Abandon The Old In Tokyo s/c back

"Excuse me. I seem to have lost my way."

Rarely have I found a quote more apposite to kick off a review.

It's book of bad decisions. Awful impulses acted on, and then immediately regretted. People lost, lonely, isolated and alienated, out of step with their times and under so much pressure in Japan of the 1960s where, as Tatsumi tells line editor Adrian Tomine, "Economic development was considered more important than the way people actually lived their lives". In lieu of actual conversations, so often the male protagonists remain silent while they're being talking at by their mothers, girlfriends or co-workers. People feeling dragged down and trapped…

And over and over again things are thrown away. Not just worn-out yet still serviceable household objects, but marriages, people and pets. There's a scene in a zoo involving monkeys which you simply will not believe. Also, jobs are lost, limbs are lost and businesses go under. Sex is far from celebrated, either, but an object of obsession or revulsion. It's pretty dark but far from bleak, such is the beguiling quality of each short narrative; I don't think comparisons with Eisner are out of order. Occasionally an element of horror creeps in, but even then it's in service to the thematic content summed up beautifully here:

"Please help me… I fell down this hole… I can't get out."

We also have new softcover editions of THE PUSH MAN AND OTHER STORIES and GOOD-BYE as reviewed by Tom. I don't know why we never got around to reviewing ABANDON THE OLD IN TOKYO before. It begins with a man on the toilet; it ends with a man down the sewers.