V for Vendetta by Alan Moore, David Lloyd Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of V for Vendetta
Book Review: compulsive reading: an ode to distopia.
Summary: 5 Stars
No need to mention how talented Moore is... Lloyd's drawings are here its perfect complement. this book is for all those who ever wondered why Guy Fawkes is celebrated for his failure rather than his attempt.Moving.Book Review: Dark, dark....
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the things that the comic media can do as normal litterature cannot is to make impressions on both sight and insight - meaning pictures and words. In "V" this is done with the same masterly skill as the best of novels and comics combined.The book is a statement against! - not so much a statement in favor of any specific. It is anarchy, but as anarchy is V.close (pun intended!) to chaos, someone must control it. Can this be done - we don't know in the end, not in life nor in this book. We hope...
The scene is set in England after an atomic war in the '90. England, alway a lover of class-division, turns into the same fascist society that Huxley and Orwell warned against.
But some law must be maintained? Yes, but the law is for all - it must be loved, not feared. To release yourself from fear you have to pass by it - then you can live again. "V" is the anarchist to do so and to bring the ultimate new world.
You can associate "V" as a Messiah - and as such, Christ was also an kind of an anarchist - but after all, this is taking the novel a bit to far. "V" is as much a Messiah as "Batman" is, but with a different perspective. "Batman" wants to remedy the symptoms - "V" wants to cure the disease.
My complains about the book is directed against the quality of the chosen paper. It sucks too much ink which makes the drawings lesser clear than they deserve.
Book Review: How to get the future completely wrong... and still matter
Summary: 5 Stars
V for Vendetta takes as its premise a nuclear war in the mid-1990's which leaves Britain cut off and vulnerable to the rise of a Fascist government. I was watching quite carefully and this didn't happen. So why should you read this historically obsolescent graphic novel? There are three reasons:- Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it won't happen. Not the nuclear war necessarily but the rise of a dictatorial regime in Western countries in response to an external threat. Sound familiar?
- "Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them." Although set in a near-future (when written) this story is as much about our past and near-present: the Nazi Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge Year Zero, the Bosnian conflict, Rwanda... do you really think the list is now closed?
- The writing, the writing and the writing. Moore has freely admitted that he got a bit carried away with some of the more paranoiac elements but this remains beautifully written with characters you care about - the helpless girl Evey, the dictator Adam Susan and most of all the enigmatic V himself.
I first encountered V on its original appearance in the short-lived Warrior magazine as a monthly serial. It was, and remains, the best graphic novel I've ever read.
Book Review: Over-rated.
Summary: 2 Stars
I originally read this graphic novel about 10 years ago and failed to seewhat the fuss was about. I decided to give it another chance and againfail to see what the bother is about.V is incredibly over-rated. The story in places is clever I accept; inparticular I liked the way the storylines and passages of time interlink.But that's about it.
The portrayal of a facist government is simplistic in the extreme. Theportrayal of racism and prejudice is so asinine and chilidish it beliesthe hype that this is for adults. Everything about the novel and itsthemes of freedom, anarchy, rights, oppression etc is about as subtle as asledgehammer. Nothing in the novel is subtle; it's incredibly didactic inits approach with long sequences of boring and tedious exposition. Thecharacterisations are also simplistic, with characters little more thancyphers for particular emotions and themes.
The graphics were effective, but even then they failed to give me a feelfor a London of the future under the heel of fascism.
Disappointing and over-rated.
Book Review: One of Alan Moore's more provocative graphic novels
Summary: 5 Stars
It is perhaps simplistic to declare that "V for Vendetta" is Alan Moore's version of George Orwell's "1984." Orwell came up with his "prophetic" title by reversing the last two digits of the year in which he wrote his book. Moore began his story in 1982, picturing a future that was around the corner and setting his tale in then late 1990s in a Britain that had become a fascist state. Moore worked from the assumption that in 1983 the Conservatives would lose the elections and that the Labour Party would remove American missiles from the British Isles, which meant that England would no longer be a target during a nuclear war. In the post-holocaust Britain of the 1990s, Moore posited a Fascist takeover. The title character of V is a one time victim of a concentration camp medical experiment who is now an enigmatic hero wearing a grinning Guy Fawkes mask; Fawkes was one of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot that was an attempt to assassinate King James I of England. In the opening chapter V sets his sights on The Voice of Fate, the official voice of the government's propagandistic lies. From that small but significant initial victory, the battle continues. There is something decidedly "English" about "V for Vendetta," and not simply because of the setting. Moore can talk about Harlan Ellison's "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" and "Fahrenheit 451" being among the elements he drew upon to create his own brave new world, but it is clear that he owes more to Orwell and Huxley, to Robin Hood and "The Prisoner," than American manifestations of the same impulse to freedom. V is not a superhero, even if the medical experiments have somehow made him more than human. Sometimes we forget that a lot of our heritage, both culturally as well as politically, comes from England, and on one level this work reminds us of our English roots.
It is ironic that Moore tells his story as a graphic novel because traditionally your comic book superhero is essentially a fascist vigilante. However, Moore succeeds in finding the perfect context to turn the traditional approach on its head. Most people have no conception of what is meant by the term "Fascism." They equate the idea with Hitler, although it was coined by Mussolini, and Hitler means Nazis, Anti-Semitism and Concentration Camps. Of course, Moore knows better. Fascism is based on the "struggle" for "order" wherein the ends justify all sorts of means. This dynamic clearly runs counter to the democratic ideals of "liberty" and "property." Historically, then, we are confronted with the monumental irony that although the Fascists lost World War II, the Cold War was on one level the triumph of Fascism, a period where we allowed all sorts of travesties, from the McCarthy witch hunts to Nixon's executive orders in the name of "national security." Moore brings the idea of fascism home. If you cannot recognize it in England's green and pleasant fields then you are never going to recognize it when it walks down Main Street in your hometown, U.S.A. Don't you think you should?
David Lloyd is the artist for the "V for Vendetta" series, although Tony Weare did the art for "Vincent" and some additional art on "Valerie" and "The Vacation." Notice the pattern? All of the chapter headings in each issue begin or at least include the letter "V." Lloyd's peculiar style is particularly well suited to this particular storyline. It is odd and a bit off, just like the world it is depicting. Lloyd, Siobhan Dodds and Steve Whitaker did the coloring, and I give them special mention because there is a carefully constructed style that also fits the mood and tenor of the tale.