All PostsAnyone following comics blogging/reviewing/criticism will know that David Mazzuchelli’s long awaited Asterios Polyp was not only predicted as one of the best comics of the year before it came out but also highly praised all over the place (on and offline) when it came out. I’ve been following a lot of the reviews and articles and have so far avoided posting on it. I tend to not post on the really big comics: sometimes because I haven’t read them, but often because I don’t think I have anything worth adding to the conversation.
But, having read a bunch of reviews on Asterios Polyp, I found one aspect missing from the commentary. No one mentions the ending (actually, since I started this Matthias Wivel does reference it in his post). I understand that in a straight-up review context endings are often considered off-limits spoilers, but surely for such a widely praised book, there’s room to assume many have already read the book by now.
The ending was one of the semantic aspects of the book (that is, not the formal elements like style, color, layouts, and all the other things Mazzuchelli has been highly praised for) that really struck me on reading and rereading.
(Stop here if you haven’t read the book and care about knowing the ending ahead of time.)
To summarize the story: Asterios Polyp loses his apartment in a fire caused by a lightning strike and abandons his life. He takes a job at the first place he comes to, working as a mechanic and living in a room in his boss’s house. He learns a little something about himself (in a rather oblique way). Through this time are interspersed flashbacks to earlier in his life, focusing on his relationship with his ex-wife Hana, their meeting and their time together. Back in the present, Asterios gets in a car and drives to see Hana. They talk, they reconcile. An asteroid is shown about to crash into the house where they are peacefully sitting. The End.
Yes, the book pretty much (except for a scene where the son of Asterios’ new boss thinks the asteroid is a shooting star (perhaps a commentary back to earlier parts of the book about individual’s perception)) ends with a meteor about to kill the protagonist and his love. I have no doubts that we are to infer that the meteor will strike the house and kill Asterios and Hana. In a two page spread the meteor is much larger then house and on a clear trajectory towards it.
This book is filled with dualities and commentary on dualities, so it is no surprise that this natural disaster which ends the book is bookended by a natural disaster that starts the book: a lightning strike causing the fire in Asterios’ apartment. The image of the lightning strike shows it nearly striking Asterios as he sits in his bed watching a video tape of what we (later) assume is he and Hana making love. [Edit: See comments below for Travis' correction on what the video is actually showing.] The present of the book’s narrative becomes a slight reprieve for Asterios.
I specifically use the term “asteroid” for the object at the end of the book, because earlier in the book, that term is used. A character, Steven, from a previous Mazzuchelli story (“Near Miss” in Rubber Blanket #1) makes an appearance in a diner and talks about asteroids crashing into the earth and how they could cause the extinction of humanity. That “asteroid” is so close to “asterios” can be no coincidence, considering the very pointed names Mazzuchelli uses throughout the book. The asteroid causes not the end of humanity but the end of Asterios and the story.
The asteroid and the death are prefigured numerous times in the book. Most pointedly is the way Asterios’ death and his birth are brought together, full circle, in the book. While the beginning and end of the plot are lead by natural disasters, the beginning and ending of Asterios’ life is its own set of matching pairs.
Early on, when we are first introduced to the idea of Asterios’ twin, Ignazio, the two are shown as babies, in two separate panels, yet shown in a very clear black/white, up/down, ying-yang way. This sense of completeness and halving haunts Asterios (note the dotted online figure that follows him into the subway early one as well as the various dream appearances of Iganzio) and motivates his obsession with duality, which is carried through into the form of the book itself.
The posture, the fitting together, of Asterios and Ignazio is mirrored in a scene showing an early part of Asterios and Hana’s relationship. After they first (first?) make love in Asterios’ apartment, he admits to Hana that he tapes everything that goes in the apartment. At first she is upset, violated, angered, but then he tells her about Ignazio, about his sense of loss. She is mollified (though I have to say, I’m not sure the sob story makes up for the violation), and they are shown lying together curled head to foot like the earlier images of Asterios and Iganzio, the balancing ying-yang. This connection is all too explicit.
Two pages before the final asteroid appearance, as Asterios and Hana are reunited, the climactic moment is their simultaneous quoting a reference to a statement heard twice earlier in the book by Asterios’ mother: “Life is stressful. That’s why they say ‘rest in peace’.” They simultaneously say “rest in peace,” which is visually evoked with an overlapping of Asterios’ square and Hana’s circular word balloons. After a long voyage they are reunited, like the earlier ying-yang, like Asterios and Iganzio, like Asterios’ birth and now, at the end, his death. Another duality, yet this one is not a duality but a tripartite joining of Ignazio/Asterios Asterios/Hana.
This death is not unexpected. Note Asterios on astrology: “Let’s just say I have trouble with the idea that objects whirling through the firmament have a direct impact on my daily life,” or a discussion of the Greek gods and their responsibility for “random events of joy and tragedy that befall human beings.” Even the evocation of “who knows which day will be his [asterios] last,” point to the ending, and it’s seeming combination of total random accident and fated tragedy. This chance/fate duality is evoked earlier when Asterios discusses his birth and the death of his twin. The broken ying-yang image is referenced though not expicitly repeated, and interestly enough, a lightning bolt image is used to separate the two baby twins. A lightning bolt that Asterios dodged, not unlike where the story begins. The beginnings of the story as told and the whole narrative (if it were organized chronologically) are linked.
Is it tragedy? The Orpheus dream sequence might lead one in that direction, but Asterios’ death is not necessarily a tragic death. Consider the distance between the potential death at the beginning of the story–lightning strike or death in a fire–and the implied death at the end. At the beginning, Asterios is alone, seemingly depressed, and looking backwards, reliving(watching) the past. Death is avoided, temporarily, and in this reprieve he makes amends with Hana, he even finally builds something (a treehouse). The whole story is like a moment of grace, an opportunity for happiness for Asterios. Orpheus is granted this opportunity, but he loses his chance. Asterios’ Orpheus dream is what could have been but is not. He gets his love back, if only long enough for some peace before they both move onto rest in it.
Here are a few reviews and notes, in case you missed them:
- Sean Rogers at Walrus Magazine
- Douglas Wolk at the New York Times
- Matthias Wivel at the Metabunker
- Chris Mautner at Robot 6
- Hillary Chute at Guttergeek
- Ng Suat Tong at The Comics Reporter
- Annotations by Stumptown Notes
A valiant defence, Derik, but I’m still a little ambivalent about that end – it’s emblematic for me of the difficult I have in enjoying the content of the book (as you put it, the ‘semantic aspects’) over and above its formal conceits – the latter tending to mask the paucity of the former if they were to stand alone (though this isn’t to diminish the spectacle of these formal elements)
By the way – the video that Asterios views at the beginning is not of him and Hana having sex (I’ve actually read quite a few reviews that make this mistake – and in their defence, it’s clever little trick on Mazzuchelli’s part). If you compare the dialogue you’ll see it’s actually the scene in which he cooks dinner for Hana in his apartment – after all, Asterios does say that he’ll never forget that night, or something to that effect…
Thanks for writing this — I was quite struck by the ending and, as you were, was struck by the lack of attention it was getting. So it’s nice to get some thoughtful analysis of it.
(But Travis McGee is right about the opening scene not being a sex scene (and that a lot of reviewers are making that mistake.))
Thanks for the correction, Travis. I’ll make an edit in the post.
I agree there is ambiguity to the ending, but I think there are enough previous elements in the book to point to my reading of it. (Maybe also I just like the idea of protagonists dying at the end of their story.)
Derek,
I actually do discuss the ending in my review here:
http://highlowcomics.blogspot.com/2009/07/two-and-three-asterios-polyp.html
My take on the book is that it’s very much a classic Greek tragedy, where hubris is eventually punished.
Thanks for pointing that out, Rob, I must have missed your review. HDF Kitto in his “Greek Tragedy” makes a great case for “hubris” not being the defining element of Greek tragedy that most take it for (at least I’m pretty sure that was Kitto who made that claim), but that certainly seems to be Mazzucchelli’s opinion (that it is).
I just finished the book and loved it. I initially felt the shock of the asteroid striking the house when I saw the last image and was curious what others felt. I acknowledge your strong case that justifies a tragic ending. However looking back a the whole theme of duality in the book I think Mazzucchelli played a clever visual trick with the asteroid that allows the reader to interpret the ending based on their own point of view.
The landscape is a pure silhouette providing no sense of depth, and the bright, relatively detailed “asteroid” does not intersect with the landscape. The asteroid may just be a close up of a soft ball sized meteor in the foreground that is close to the viewer and the house safe, half a mile away. Or it can be seen as you have stated and I initially thought, a massive asteroid about to obliterate a house and probably much more.
Asterios asks, “What’s that noise?” But again with this being a comic we obviously don’t “hear” anything. Maybe the meteor is large enough to make a noise on re-entry but still far enough away not to hit the house, or maybe the furnace or hot water heater is hissing. Again it is left to the reader this time to fill in what is heard. If this was made into a movie, it would be nearly impossible to leave such a vague ending. Thus I hope Hollywood leaves this one alone. It’s a brilliant gem of the comic medium.
P.S. I chose a hopeful ending.
Hey Ken, that’s a good point about the ambiguity of the size of the asteroid. I’m going to stick with my version though.
I agree with Ken on the idea that the size/destructive potential of the asteroid is very much open to interpretation, but also that Derik and Robs’ analyses have plenty of evidence, themselves. Overall, I think that Mazzuchelli was giving us an ending that fits the elegance and complexity of the work it concludes. Perhaps most importantly, he was showing just how much you can do with a single pane and a text bubble; Mazzuchelli wrote an ending that expresses the power and depth graphic novels as a media are capable of.
My interpretation goes on what is immediately there: a scene of a house on a hill with an asteriod seemingly “tacked on” in the center, and a child giving his perspective on it (the “shooting star” comment). Given the lengthy discussions on perspective, specifically the one with the composer where each audience member contributes their own view to the experience, it seems to me the ending can be given as much interpretive meaning (a literal death paralleling the opening) or as little (the child at end) as the reader desires. It’s an act of generosity if you ask me.
That being said, Derik constructs an excellent argument for his interpretation (I especially liked the part on the “rest in peace” panel). However, I will have to disagree with the notion that the house will be obliterated, if only because an asteriod large enough to destroy a house, or that is several times the size of a house if the perspective in the panel is accurate, would not appear as a shooting star so much as an intensely violent fireball streaking across the sky.
I agree with Ken’s dual ending theory, and would like to point out that the image on the next page starting the chapter with the child and Asterios’ watch is a yellow tree looks suspiciously like a mushroom cloud from an impact explosion, giving off the over all impression of impact. When closely examined we see the tree and house clearly, providing two meanings to the beginning of the epilogue.
I choose both endings, because throughout the book the idea that individual worlds being separate and equally valid is mentioned in different and intriguing ways. There exists for every possibility two possibilities for every action either it IS or it ISN’T, both being equally valid.
(cross-posted…)
The meteor was a metaphor. A ‘meteorphor’, if you like. We know this because on the following page we see the meteor as it actually appears, 1000-odd miles to the left, as a normal shooting star looks, a harmless little line on the sky. The ‘giant meteor’ thing is a reference to the picnic Polyp had with Ursula at the crater, where they talked about creation myhs involving ‘father sky and mother earth’, something thrusting into the earth if you want to get cruder. (This is also a reference to the not-uncommon scientific belief that life on earth started when a meteor carrying extraterrestrial biological cells hit earth, and then started evolving.) So what happened? Hana and Asterios put the past behind them and made love. The asteroid symbolised the creation of a ‘new world’ for them; new life together, new romance, presumably, a new baby too. More crudely, it symbolised a penis. It is the kind of explosive, energetic, primal lovemaking that one could describe as ‘two worlds colliding’. We also know that Mazzuchelli has used metaphor before in this comic, often; the ‘descent into Hades’ scene a perfect example.
Yes, Mazzuchelli handled it quite poorly, which I can see by the number of people who did not understand the ending. However the reason I came to the conclusion I did is because I cannot believe someone who spent 9 years and a huge amount of effort on a story as good as this one would end it in such a ridiculous way. So fellas, ladies, relax – it’s not the end of the world, it’s just a metaphor.
“We know this because on the following page we see the meteor as it actually appears, 1000-odd miles to the left, as a normal shooting star looks, a harmless little line on the sky.”
I don’t see it on the following page, but a few pages later we see it from the point of view of Ursula and family. But we don’t know how far away their house is from where Hana lives. They could be far enough away that the large piece about to hit the house looks much smaller (as things in the distance tend to do).
“However the reason I came to the conclusion I did is because I cannot believe someone who spent 9 years and a huge amount of effort on a story as good as this one would end it in such a ridiculous way.”
That’s not really conclusive proof of anything.
“That’s not really conclusive proof of anything.”
Indeed it is not, (of course this is my two cents, and this is the kind of work that the ‘reader brings meaning to by the act of reading it’) but there’s also no conclusive proof that it’s not a sudden metaphor and is there just to shake the reader and get them thinking.
Still on this topic of proof and reality; there is a real town in the actual world called ‘Ithaca’, not to mention New York, but ‘Apogee’ is some kind of metaphor as far as I can tell. How much of this book is ‘real’ and how much is metaphor? This book is set 10 years or so ago in the real past, but was there a major meteor strike in the real world then, as there is a real town called Ithaca? It might not be possible or desirable to separate the real from the fictional in every case here, ie. to ask for conclusive proof. A prose writer can get away with something like, ‘then they made love, and heaven crashed into earth and the world ended and was reborn all at once’, and it’s crystal clear what is ‘really’ happening, but a comic artist has to show, not just tell, so it’s trickier. I think Mazzuchelli was being experimental and bold, trying to expand the ‘comics vocabulary’ and break new ground, etc. I do think he handled it poorly, though.
One other thing which I forgot to mention before: The imagery of the meteor hitting the earth is (along with the creation of life, father sky/mother earth allusions already discussed) resembles a sperm going into an ovum.
I’ll leave it at that; bascially I think the meteor srike is a metaphorical image.
“A prose writer can get away with something like, ‘then they made love, and heaven crashed into earth and the world ended and was reborn all at once’, and it’s crystal clear what is ‘really’ happening, but a comic artist has to show, not just tell, so it’s trickier. I think Mazzuchelli was being experimental and bold, trying to expand the ‘comics vocabulary’ and break new ground, etc. I do think he handled it poorly, though.”
Film has handled similar metaphors in a number of ways (particular in classic movies where sex had to be implied). If that was the metaphor Mazzuchelli was going for, he did handle it quite poorly. He could have shown similar imagery without making it look like the house is in the path. Also, having the kid see the meteor takes is out of the metaphorical space, since a character in the storyworld is also seeing it. (He wouldn’t be able to “see” a metaphor.)