Asterios Polyp

So for this assignment, I decided to choose Asterios Polyp as my main reading.  Asterios Polyp is a graphic novel by David Mazzucchelli and it revolves the life of Asterios Polyp, a professor and an architect of Greek and Italian descent at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The graphic novel began when Asterios survived the fire that hit his apartment. With a limited things that he has, he  decided to leaves the city with greyhound to the farthest city that he could afford with his limited money. That he has at that moment. After that he decided to get a job at the local auto mechanic in Apogee, the furthest town that he could afford. Here in Apogee, he started to get his life back together while staying in the auto mechanic’ Owner’s house. Here he remember all his past life as a professor and his love life with his  ex wife. In his past life, it told a story of his achievement as a professor and how he began to get to know Hanna, his soon to be wife. In the beginning of his marriage life, it was all happy and romantic. Hanna, who used to be a new professor at the Cornell University, is now being more active in her studio where he works on her statue after her marriage, whereas Asterios still teaches at the university. Their marriage began to crack when Willy Illium began to offer Hanna a job. Astonished by her conceptual design, he began a partnership with Hanna which makes Hanna become busier as she gets more and more jobs. As she gets busier, their romance started to fade and thus they ended their relationship. His days at the mechanic, with the owner’s family and community really changed him, the pinnacle is when he had his own fight with himself that caused an accident which led him to be brought to the hospital. In the hospital he decided to leave the city to get back to his wife.

In my opinion, this is quite an interesting graphic novel to read. The struggle that Asterios had been through during his relationship really brings a more depth into his character even more. It seems quite a sudden changes in the beginning when we sees how pitiful Asterios is to how he used to be when he still was a professor. However, as the story dig deeper into his life, we come to understanding on why there is such a gap in his personality which is because of his broken love life who it seemed to be beautiful before. Asterios Polyp is a very beautiful graphic novel, the way the artist draw each character is very conceptual. We can see that the depiction of Asterios was more geometry and Hanna is more of an artistic shaded style. I guess it is to depict the nature of each character itself. In Asterios, we can see that he is more about the order and he is quite stiff and arrogant as he feels that he is a genius, that is why he is depicted as the geometry shaped as it is never changing, solid, just like the personality of him. Whereas Hanna’s style depict the artistic style which shows freedom and beauty, which is why it suits her style. and what makes it interesting in this graphic novel is that as they get to know each other, both style slowly merge into one, showing that both of them acknowledge each other and when they were committed into a serious relationship, there is no difference between them and it shows in the art which shows no different between them at all. However, as the story progresses, when they were in a fight, we can see that the style that connect them together stars to fade away and their own style starts to come in again, showing that they soon began to crumble and becomes their own identity again which shows that they are no linger together. It is quite an interesting concept because through their style we become to know what is going to happen even without looking at their dialogue. So in a sense, the artist really successful in explaining that overall, I feel this is like a new fresh approach in drawing the graphic novel, or maybe it is just work for this graphic novel but overall this is an enjoyable graphic novel

However, what really threw me over is the ending. Until now I still can’t accept the concept of the ending.  Everything seems to be just fine. Asterios reflect on his former days and seeing that he has made a mistake that he decided to get back together with his wife. His ex wife also incorporated some of the her knowledge that she got when she was with Asterios. Everything seems like it can lead to a happy ending which is that they are getting back together. However, the artist  just slams us with the presence of the asteroids itself. Even though it didn’t show us the ending, we can assume that they are tragically died in the asteroid crash. This is the ending that I was not expecting at all. In the beginning we can see how pitiful he is as he sees his house in engulf in the flame and how he tries to turn his life around in the story. I would assume that finally all his circumstances might be better off towards the end but in the end it was not the case at all. It kind of gives me the idea that not every story is a happy ending story but deep down I really crave for that happy ending. I have seen enough despair in his life that I really cheer for Asterios, and when it was shown that he is about to get killed, it just gave me a headache for a moment. Overall this is an enjoyable read, though the ending kind of threw me off. But the journey of him in Apogee, reflecting of his past is really something that I really enjoys. The graphic is beautiful and though the ending might not be for everybody, this is still one piece of beauty.