Analyzing Thompson's Habibi One Chapter At A Time

Recently, various critics, writers, academics and artists have been weighing in on Craig Thompson's latest graphic narrative Habibi. While I have enjoyed and been confused by the seemingly polarizing commentaries on the book, I thought it would be good to, instead of trying to evaluate the whole book all at once (which many reviews have done, but, in fairness, that is what most reviews do), examine the individual chapters of the book. It took Craig Thompson a long time to create this work, the least I can do is take my time in looking at it and investigate questions that come through examining Habibi through a variety of lenses (sociological, feminist, historical, etc. ).

Chapter One (River Map)

There is no date given for the story, but rather a sort of parallel waking dream is alluded to through the visuals created of the old (less modernized/technocentric) world and the new (globalized/industrialized) world: The brief village scenes; garbage and debris in the waters and on the mound the angels stand upon; the use of a motorcycle; candlelight; the engine of a boat. It is also fascinating thinking about this mix of old and new in the metaphor of the water washing away and/or comprised of human made garbage just on the inside of the cover. Is universality being attempted? Perhaps, but I tend to think of it more from the idea that a sense of real and fantasy is attempting to be made here rather than something homogenous for mass consumption. In creating a place that is real and imaginary, many visual artists ( e.g. film makers, painters, comics artists ) all share this common need to blend the real and the almost real, that step just outside of our waking reality that has/is/or will exist. 

There are overly male-centric values being presented within this space. If there are religious and cultural reasons for this, it is left unspoken directly by Thompson and rather it is up to the reader to infer things initially, but hopefully investigate further out of curiosity, about the culture and space. For instance, how much do I need to infer about how women are treated in this space by seeing a father sell his pre-pubescent nine year old daughter to a older male? Quite a bit, but on the other hand, working from my own nascent Westerner cultural knowledge, it is unfair of me to judge, as I can only make decisions based on my own ignorance about such subjects. Am I horrified that a father would sell his daughter for money? Yes, but the other factors influencing that decision (environmental, cultural) need to be considered by me. I think this is an early challenge in the story, as it is for most stories that are derived from other cultures or cultural viewpoints, however, this seriously beings into question how much research Thompson has done in regards to understanding the cultural practices he is trying to depict. 

As this is a graphic narrative, the power of represented symbols is of course a given ( some which I have touched on a bit earlier). There are two in particular that stick out to me (and feel free to comment on others in the comment section): 

1. In a two page spread, we are presented with the visual representation of how the name of Bismillah , can be, in Thompson's words, "tangled up in many forms" (p.39). This is the strength/power of language manifested into literally anything---Bismillah is in and can be apart of anything and everything. 

2. In teaching her child about Bismillah (p.32-41) our now older female protagonist uses Bismillah in telling a longer allegory to proved a comfort for her child. The security of a childhood totem is played out here in a lovely way (I can't help but think about Linus and that security blanket), and perhaps shadows something for further down the road narratively. 

The opening chapter of Habibi is at times strong and at times dis-orieinting. Thompson has put the reader in the position of having to fill in a lot of expository and background informational gaps about a culture, but gives enough narrative intrigue for the reader to feel comfortable pushing forward. Is Thompson critiquing that which he is describing or even taking a ideological stance? No, I don't believe so, however, he is, by approaching a story with religious subtext (nothing new for him), dancing on the line of possible cultural stereotypes created in the west to emerge based on cultural mis-understandings or lack of full-rounded knowledge about the subject matter. 

Visually speaking, it is striking. Thompson's dark lines, use of negative space, emotive faces, gorgeous double- page spreads (the boat in the sand is a favorite) ,and very detailed single page splashes ( p.16-19) simulating being a page from another type of text makes the first chapter some of the best work I have seen recently.