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Deux Généraux (2012)

by Scott Chantler(Favorite Author)

4.07 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

2923841247 (ISBN13: 9782923841243)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

La Pastèque

review 1: *3,5/5*I had to read this for my English class, so I wasn’t expecting much. I have to say Two Generals wasn’t an excellent book, it was decent and enjoyable. I don’t generally buy graphic novels, even if I do enjoy them (Persepolis, Polina etc.) I just never get around to it so when I heard that it was a graphic novel about WW2 I got more interested. For me it was the long description and lack of dialogue that killed it. I understand this is a biography of Scott Chantler’s grandfather and that he wanted to stay true to his grandpa’s memoire, but most of the book talked about how the army was like and how did a Canadian gentlemen and his friend fought trough WW2. I was presented the book like a story about friendship but we only got small parts of that in the begi... morenning and in the end. The rest was descriptions about the camps and how they invaded France during D-day. Sure it was interesting to see how it all worked out, but I wish it had more dialogue and interaction with the other commanders. Though it was very touching at some points, I found myself bored for most of the book. What really saved it was the ending, the last 25 pages. That’s when we got to see the whole “friendship” aspect of it. We had to read the book while watching the movie Saving Private Ryan (Tom Hanks plays the main protagonist) and I think that the book was better because of the movie (don’t kill me), it gave me the brotherhood factor I was looking for. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about war itself and not a story about friendship trough it.
review 2: A poor showing by Scott Chantler, who is by all accounts (if awards are to be thought of as accounts) something of an accomplished graphic novelist. This graphic novel, Two Generals, reminds me of stereotypes of Can lit as suffering from such an inferiority complex that it feels the need to do everything in a painfully dull and sincere way so as to assure readers that it can in fact be taken quite seriously because it follows as the Rules and Decorum of Serious Fiction. As a result there are panels like the one pictured above where we readers are informed by the (terribly subtle choice of red) colour scheme that something is amiss outside the building. The colour scheme throughout - green is “narrative,” black is “memory” and red is “blood and death” - is so simplistic as to be obnoxious. Similarly, the text of the novel reads as if it were borrowed wholesale from the recorded minutes of the local historical society when the very dullest and driest speaker was at work - e.g. “At 1:30Pm, with the men of the HLI back aboard, the first of the landing craft began to make their way out of the port of southhampton” (56 - and I swear to you, I turned to a page at random) and so lacks any (any) sense of character or a compelling plot. I mean the plot is the INVASION OF NORMANDY and I was bored. And I certainly didn’t care a whit about the death of one of the Generals. Perhaps because I had repeatedly been told that “this would be his last Christmas,” or “not all of them would be alive at the end of the day.” I’m not an uncaring person, but really, I feel an instinctive defense toward indifference and scorn when I’m prompted with such terribly written lines.Maybe the silver lining here is that in identifying this work as terrible I’ll earn your trust as a reader of Can lit. So while you’d be pressed to find a bigger booster of Canadian history, or a more defensive champion of the triumphs of Can lit, you can know that when I’m praising national works I’m not doing so (just) because I’m a little nationalist, but because often times Canadian authors are busy writing truly remarkable, and often under-recognized, work. This is certainly not the case with Two Generals, which I would hope - despite it’s purported mission of helping us all remember - will quickly be forgotten and not integrated like so many other poorly crafted historical fiction (*cough* Paul Gross’s Psschendaele) into the school curriculum just because the Historica-Dominion Society thinks its a good idea. Oh wow, so turns out I have a lot of hostility toward this particular book. And so as a good Canadian, let me just say: Sorry? less

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