I love French graphic novels, not only because - obviously - I prefer French to any other language, but also because, as in the case of literature in general, some may have a great intellectual touch. How can I resist to wander my mind back into the world of ideas and intellectual debates, although convened in an illustrated way?
Designed initially as a road-trip graphic novel, from the East to the West coast of the USA into the deep frozen lands of the Cold War, Est-Ouest by Pierre Christin and Philippe Aymond is equally a short history of complex ideas. Through beautiful graphics and short yet meaningful texts, this work of graphic is first and foremost a chronicle. It documents movements, contexts and ideas, like the Hippy fake-revolution, the post-war America and the conflicts between the different leftist orientation in the boiling 1968 Paris. A Sorbonne-trained academic in ScPo, Christian has also the legerity of the artist and the spontaneous creativity inspired probably by the jazz rhymes he loves.
I liked the travelogue part of the book through the Iron Curtain, from the East Berlin to Bulgaria, and it not only respects facts and situations, but it shows a basic understanding of the everyday life in those times - from the food shortages to the difficulties of finding the latest books published in the West, as well as the everyday life of fear and surveillance, particularly in Romania.
East-Ouest is not an easy book and one could easily use it as an additional lecture for political science classes. There will always be conflicts and misunderstandings and political tensions and not forgetting them is a way of learning from mistakes.
Rating: 4 stars
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