Jerusalem - Guy Delisle

Jerusalem – Guy Delisle                         9/10

Firstly, I should point out that this is quite different from the other books I have previously reviewed for this blog. For starters it is non-fiction (although I’m not adverse to reviewing non-fiction – Selling Hitler for example is mostly non-fiction) and secondly it is a graphic book. I think it falls into the genre of ‘Graphic Novel’ but it is not really a novel and is in fact more of a ‘graphic travelogue’.

Jerusalem is the fourth such graphic travelogue that Delisle has produced. During his early career he worked for a Canadian animation studio and it was through overseeing the outsourcing of the animation work to the Far East, which took him to China and then North Korea. His first two travelogues (Shenzhen and Pyongyang) depict his stays in each of these countries, often for months at a time, where he adjusts to working with people from a different culture and the challenges that presents, especially the loneliness of living out of a basic hotel room. These books are at times funny, slightly sad and overwhelmingly oppressive as he literally paints the picture of the restrictive regimes.

Fast forward ten years and Jerusalem follows the pattern set out in Burma Chronicles (his third such book) where Delisle is now married with two children and is travelling primarily because his wife works for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders). The book chronicles his day to day life still, but he is now not tied to a job, not a nine-to-five job at least. He has more freedom of movement (relatively speaking, it is still Palestine after all) and is able to explore the country more fully.

The book is broken down into monthly sections, but really it details small events that can range from a page of six to eight panels, through to four or five pages worth. Each of these events is an episode during their stay in Jerusalem and some can be as mundane as taking the kids to a new park he finds, through to the terror of the action around the Gaza War of 2008-2009.

Palestine and the Middle Eastern question is not really alien territory to graphic novelists, Joe Sacco has widely covered the subject from inside Palestine. From the Israeli perspective we have the very successful Waltz with Bashir, as well as Sarah Glidden’s How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less and the work of Rutu Modan.

This book however, tries very hard to play down the politics. It is ever present, just as I think the politics of the Middle East are ever present when you are there, but Delisle also shows the normality of people’s lives. The family chooses to live in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of town, which is a politically motivated decision, yet the politics of it are not forced onto the reader. Deilisle plays it off as his wife’s work and he is just going along with what she tells him. He is more concerned with going out for a beer, or having a bit of free time away from the children.

The comic moments are the excellent comic moments of everyday life. The ice cream seller that won’t sell him an ice cream because Passover is two days away and it might contain yeast, despite the fact that he is not Jewish, is typical of the sort of ridiculous bureaucracy that we have all experienced at some point. The exasperating nature of the restrictions is also dealt with comically, despite the obvious dangers.

Clearly, I like his work. I don’t know much about art but his drawings seem simple, and accessible. This is certainly his ‘cleanest’ work to date, but that I mean it looks less sketched and more polished. I also think it is my favourite of his books so I heartily recommend it. The great thing about graphic novels is that because there is so much going on in the images, you can follow the narrative easily, but then re-read the book fairly quickly in order to catch bits you missed the first time round.