Dispossession: A Novel of Few Words

by Simon Grennan

England, 1873. John Caldigate, a young gentleman, gets into debt gambling and decides to try his luck in the gold fields of New South Wales. On the outward journey, he promises to marry Mrs. Smith, a divorced actress who is traveling in the same ship. Returning home a rich man, John marries Hester, the sweetheart he left behind. Soon, Mrs. Smith also returns from Australia, penniless, and claims that she is already his wife. Inspired by Anthony Trollope’s 1879 novel John Caldigate , Dispossession embeds the reader in a uniquely wrought experience of the mid-19th century, including the first ever appearance of the Aboriginal Wiradjuri language in a graphic novel. Taking unique advantage of the graphic form to conjure the material world of the Victorian era in a glittering waltz of intense color and deep shadow, Dispossession is a virtuoso and intensely affecting graphic novel by a master visual storyteller.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Historical Fiction

104 pages, Hardcover

First published September 3, 2015

Reviews

[Robert Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adaptations of classic literature into comics form is almost universally terrible, so one would be forgiven for imagining that this adaptation of Anthony Trollope's novel John Caldigate would be similarly bad. But I was very pleasantly surprised. Grennan (best known for his collaborations with Christopher Sperandio) manages to take this 600-page Victorian novel and condense it convincingly into 93 pages. How does he manage it? He does it by a careful elliptical construction. He lets the pictures tell the story and skips anything unnecessary to the telling. And this allows him to add a subplot not present in the Trollope novel--a story of an aboriginal second wife who leaves her husband as they interact with the European city dwellers and miners of the story. Their dialogue is in the Wiradjuri language, which is also the name of the ethnic group of Aboriginal people who lived in New South Wales. This subplot seems kind of tacked on, as if Grennan thought it necessary to remind readers that John Caldgate and his fellows were all extracting wealth from Australia as colonizers, but it has parallels to the story in Trollope's novel. Caldigate essentially has two wives, which causes him much trouble, as does Gulpilil, the Aboriginal man in the Wiradjuri subplot.

If you had seen Grennan's photo-based comics done with Sperandio, you will be surprised by the artwork here. He has a very loose style, that recalls Blutch's comics. He tells the story in a rigid 9-panel grid on the page, and the work is uncinematic. There are no close ups and the angles are usually straight-on. Most of the characters are shown in full-figure, which reminds me of Gabrielle Bell's work.

[Dominick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. I am a big Anthony Trollope fan, so when I heard of this adaptation of John Caldigate, one of Trollope's more interesting novels (to my taste, anyway), I very much looked forward to it. However, as an adaptation, it is disappointing. It boils down a quite substantial tome (the World's Classics edition is over 600 pages long) to 100 pages, stripping much of its complexity and subtlety out. The characters are non-entities, barely distinguishable visually, let alone as unique individuals. It was often difficult to tell who one was looking at because Grennan has adopted a sketchy style that does not lend itself to individualizing details. It doesn't help that he consistently views events from a sort of middle distance, basically equivalent to a filmic medium shot, further compromising individualizing detail. The interpolated story about aboriginals seems not to serve any narrative purpose. Overall, flat and not engaging.

[Curtis · Rating 2 out of 5]

it's an interesting attempt at converting a (being generous) 'classic' novel into a mostly visual format but most of the interest came from the puzzle of working out what was happening. there's a certain satisfaction in seeking back earlier pages from clues to current circumstances but it wouldn't draw me back for a reread.

[Keen Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

The two apparent draw cards to this piece of work is that it is described as a “graphic re-invention" of Anthony Trollope’s 1879 novel “John Caldigate” and it also boasts the first appearance of the Wiradjuri language (one of the many Aboriginal languages of Australia) in a work of graphic fiction.

For me this tribute came across more like a pastiche or parody of the Victorian ruling classes and could easily have been written by Julian Fellowes (AKA Baron Fellowes of West Stafford). In spite of the best efforts of the afterword to suggest otherwise, I don’t really think it did a convincing job of converting a 600 odd page novel into a 100 page graphic novel. There are plenty of gaps which can make for clumsy reading at times.

I wasn’t a fan of the art work at all, this was a tribute to a Victorian author, it certainly had a cold and detached Victorian feel to it, add to this the stilted dialogue, wooden, snobby characters which made it almost impossible to connect with or enjoy. The plot was interesting enough but the problems of trying to squeeze a monster novel into a short graphic novel are clearly evident.

[Lisa Macklem · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I ultimately ended up liking it. The afterward explains the basic flaw of the experiment. How do you distill a 600 page novel into a 100 page graphic novel? While the art itself is beautiful, it doesn't help to distill the story. The French style does not lend itself to detail. I frequently found myself wondering who exactly I was looking at. Was this John? Ned? Who is this woman? Adding an Aborginal subplot may be both interesting and forward thinking - and it does nicely mirror the main plot - but again, we started with 600 pages. In the end, the main part of the novel is nicely covered in the last 20 or so pages.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are beautiful moments in dispossession, with well observed illustrations and fine details, but it is honestly feels as though Grennan has squandered the opportunities of a graphic novel - he uses the same grid on every page, the vast majority of his panels are mid shot, and there is generally a lack of flow between each panels. It feels like a series of pretty pictures rather a true comic; it is static and stilted. The colours can be beautiful, but are often murky, and occasionally sickly. The story feels flattened, simplified.

There are lots of great individual moments in Dispossession, but for me it failed as a cohesive whole.

[Kirsti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. Grennan turns one of Anthony Trollope's minor novels into sequential art. Trollope isn't an action-packed writer--there's a lot of gossip and the occasional lawsuit. The art is so blocky that it's difficult to tell one character from another. And the story is so condensed that Trollope's witticisms are missing. I'm impressed that anybody even tried to do this, but I'm not impressed with the results.

[Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting adaptation, unlike the source material it lacks a strong enough prosodic scaffolding to sustain what is a very anaemic narrative. The highlights include scenes depicting Aboriginal dispossesion as well a few select pages that make clever use of panelling a la Watchmen. However, I don't think I would've picked it up if it were not mandatory reading for a course. Such is the fate for many Victorian narratives sadly.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the story here, and a Victorian graphic novel-what’s not to love? But I found some of the images confusing, and slightly lost track of what was happening at several points. Mixed feelings about this one.

[Richard Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice to look at Trollope from a different viewpoint.

[Melissa Orth · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF

I tried, I really did. Methinks one needs to be familiar with the Anthony Trollope novel this GN is based on in order to make sense of the wide cast of characters and muddy storylines.

[Fátima López Sevilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art style was really pretty, the story and the pace... It seemed too rush, not enough character or plot development to engage.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautiful artwork does not make up for this incoherent adaptation.

[Ruth Mcauley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interestingly interpreted graphic novel edition of a classic. I haven't read the original. The artist used a very fixed style, keeping every panel the same size and the characters quite far from the front of the frame. I enjoyed this but I wasn't overwhelmed by it. I think there were times when I struggled to tell what was going on, having not read the original, and had a hard time working out who was who because they were depicted in the distance in every frame so you couldn't pick out individual facial nuances - thus one character with similar hair and build to another is hard to distinguish at times. An interesting subject matter, and worth at least one read.

[James Traxler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Artwork is quite nice, but seems to have missed the exciting ways graphic novels have advanced in the past few decades. It is just a straight 6-panes-per-page throughout.

Storyline? Um, pretty boring. I haven't read the original Victorian novel, which I imagine would be slow-paced, as usual for the era. However, there is just not enough to make it interesting here. Condensing down into this graphic format highlights this.

It is quite hard to follow really, which I think is down to the way it has been adapted and to the artwork.

[Verity W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really my sort of story when it came down to it, but the illustrations were beautiful and it was really well done, so it may well be just the thing for other people.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Kara Bianca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda disappointed in this. I wanted to see a strong critique of colonialism in Australia and this just didn't live up to that. Oh well, it's a graphic novel, it's short.