Whenever I approach any task that
involves analysis I typically start with the most basic thing, and
from there, I work deeper. For the graphic novel Radioactive I
took this same approach, and began with the caption below the title:
"A Tale of Love and Fallout"
For me the title's caption is
romantic, and this graphic novel is very romantic in many ways, but I
want to focus on something that I didn't notice right away as I
studied this book, and that is the art itself. The artist and author,
Lauren Redniss, chose to create very simple, but very abstract art
for most of her novel. I didn't quite understand this choice at
first, but it really does help lend to the idea that this is a
romantic story. The art and the story itself are a bit of a paradox,
because the romance between Marie and Pierre Curie is, I would say,
the minor romance in this romantic graphic novel.
The greater romance comes in with
Marie's love for science, and in the end it is her love for this
specific science that causes her cancer
related death. The title is also cleverly integrated into Redniss'
art throughout the novel. Radiation as a thing is responsible for a
number of physical changes within the human body, on plant life, and
also on non-organic material. Redniss incorporates on the cover a
kind of putrid green and yellow, and it is easy to see how this
relates to radiation, especially with the two human figures that seem
to be glowing in the top right of the cover.
It's not all about the art in the
book, because the narration is done in an interesting way as well.
Redniss spends a considerable amount of time in narration, but she
interrupts the narrative flow in order to inject specific documents
that are legitimate, real, and historical in nature in order to give
the book a much more credible story line. Redniss also includes
historical photographs of people, and I think this is important
for the reader to gain an understanding that although the story may
seem abstract or fantastic, the events discussed actually happened
and here is the evidence to support it.
This kind of back and forth between
narrative and history, and between abstract art and real photographs
jogs the reader out of a sense that what they're reading is cartoon,
comic, or fiction. This novel is precisely that, a novel, despite its
use of pictures to express feeling, emotion, or otherwise. This
graphic novel doesn't behave like many of the others I have read,
because as far as paneling is concerned there are very few places
where Redniss includes panels to separate time, thought, or scene. In
this particular graphic novel, the artist utilizes entire spreads
between one or two pages or over several pages to depict the scene.
There are a couple of great examples
of where this takes place, one is on page 26 where Pierre has two
faces, one facing page 27, and the other face is looking the opposite
direction. On page 27 is Marie who is looking bashfully towards
Pierre, but not directly at him. This spread over two pages provides
a tension that is visible, and would be absent from a typical novel using just
words. Just like this blog lacks a picture to express what's
happening, so too does the typical (non-graphic) novel lack the
ability to provide this tension, this longing of two people that is
so tangible here with this moment of these two abstract figures
looking in the direction of the other.
This tension is broken up by a brief
quote of Marie Curie, "We began a conversation which soon became
friendly."
On pages 28 through 29 is completely
absent of words, but without writing anything over this spread it is
easy to understand the scene, but more than that, feel it. I see this
spread and I feel warmth and nervousness between the characters of
Pierre and Marie. Pierre places his hand on the small of Marie's back
and pulls her close to him. Both characters are depicted in blue, and
their eyes are engaged on each other. The background is full of
orange, yellow, and streaks of blue. These colors help provide the
emotional kick that let's the viewer know that this is that moment
where Pierre and Marie experience that first spark, that first touch,
that first emotional pull towards the other, and we know how hot they
burn for each other without being told they're in love.
As wonderful as this scene is, and
many of these spreads contain very romantic elements, there are
several that work in a different way. One place this is recognizable
is on pages 46 and 47 where a photograph of an atomic bomb explosion
is pictured with Marie stating, "I coined the word
radioactivity."
This spread works against the reader's
love for Marie Curie's genius, her accomplishments, and her greatness
as a notable person in history. The atomic bomb is not something the
human race can consider to be an ethical accomplishment. In fact,
when people think about nuclear or atomic explosions, they think
about what happened during World War II. This photograph reminds the
reader that, although Marie Curie may have accomplished great things
with her research, she unlocked the secrets of destruction along with
it. Eventually, her research would lead to devastation unlike
anything the world had seen before.
This same theme is continued on pages
142 and 143 where photographs of drill bits used in excavation for
the purpose of underground nuclear testing are depicted. This spread
is done over a black background, and the photographs look like relics
found on some archaeological dig of Mayan ruins in South America.
Again, we're reminded that this research is scary, but it is
romanticized through Redniss' account of Marie Curie and her love for
her research. There are a number incredible artistic choices
throughout Radioactive that are worth mentioning simply because these
are completely unique to other graphic novels I have studied.
The first is on the spread from pages
178 to 179, because here we have a very 3 dimensional image that
flows across the spread, but appears to be generated on a computer
and not hand-drawn. The spread is full of color, and even appears a
little like the Wizard of Oz "Yellow Brick Road"
with the way it is depicted, but it is in fact an advanced test
reactor. The final spread that intrigued me was the one on pages 170
and 171, because this is where Marie Curie dies. Her image looks
almost like an X-Ray of her body in a sarcophagus, glowing, somehow
still irradiated from all her years in the lab. I like this spread
particularly, because there is absolutely nothing on page 170, it's
totally blank, which gives the reader time to contemplate. It slows
the scene down, until we see Marie Curie's body on page 171. It takes
up the whole page, and the narrative is imprinted on her body.
This graphic novel, especially from a
historical context is one that I appreciate very much. I think that
it is something that should be studied more in depth, because I never
knew very much about Marie Curie until I read Radioactive, and
I believe that if this were offered along with some of the other
graphic novels like March, and Maus
more in depth (like a focused literature class where a small number
of these novels are studied), students will walk away with a
deeper knowledge of the history they are studying.
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