I’m not really sure how I feel about Jobnik! at this point. I find the idea of an autobiographical graphic novel about a woman fighting in the Israeli army to be intriguing as well as original. However, I feel that this story would be more useful if it was looking at a woman’s relationships with male soldiers in general rather than looking at her intimate relationships with over-eager men. Somehow I get the feeling that I am not getting the whole picture of what it would be like as a woman soldier.
Another issue I have is that the dialogue in the first book is so unorganized. It seems that several people are talking at once, and I don’t know what is going on. This pattern seemed to decrease as Jobnik! progressed, but I often found it hard to keep up with the almost irrelevant shifts in the story. Most notable were her flashbacks in book five and the trip back home in book six. Perhaps I missed something in the story, but I really did not see how these fit in with the story.
While I have opinions on some things about the story and frankly do not understand other things, I do feel that there is potential for Libicki’s graphic novel. I am sure that I did not read into things as fully as I could have and that there are themes that I did not pick up. Hopefully the essays in The Jewish Graphic Novel will clear some of this up.
I will have say the set-up of the dialog bubbles were very confusing! I had troubles following the story myself or I forced myself to read the page over again. I think, or I wish, she would have made it more organized but maybe there was a reason she wrote it the way she did? I can't think of any idea right now that would answer but I think it is work considering.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with the flash back part where she's in Canada for the concert. I really had no idea what the point was with here puting that story in the novel. Was it just to show again that she loved another man but was left heart broken? Or what? I also agree that the dialogue was confusing. I had a hard time following the story and it was hard to enjoy because of this issue.
ReplyDeleteI also had a hard time following the story at times. I suppose the autobiographical part of it was kind of neat but yet I found it overall boring. For all of the things the novel could have said it just didn't. I had very high hopes but I agree that it was hard to follow and even a bit boring.
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