Apologue

On the cover of the paperback edition of Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, author Chris Ware refers to the book as an “apologue.” Given the definition of apologue–“a brief fable or allegorical story with pointed or exaggerated details, meant to serve as a pleasant vehicle for a moral doctrine or to convey a useful lesson without stating it explicitly,” according to Wikipedia–I found this word a strange choice to describe the book. There is obviously an element of irony in the title; no one would call the book “brief,” and I hope I wouldn’t be in alone in saying that this incredibly dense, emotionally intense work isn’t exactly a “pleasant” vehicle for its lessons.  There is also an element of truth to the description: “pointed” and “exaggerated details” are clearly an important element of Ware’s form of expression. The part I found most puzzling, though, was the question of “moral doctrine.” Did the book convey a “useful lesson without stating it explicitly?”

A quote of a review I read seemed particularly striking when related to this question: “Jimmy Corrigan,” wrote the reviewer, “doesn’t draw its emotional momentum from a single, romanticized artist’s concept of a tragedy; rather, it swells up from a foundation of hundreds of tiny slights, embarassments, snubs, unpleasant surprises and everyday humiliations that add up to an overwhelming burden of sorrow and isolation” (http://www.flakmag.com/books/corrigan.html).  To me, there is a distinct ‘lesson’ in the book, if a profoundly depressing one: even for those who don’t experience true tragedy, the long experience of human life inevitably holds a “foundation” of “tiny slights,” enveloping all of us in the most universal of human experiences–isolation and misery.

The same thing that gives Corrigan’s (or our own’s) life richness, depth, and humanity, that is to say, is the thing that produces its sadness: the details.  It is simply impossible to have the ‘perfect’ human experience. There will always be little ways in which things don’t happen quite the ways you want them to happen, or ways in which things don’t quite meet the expectations you hold. Ware’s style of art reflects this world view. The incredible care with which he produces the drawings, his attention to detail, is what makes Jimmy’s fictional world so immersive and believable. It is in that same immersive detail, though, that Jimmy’s sadness lies–the minute flaws in his appearance, the little awkward noises every device seems to exude, the little rips, tears, and dirtinesses that fill every frame. The story, carried across four generations, presents this sadness as everpresent, across different places, times, and people.

There is, of course, a central connection between the isolated and miserable characters that could explain their misery in a different way: none of the Corrigans had healthy (or, sometimes, any) relationships with their fathers. At the end of the book, the woman who moves into the cubicle across from him remarks of the world that “it sure is pretty.” Jimmy, we see from the final panel, seems unable to connect to this view. Yet, the book is beautiful, in its detail, its composition, its aesthetic, and its emotional resonance.  The foundation and feeling of human misery may be universal–but does it mean that the world can’t also be beautiful? For Jimmy, his father issues seem to mean that it cannot, but perhaps for the reader, granted Ware’s subtle lesson–things could be different.