eisner and I'm simply in love with his Tenement stories. His attention to period details and the overall tone of his work is enveloping, letting a millennial get a taste of the Depression Era without getting too close. Reading Eisner is like looking through a window to the past or, perhaps, a window into the tenement on Dropsie Avenue.
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It's a story of lives and the dreams of immigrants living in the Bronx neighbourhood during the Great Depression of the 30s. Simple, yet would invoke thoughts in your of life and the endless pursuit of happiness.
