Ghost World

A lot of people complained about the character of Jimmy Corrigan, finding him to be a frustrating loser. I had a similar sort of block while reading Ghost World; I didn’t find them pitiable, like Jimmy, they just came off as callow jerks. I think it is harder for me to relate to the sorrows of two teenagers when they just come off as angsty, cruel suburbanites. Maybe this story about teenagers inhabiting a “ghost world” in which they don’t belong would have resonated with me 8 years ago, but perhaps then I would not have been able to read it from a distance, to understand the satire, to see how Enid and Rebecca must eventually grow up. Anyway, I feel that I have left those years of my life so far behind that it seems senseless to read about Enid and Rebecca.

Daniel Clowes does make interesting satire about society, and about teenage life. Enid and Rebecca have been thrust into a new world following their high school graduation, a world that is both exciting and terrifying. Like many insecure teens, like to assert that they are not ostracized, that they instead make a conscious choice to be different. It’s true to an extent, but Enid especially shows her vulnerability, her insecurity about men and her appearance. Both characters worry that Josh likes the other one better, and his unlikely relationships with both of them become an important vehicle for them to express their own insecurities – and also to realize the strengths that the other possesses. Both characters are also every bit as shallow, trendy, and stuck up as the people they scorn (and feel scorned by), and that’s one of the crueler ironies, and more hilarious aspects, of the story. Sadly, it is only in opposition to these people that Enid can find her niche and really define herself, her belongings only become valuable to her when she can lord them over other people. Adolescence can be a profoundly difficult period, one which it seems that Clowe remembers all too well, though he is still able to take a step back and satirize it.

It is hard for Enid, especially, to live in such a shallow ghost world, to be constantly surrounded by an ideal which she does not fit. She reacts by scorning this paradigm, but in so doing, she becomes obsessed with everything she detests. It’s a poignant story because so many of us have lived this, have felt this alienation at some point (especially during adolescence). At the same time, it’s hard to be patient with Enid, not seeing any real obstacles to her growing up except for her own self. She clings to the past (her childhood memories, her lifelong best friend, old gifts) and feels genuinely ambivalent and fearful of the future, despite repeatedly affirming her desire to change, to “become a totally different person” (74), but doesn’t feel that the world she lives in is allowing her to realize this.

Of course, Enid and Rebecca do grow up eventually (or, we are at least left with the impression that they will, someday), like most immature adolescents, and the reader knows how important it is for them to develop into adults. Eventually, they have no choice but to join the boring, tedious adult world they are so fearful of. Enid, like many adults, realizes too late all of the pleasures of youth that have been wasted. The ending is ambiguous; does Enid feel defeated, or does she realize that she, too, must grow and evolve now that Rebecca has moved away from her.

The vignettes in this story do a great job of capturing the mood of restless adolescents, drifting in and out of a world in which they can’t seem to find a place. I also loved Clowes’ subtle but emotional drawings, and his subdued use of color, which really did capture the experience for embattled teenagers living in a ghost world.