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Asterios Polyp |  | Author: David Mazzucchelli
Publisher: Pantheon
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $18.76
as of 3/14/2010 13:39 CDT details
You Save: $11.19 (37%)
New (39) Used (14) from $18.76
Seller: pbshop
Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 2564
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 344
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.6
Dimensions (in): 10.4 x 7.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 0307377326
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9780307377326
ASIN: 0307377326
Publication Date: July 7, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780307377326 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The triumphant return of one of comics’ greatest talents, with an engrossing story of one man’s search for love, meaning, sanity, and perfect architectural proportions. An epic story long awaited, and well worth the wait.
Meet Asterios Polyp: middle-aged, meagerly successful architect and teacher, aesthete and womanizer, whose life is wholly upended when his New York City apartment goes up in flames. In a tenacious daze, he leaves the city and relocates to a small town in the American heartland. But what is this “escape” really about?
As the story unfolds, moving between the present and the past, we begin to understand this confounding yet fascinating character, and how he’s gotten to where he is. And isn’t. And we meet Hana: a sweet, smart, first-generation Japanese American artist with whom he had made a blissful life. But now she’s gone. Did Asterios do something to drive her away? What has happened to her? Is she even alive? All the questions will be answered, eventually.
In the meantime, we are enthralled by Mazzucchelli’s extraordinarily imagined world of brilliantly conceived eccentrics, sharply observed social mores, and deftly depicted asides on everything from design theory to the nature of human perception.
Asterios Polyp is David Mazzucchelli’s masterpiece: a great American graphic novel.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 43
 Probing character study February 8, 2010
Sibelius (Palo Alto, CA USA)
David Mazucchelli's "Asterios Polyp" is a probing character study focused on one man - a middle aged Professor of Architecture suffering through a mid-life crisis. Mazuccheli makes fantastic use of the medium of the graphic novel to delve into his protagonist's psyche by examining his fascination with architecture and structural harmony and how it relates to the development of his life up to the present. Sure, such a tale can and has been told in written prose countless times but those new to the medium may be surprised to discover how a character study can be taken to new heights through this particular format. Entertaining, insightful, candid and intricate - read it to see just how far the graphic novel medium can be stretched to give a deep look into the psyche of one man.
Comics for the Middle Aged February 5, 2010
Robert Sabonjian (Waukegan, IL United States)
A neo-tragic comic- modern man adrift in a world of elusive professionalism grasping at love and grappling with hubris while hiding behind egotistical elitism. A must read.
 Wonderful work of both poetic and artistic value February 1, 2010
Ric Ciryl (Denver, CO USA)
As soon as you open the pages on this graphic novel, you're eyes will pop out of your head. Once you begin to read, it will engage our mind. I don't recommend this to people with low IQ's, but if you have a brain worthy of it's texture, pick it up. It's not about super heroes or emo teenagers sulking about nothingness while having superpowers, it's a book simply about the complexities of life as a smart person who sees the world in a truly unique view. I can not say much about it, for I wouldn't want to ruin it for you all, but as a true comic fan, this is a work of art. A must read for anyone who appreciates the value of a good book.
A marvelously complex and suble book by an ARTIST? Yes! January 31, 2010
Mr. Tammany Hall (Boston, MA)
I saw a couple of preview pages of this and I wasn't hooked. It looked like Mazzucchelli was just playing with his art tools on a rather pedestrian story. I got my hands on a preview copy, but put off reading it, until one of my friends raved about it.
I'm happy to say my first impression was wrong, wrong, wrong.
And this book is great, great, great.
This is a very personal story the life of an architect, the eponymous Asterios Polyp, who becomes as real a character as you will ever find in fiction. Mazzucchelli deftly shifts the style and artwork to suit the feelings that Asterios is feeling, or repressing, and the feelings of the people around him. Thus, Asterios becomes all sharp angles and and constructs when fighting with his wife, who becomes delicate crosshatching. This would get old fast if it wasn't for the story that Mazzucchelli is telling. And it's a great story, full of what makes a story great: wisdom, foolishness, love, loss, transgressions and redemption.
There's so much elegantly laid out here. Asterios's dead twin who haunts him, his subtle undercutting of his wife, his feelings about his parents. Thus really isn't a book you can only read once; it demands at least a second reading, as scenes that Mazzucchelli presents early on take on much greater depth with the knowledge you gain in later chapters.
If your house was on fire, what three things would you take with you? This would be the book to take as the smoke rolls across the ceiling.
Transcendental January 22, 2010
Howard D. Matthews (Atlanta)
This graphic novel struck a nerve in me that I surely didn't expect.
Throughout the many pages of this GN you will experience the life of Asterois Polyp through words, artwork and stimulation of your own imagination.
The written word has never moved me this much.
Unequivocally superb. Buy this graphic novel.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 43
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