Reviews

Tunnels by Rutu Modan

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My Favorite graphic novel Ive read in a while! thx for the present Paddy!

Brought me back to my Tintin Days! I love that Modan makes use of the Ligne Claire style to do this outwardly very Tintin-esque story, but overlays it with a wonderfully complex web of loyalties, jealousies, ambitions and betrayals. The art kicks ass and the characters are really human and sharp tongued and theres some excellent dark satire on extremism. I mean i have my quibbles with some aspects where instead of bouncing off of adventure tropes she leans on em but it doesn't hurt anything toooo bad.

I would say the story is very political in spirit while not being didactic which I enjoyed and the ending essay about Archaeology and a culture’s need for stories is fascinating and humanistic. Although its tough to say with an issue like Israel and Palestine, where the crimes are so great and on going. While this is first an foremost a jewish story, and Palestinians though portrayed as justifiably aggrieved, play a smaller part i thought she did a decent job showing how the same ground can mean be incredibly important in similar ways to do different peoples.
Oddly enough reminded me of Jon Ronson’s style of examining incredibly fraught issues though individual’s stories rather than in the usual complex accounting of each side.
anyway could perhaps have been even radical but still loved, gonna read the rest of her stuff for sure.

nice job Rutu! thx again Pat!

robertrivasplata's review

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Rutu Modan's archaeological MacGuffin-driven adventure allegory of the Israel Palestine conflict. Like Tintin, if the kid was obsessed with video games to the exclusion of all else, and all the adult sidekicks were 100% unhinged, & the animal sidekick is just there to be sacrificed in a religious ritual later. (Full disclosure, I mostly know about Tintin from Ruben Bolling's Billy Dare parody comics, & Wikipedia). Among targets of ridicule are religious fanatic settlers, the IDF, academia, the apolitical, ISIS, antiquities traders, & kids these days. Focuses on the politicization of archaeology & history in Palestine. I like how the ancient tunnels the characters are excavating have all these layers of historical use dating from ancient times through to the present day, with the archaeologists even encountering other people tunneling who are trying to use the ancient tunnels for their own uses. The afterword kind of spells out most of the themes & references in Tunnels, & the Glossary is interesting too. Most puzzling to me is the “credits” section. Is this kind of an acknowledgments list? Or did they all have to act out the scenes for Modan to quickly sketch and then translate to the page?

brandt_sch's review

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adventurous dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

The plot was okay, the art was great (think Hergé and Tintin) except for some reason all the people were drawn as hideous-looking. Kinda detracted from my enjoyment of the book

livermorejack1's review

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5.0

A nice ligne claire style novel set in Israel. Interesting look at the culture and tensions with Palestine through a fairly lighthearted adventure story.

haddocks_eyes's review

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adventurous funny informative lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

claubeb's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

patriteca's review against another edition

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3.0

Desgraciadamente el libro no ha sido lo que yo esperaba. Esperaba encontrarme más aventuras pero lo que he encontrado es una historia larga que refleja en partes el conflicto israelí-palestino. Debido a esto, algunas partes se me han hecho un poco pesadas porque creo que no tengo el suficiente conocimiento sobre este conflicto para apreciar y comprender todo lo que la autora nos quiere contar.

sizrobe's review

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3.0

Graphic novel about a group of Israelis' scheme to dig up the ark of the covenant. Eh. It was fine, I guess. The art isn't fantastic. I didn't realize that one of the characters was female until about 2/3 through the book. I didn't find most of the protagonists particularly sympathetic.