Isabel Greenberg – The One Hundred Nights of Hero

Here’s a brief overview of what reading Isabel Greenberg’s The Hundred Nights of Hero felt like:

OH WOW THIS IS AMAZING!!! I NEVER WANT THIS TO END!!!!!

and now I’ll present the long form reaction.

Those ranty caps were not an exaggeration. This graphic novel really is superb. It contains a lot of things which appeal to me when I read a something:

• Interconnecting destinies.
• Mythology
• Feminism
• Wit
• Distinguishable style

The book starts with the creation of the world by birdlike gods. To be more specific the daughter of the birdlike god. Eventually the father does not like her version of the earth and creates a more male-centric one.

This theme runs throughout the whole book. All the heros are females who outsmart ego-centric males and forms part of the main plot.

After the creation story we jump in time and discover two males betting that if one of them leaves for a hundred nights, his wife will be seduced by one of his friends. The bet takes place but they are heard by the maid, who is the lover of one of the person who is leaving. Thus in order to ward of the friend the maid tells him stories for a hundred nights.

I guess you can spot the homage here. Greenberg goes a step further for the stories that the maid tells are all entwined with the prologue in the beginning and her life. Ultimately the destiny of the girls takes a fairy tale twist and the borders between reality and fantasy mesh into a thrilling conclusion.

As this is a brief summary I have left out the complexity of the narratives but the deft way Greenberg handles the fairy tales and yet manages to add on more layers and let the reader discover inter-textual secrets just had me gawping.

The artwork is brilliant. Think of Picasso’s cubist techniques mixed with Daniel Johnson’s early drawings

There are other thins which deserve a lot of praise. There’s the way Greenberg tackles and makes fun of the patriarchal aspect of fairy tales (something Angela Carter managed to flip upside down with her collection of stories) The way the characters are fully formed and sheer vibrancy of the drawings and dialogue. This is a perfect book so everything else will consist of heaps and heaps of praise just read it. Trust me it will do you good.