Images With(In) Books

Amphigory, by Edward Gorey, was one of the most confusing and therefore intriguing works we have looked at all year. Due to the friendly and childish nature of the characters within his book, one would assume the stories the images describe to be more appropriate for a younger audience, but of course the stories contain mature content. The juxtaposition between Gorey’s child-friendly artistic style and his stories’ content is quite obvious and got me to wonder, what was Gorey’s view of his own artwork? I remembered a quote mentioned in class about how Gorey did not consider his work to be for children, so I looked the quote up and this is what I found:

“If you’re doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there’d be no point. I’m trying to think if there’s sunny nonsense. Sunny, funny nonsense for children — oh, how boring, boring, boring. As Schubert said, there is no happy music. And that’s true, there really isn’t. And there’s probably no happy nonsense, either.”  Read more at: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/695116

This Gorey quote seems to perfectly summarize the way Gorey categorizes his work, however, I extremely disagree with Gorey in his evaluation. I think Gorey truly believed and wanted to convince people that his work was not for children, and that sad things did happen in his stories. Having said that, why would one read a book full of his stories if not to receive some sort of benefit or satisfaction? The characters are child-friendly, (actually remind me of characters in Roald Dahl books), why not make the characters in the stories more sinister in nature, to match the events that take place in the story? The nature of the cartoon drawings and the nonsensical nature of his stories make them entertaining and I would argue, have the ability to instill happiness in the viewer. While they may not be child-friendly stories, the stories are happy in the sense that they cause the audience to laugh or smile when reading them.

While flipping through Amphigorey once again, I attempted to figure out why I found it so funny. What makes Amphigorey so darkly hilarious? I think a lot of it may have to do with his choice of language, his speech patterns, and their relationship with the genre/visual presentation.

Gorey’s writing has a quietly ironic, self-mocking air. The narrative world is set in the Victorian era, and when we think of this period of time we often imagine the self-involved, regimented, stifled, and posh upper class.  When we think of writing from the 19th century, we think of ostentatious vocabulary, a stoic and ambiguous treatment of uncouth/inappropriate subjects, unnecessarily long sentences, and “proper” vocabulary. Every one of us could mock, when asked, old-timey speech patterns, and we often do so quite frequently.

Gorey utilizes these speech patterns and reinforces them with Victorian era images/characters. E.g.: “He must be mad to go on enduring the unexquisite agony of writing when it all turns out drivel.” The vocabulary he chooses helps to create this world steeped in the past: “oysters with trifle”? Who eats oysters with trifle these days? Additionally, people rarely “loiter in a distraught manner.” Seeing this type of language combined with childlike pictures and dark themes creates a contrast between presentation and connotation. Individuals in the Victorian era existed within a strict social code, a code that forbade impropriety, blatant sexuality, and discussion of “unpleasant” topics. They most likely would not have discussed “Prue, trampled flat in a brawl” in polite conversation, would have been astonished by the dark humor in The Fatal Lozenge. The triviality of Gorey’s details mimic the superficial, delicate conversation of the Victorian era, and conflicts with the decidedly serious, disturbing topics. The incongruity of these elements creates a ironic, amusing, uncomfortable jolt.

This is, by now, an established genre: mixing children’s books with macabre, dismal themes in a semi-fantastical Victorian setting. I was immediately reminded of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The books include illustrations, but they are mostly text. You can definitely see how “Lemony Snicket” (a pseudonym, just like Gorey often used) draws heavily from Gorey. Here are some pictures of the artwork (paratext!):

Snicket writes in a similar manner. Some quotes from the books in the series:

“If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats.”

“Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make – bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake – if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble.”

“It is one of the peculiar truths of life that people often say things that they know full well are ridiculous.”

Did you guys read these books, too? What do you think?

“The Listing Attic” is one of my favorite sections from Amphigorey. It’s another example of Gorey putting a dark spin on usually non-dark forms of writing (e.g., children’s books, panoramic postcards). In this case, he plays around with limericks, which are usually humorous, lighthearted, and sometimes nonsensical. Weirdly, Ithink Gorey doesn’t necessarily abandon these qualities in his works — he just has a different take on them. I feel like I uncomfortably laugh at his limericks because the humor is unexpected and points out absurd, often frustrating situations in life. My thought process when I see some of his works in “The Listing Attic” and other sections is: “Oh my gosh, this should not be happening, but it is, and it just goes to show you how ridiculous life — or people — can be sometimes. I should try not being so serious all the time, because bad stuff is going to happen either way, and it’s pretty tiring to be serious over stuff you might not have control over.” (Although, this is not to say that we should just laugh at everything, I still think there is a time and place for everything, Gorey’s works included. For example, I wouldn’t show these to someone who is grieving a death). Here are two examples that prompted these thoughts / made me chuckle uncomfortably:

I’m also curious about Gorey’s process behind “The Listing Attic,” as it seems like one of the few sections that reads more like a collection rather than a story. Did he want these limericks in a particular sequence, or were they ordered chronologically?

I wish I knew what the French limericks said as well, or why he decided to use French specifically for those images — I wonder what kind of added a cultural context or meaning the language offered. Although, maybe using French wasn’t so conscious of a decision.

The origins of the title are also interesting to think about. Perhaps “listing” is a reference to how it seems like he is listing all these different situations dealing with people who are forgotten, shunned, punished, etc. And given that, maybe “attic” goes well in the title because attics are usually hidden away or forgotten about when people visit a home.

What I found most interesting about Amphigorey was the fact that each story or image was done in a way that fell very much in line with the look of a children’s book.  The images were a little on the darker side, but still could easily pass for a black and white children’s picture book.  However, once you read the words in accompaniment with these darker images, that’s when the readers understand that these texts are not at all intended for children.  Edward Gorey’s juxtaposition between creating images that are often deemed child-like or child-oriented in terms of style and streamlined simplicity, and attaching them to twisted stories and unsettling phrases creates this great contrast between what exact constitutes adult and children’s literature.  Gorey’s work has the appearance of children’s literature, but the words would be deemed too advanced or dark in nature fr children to actually read.  However, his work also doesn’t have the “look” of an adult novel.  The fact that Edward Gorey’s works in Amphigorey both straddle the line between what is considered fit for adults or children and also crosses over into those two disticnct areas to draw from them and incorporate both sides into his completed creations is what makes his work so simultaneously striking and endearing.

While going over Edward Gorey’s stories on Wednesday,” The Gashlycrumb Tinies” really stood out to me. I even found myself chuckling at some parts of the rhyme. The story resembled a nursery rhyme but I can not seem to place which one. If any of you remember or find out which make sure to comment down below. It was kind of surprising since I do not like any sort of violence towards young children. According to Professor Serrano, Gorey does not directly say murder, instead he uses euphemisms to imply murder. This is shown throughout most of his stories except for Kate in ” The Gashlycrumb Tinies.” Everyone else is in the process of dying or implied dead.

Another thing I found interesting was that the story made me remember Harry Potter. I will blame the association between these two pieces on Gorey. He used a few children’s names that can associated with Harry Potter. These names inlcude: Neville, George, James, Susan, and Victor. It may be just me looking more into it but I cant help but point out the names. Maybe these names were just common during the time? The name really stood out to me. What do think?

Edward Gorey’s Amphigorey intrigued me, but also unsettled me. I very much like the art style of the pages, but I’m not sure how much I like his unsettling mix of mirth and murder.  “The Curious Sofa” in particular made me uncomfortable!  The first part of the story is ambiguous, yet the reader quickly jumps to the conclusion that the characters are partaking in some type of sexual acts. The ending, however, is much more ambiguous, yet leaves the reader with a terrifying sense that something awful is about to occur. It’s shocking, and it forces the reader to reevaluate everything they thought they knew occurred in the preceding pages. Personally, I didn’t enjoy this story, but I recognize the clever trap Gorey has set up.

Overall, I found Amphigorey to be one of the most interesting and humorous works we’ve looked at all semester. I really like his intricate drawing style, the setup of the little illustrations with short bits of text, and the space between each scene.

I also like the dark sense of humor… to a point. Gorey’s distaste for children is made abundantly clear in a lot of the stories, particularly “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” and “The Bug Book”. “The Bug Book” is relatively harmless and inoffensive, but “Gashlycrumb Tinies”, which is about children dying in many different, gruesome ways, has probably upset a lot of people. I still find these humorous, because they are so over the top.

The story that really bothered me was “The Curious Sofa”. While reading the story, I found it odd and a little disconcerting that the story was so blatantly about sex while the illustration and presentation were so similar to children’s books. I know that it was supposed to be weird and unsettling, but the end was so creepy that it put me over the edge, and I found that there was no pay-off to the creepiness. I can’t stop thinking about the last line: “When Alice saw what was about to happen, she began to scream uncontrollably…” I think this is probably exactly the reaction Gorey wanted from his readers. I feel as though I’m missing the joke! Does anyone else feel the same about this story/care to explain the humor to me?

Gorey might not have been a fan of children, but his stylistic choices in terms of what he represents versus what he implies are prompts for imagination that draw on the reader’s childlike abilities to deny the need for logical connectivity. In The Sinking Spell, The West Wing, and The Curious Sofa, Gorey uses the rigid formality of the panels to create fertile inventive spaces. Though the stories are not exactly graphic novels, the “gutter” or blank spaces that fall outside of and typically divide the panels, features prominently in Gorey’s work. (Maybe this space could be called the para-image, a zone between image and non-image). For example, our only prompt to think of The Curious Sofa as pornography is the title itself; all the depictions of sex we would expect are completely absent. So too does Gorey hide the object of our interest in The Sinking Spell perpetually beyond the border of the image. These stories are all built on absence and calculated omissions instead of representations. In the absence of sight, we apply our imagination to what is essentially a sparsely-populated template.

Gorey’s artwork is certainly elaborate in its highly-textured inkings, but within the panels, nothing much ever seems to happen, giving them a quality of emptiness. The Curious Sofa is perhaps the best example, but in The West Wing as well, part of the eerieness comes from a singular point of disruption in an otherwise empty space. The thread of connectivity wears thin in all of the stories except perhaps The Sinking Spell, so our understanding of the stories comes not from logical order but from its abandonment; we accept the nonsense as nonsense and instead begin to construct our own subjective relationships between the images. This might also be why so much of Gorey’s work depends on rhymes and other formulaic structures, down to his use of anagrams: by providing us with a recognizable structure- children’s book rhymes, the alphabet, series of images- and unrecognizable connections, Edward Gorey is prompting us towards an acceptance of meaninglessness that is ultimately a freeing and imaginative act.

 

*Just as an aside, for those who might be looking for a little more humor in all Gorey’s grimness: the amazing comic artist Kate Beaton has done some excellent re-imaginings of book covers done by Gorey and expanded them into comic strips. It’s kind of a cool transference from the book to Gorey’s interpretation to Beaton’s.
Here are some links!:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I have found Amphigorey to be a very interesting read. I think that the humor in Amphigorey shares a lot in common with the works of Goya. The humor is very dark and often provides a message or commentary. Where Amphigorey differs from Goya is in the subtlety of the humor. The humor in Amphigorey hits you across the face, whereas the humor in many of Goya’s works is a lot more subtle. I found many of the prints in Los Caprichos to be funny, but I needed to look at the image for a bit before I found the humorous components. In Amphigorey, on the other hand, I see the humor immediately.

The primary reason for this discrepancy is the presence of text in Amphigorey. In fact, the funniest parts of the narrative are in the text itself, and the images add additional humor after the fact. For example, The Curious Sofa is somewhat humorous (in a dark sense), but the images make it even funnier. I think I would find the narrative funny if I read it without the accompanying images, but the images add an extra element. This is the most apparent, in my opinion, on one of the first pages of The Curious Sofa where the newly acquainted Alice and Herbert make love in a taxi. The idea of “making love” on the floor of a taxi is funny on its own, but when you look closely at the image and notice the suggestive face of the cab driver – the humor is enhanced.

Another humorous part of Amphigorey that is embedded in the text is (unsurprisingly) the amphigory – the meaningless babble in some of the stories. I found The Object Lesson to be absolutely hilarious because of the utter nonsense. There is no logical connection between the lines of the story, and the use of proper Victorian language in a nonsensical way adds an additional layer of humor. The Gashlycrumb Tinies is probably some of the darkest humor I have ever seen in my life. In fact, I think the only reason I laughed at this particular story was that it was so dark that I actually could not believe that somebody would write such a story. Each of the stories in Amphigorey is an amalgam of funny pictures and funny text, and the result is simultaneously dark and humorous.

I was intrigued to learn in class that Gorey was not particularly fond of children, but I cannot say I was surprised. This distaste is abundantly clear in “The Gashlycrumb Tinies”, which depict the imminent deaths of small children to the tune of a whimsical nursery rhyme. The Tinies echo several facets of traditional children’s literature – the rhyme is one such feature, alongside the alphabetical structure and the illustration style.

Another book which channels elements of conventional children’s literature is “The Bug Book”, a short graphic novel that tells the story of a community of fun-loving bugs who violently and abruptly dispose of a mean, disruptive intruder. The “Book” reads like a child’s book – full of color, merriment, and innocence – until the climax, which is decidedly macabre.

What Gorey does in these two collections, and indeed, what I believe he intended to do in creating them, is pervert children’s literature. He purposefully crafts stories that are thematically or cosmetically comparable to children’s stories, only to flip the script and introduce his signature morbidity into an otherwise light-hearted piece. His disdain for youth is manifest here; Gorey lets us know, in no uncertain terms, how he feels about children’s literature.