Form and Void

Cerebus #14

by Dave Sim

Reprinting Cerebus Issues 251-265

This book continues the storyline that began in "Going Home." Dave Sim turns his literary lens to Ernest Hemingway, using entries from Mary Hemingway's journal as script and inspiration. Beware. This is not the glowing review the most give 'Poppa', but a critical look at deeply troubled writer and his equally disfunctional wife. Dave Sim puts forth a well-documented argument to support his ideas. You could take him to task on his opinions, or enjoy this terrific Cerebus story without ever looking at the notes included in "To Ham or Ham Not"

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fantasy, Fiction, Satire, Adventure, Politics

370 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2001

About the author

David Victor Sim is a Canadian comic book, artist and publisher, best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark.

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well nothing new and surprising in this volume. The poor story telling continues. Not Recommended

[Ed Erwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ernest Hemingway never hosted a hermaphroditic talking aardvark in his home. At least, not to my knowledge. But Dave Sim became interested in the later days of Hemingway, and thus Hemingway must appear in the story, as all of Sim's obsessions must. Sim promised years ago that there would be one 20-page issue of Cerebus every month for 30 years. Since that takes a lot of work, whatever Sim got interested in couldn't be a separate story, it had to go into Cerebus whether it made any sense or not.

It at least partly works. I did enjoy the story, overall.

And, all else aside, Sim's drawing, layouts, and lettering are all top-notch. I've never seen anyone do better lettering.

The inclusion of F. Scott Fitzgerald in the previous volume -- mixed, I believe, with elements of the film L'Atalante -- worked much better. The interactions between Fitzgerald and Jaka illuminated the stark differences between Jaka and Cerebus that will doom their relationship. The interactions with Hemingway and his wife Mary seem much less relevant. The main relevance that I can see is in furthering Sim's ongoing obsession with the differences between men and women and how they'll never understand each other.

I didn't think I would, but I read all the footnotes. All 256 pages. (OK, 64 pages, but they are 4 times the size of a normal book page.) They show that Sim did, at least, do a lot of research. Perhaps I should call it "research" in quotes. He read all of Hemingway's writings, hating almost all of it, and multiple versions of Mary Hemingway's journal of their African safari. He seems to hate everything about Mary. After every bad thing he claims she did he writes "What. A. Mind. Boggling. Gender." as if her every fault is shared by all women, while insisting repeatedly that he is not "Dave Sim the crazy misogynist."

If you are interested in Hemingway, it is worth reading the notes. Probably nobody else has spent that much time investigating Mary's journal. It has an interesting explanation for the reason Edward Scott challenged Hemingway to a duel.

If you are more interested in the Cerebus story, then all you need to know is this. When Mary finally killed a Lion (which she probably didn't actually do) she and Ernest ate the meat. This is apparently quite taboo. Sim thinks that her talking openly about this with Edward Scott is what made him issue the challenge of a duel. (Hemingway's letters back to Scott indicates that this is what Ernest thought as well.) Sim uses this as an example of her extreme stupidity and lack of tact. I think the simpler explanation is that she insulted British colonists to the British ambassador while at the British embassy.

An alternate explanation I found on line is that Hemingway took Ava Gardner to the embassy to celebrate the Queen's birthday and she removed her pants.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/th...

Either way, Sim doesn't think this elevating an insult to a deadly duel makes the male gender look bad, but if Mary had done it, you can be sure he'd blame the female gender.

I'm going to continue reading the series out of a compulsion for completeness. I've heard it goes even further downhill, with the next issue being essentially "Dave Sim explores the Torah (in 7pt type) using the films of Woody Allen."

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another beautiful volume of psychological damage, now with Ernest Hemingway.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm. This one might score higher if Sim had omitted the notes. Balancing his folding in of F. Scott Fitzgerald to Going Home, Sim decided to fold in Hemingway (Ham Ernestway) to this volume--unfortunately, before he had actually Read and Hemingway, whose work he for the most part detested (I pretty much concur with Sim's evaluation, though where Sim got the idea that Hemingway was viewed as THE greatest writer of the twentieth century is beyond me). Instead, therefore, he uses Mary Hemingway's account of a hunting expedition to Africa. On the one hand, this leads to some of the best cartooning in the entire series, in the depiction of Africa. Indeed, overall this volume includes what may be the overall high point of Sim/Gerhard's cartooning skills; Sim better manages the balance between text and image, and makes overall better (i.e. in my opinion, more effective) use of devices such as innovative lettering, which rarely here leads to unreadable pages, as it did in the previous volume. On the other hand, Mary's read of Hemingway is even more tangential than a direct read might have been--though given Sim's overarching point about women dominating men, her story supplanting his does kind of fit. There are still narrative issues, to my mind, such as the fact that once again Cerebus becomes basically a passenger in what is supposed to be his book--an observes of someone else's life, in his life story. The point is perhaps that Cerebus isn't getting anywhere, but reading a story that doesn't go anywhere to depict someone who isn't going anywhere is a risky device. There are also odd features here, such as why Cerebus seems to think everyone in Sand Hills Creek knows he is coming, and the whole final movement, where the community shuts him out because he wasn't there when his father died comes out of nowhere. How the heck was he supposed to know his father was dying? He's been gone for years. Jaka is also no more plausible than she was in the previous volume, Sim's increasing intentness of pushing his anti-woman point subsuming his earlier facility for creating credible characters, as well as caricatures. However, what really limits the book, in my opinion, is the long set of notes, "To Ham and Ham Not," which I made the mistake of reading concurrently with the pages they covered. This grinds the narrative to a halt, as one can flip from one or two pages of comics to sometimes several pages of text. On the other hand, reading them after competing the story proper would probably have ben even more wearisome. Despite some occasionally acute observations, such as Sim's noting of homoerotic subtext in Hemingway (he'd probably be properly horrified to learn that he's accidentally hit upon Queer Theory here, and actually makes a better case for the homoerotic than some consciously-created queer readings do), the notes are often risible, if not baffling and irritating. Sim's extrapolation from Mary Hemingway to all women ... well, as Sim is fond of saying in the notes, "words fail me." We get further evidence of Sim's ... shall we say highly creative way of linking unrelated events and people. We get laughable inconsistencies, such as Sim's condemnation of Hemingway for trying to create his own religion, while ... Sim was creating his own religion. or Sim's contempt of Hemingway's self-pity, while repeatedly articulating how he saw himself being viewed by the comics community as "foolish Dave Sim, the evil misogynist," supposedly ironically, but really expressing how butt-hurt he felt at not being lauded as the truth-speaker he thinks he is. Most ironic on this front, perhaps, is his comments, when talking about Mary Hemingway, about how one can be telling a different story than one thinks one is telling-and about how surprisingly differently people can read the same story--without any evidence of self-awareness. Sim's wacky theory of reflection is perhaps best demonstrated by the way his own obsessions and blind spots are manifested in his story and his characters, while he thinks he is being totally rational. I'd say, reward this for the stunning cartooning, but skip the notes.

[Christian Lipski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sigh. Here's where it all kind of comes to an end. Ernest Hemingway and his wife Mary are featured. I don't want to go too far into the plot to avoid spoilers, but it's really the last severing of the core Cerebus story. Now, you will only get Cerebus and his interior world, which is fighting against the evil Woman, and God.

Again, Jaka's character is tweaked a little bit more, it seems, to more perfectly fit Sim's idea of how women are bad. To be fair, Sim certainly doesn't say that Cerebus acts perfectly, and isn't intended to function as a role model. That said, it's frustrating to see a lack of communication cause most of the problems between the lovers: Cerebus kept the risk of traveling in the winter to himself. Cerebus never mentioned how women were expected to behave in Sand Hills Creek. Jaka wasn't really honest with herself about being OK with living in that environment. There were a lot of secrets being kept. Maybe they would have decided it would not work, but they have to be honest about that kind of stuff.

Anyway. Cerebus hasn't been home in what, 15 years? 20? I'm a little dubious about the reception he got. Sim explains it away with a mystical "you just know" thing that sounds a total cop-out. He's neatly wrapping things up so that he can move on to a story he feels is really important, and giving short shrift to his creation.

The last 68 page of the book is text, in which Sim talks (as he did in the last book) about the cameo'd character he has researched. In this case it's an all-out attack on Mary Hemingway and women in general. He doesn't spare Papa himself (referring to him as a typist rather than a writer), but the majority of the vitriol is saved for Mary. He makes a LOT of guesses about reasons and intentions, and then bases other arguments on these guesses, which makes the whole thing shaky. And then there are the sweeping generalizations like "women can't tell a joke" that make the essay a chore. I think this is the first time he mentions the "homosexualist-feminist axis" by name.

The story itself has some powerful emotion, but on the whole it has an atmosphere of sleaze and depression. Sad. And it really doesn't improve from here.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 3 out of 5]

Also known as Going Home Volume II, this volume collects issues 251-265 of Cerebus and is the second to last arc in the 300 issue series. Last volume we had the F. Scott Fitzgerald analogue F. Stop Kennedy, and here we have the Ernest Hemingway character, Ham Ernestway- not the greatest of takes on a name, but then the author isn’t going for subtlety and often a parody (or whatever) works best with its roots showing.

The Hemingway presented here is not the boisterous hunter, who typed away as the guns of the Spanish Civil War roared about him. He is a black hearted depressed character, full of venom and spite at the world. The character is often just there, sitting like an idol, as others dance about him, excited to be in the great writer’s presence. When he does speak it is short, choppy, and without grace, which is Sim’s take on Hemingway’s style of writing.

We see a different side to Cerebus, that of the star struck fan. He is enamored of Hemingway who, to our anti-hero, represents a pinnacle of ruggedness and masculinity which comes often into play where Cerebus grew up. And he is treated as one might expect an enthusiastic fan boy to be handled by a chronically depressed celebrity- like absolute garbage. What is most amazing, and emasculating is that Cerebus takes it and laps it up gladly. He is the worst kind of fan and believes himself to be Ernestway’s bestest bud in the whole wide world, despite the character’s obvious indifference to him.

In context with the rest of the Cerebus series the terms form and void represent the interplay and struggle between men and women in the world. Males are represented as form which fill up the void in life, ie women. As such this volume discusses the conflict ever present in the male and female relations, specifically the balance of power in said relationships. One must always dominate the other. For the man to have access to regular sex, he must bend to the whims of the woman providing the void.

This is strained past breaking as Jaka and Cerebus head onto Sand Hill Creek, a logging community just outside of the matriarchal Cirinist’s control. As the society begins to adjust to that of what he remembers Cerebus similarly reverts back to his old ways, the male dominator who would brook no disobedience. Up until this arc, Jaka and Cerebus, have always been the fantasy of the other. The great what-if of their lives. Now the fantasy has become reality and lo-and-behold it is a standard relationship with standard relationship problems. Neither wants to admit it, but both understand that this will not last. On the trip both begin looking elsewhere: Jaka to a place where she will be eternally revered without threat of political persecution; Cerebus has a spiritual awakening where Rick, then six days crucified by the Cirinists and fast becoming a messianic figure, tells the aardvark to leave everything behind- which he fails to do.

The final blow comes upon reaching the creek and the entire town shuns the pair. Locking their doors and refusing to speak to them. The reason is that while Cerebus was away, his father had died and his son was not around to perform burial rights which was the custom of the area. Remembering how things were, how he feels things should be, and how much he has compromised as a result of being with Jaka, Cerebus makes the final decision. “Go on. Beat it. Scram” (Which was reflected in the religious visions in Rick’s Story).

Sixty four out of the 300 pages are dedicated to the appendix and annotations. Sims appears to have become either incredibly narcissistic or incredibly bitter. I suppose it was the continued fall of his star after issue 168, where the collective comics media began calling him a misogynist, that has pushed him over the edge. Once the darling of the industry due to his indie status, he began despised and then, worse yet, ignored by those who would adore him. He makes constant references to himself as the “evil misogynist Dave Sim”. The anger and bitterness in his writing is palpable. He claims he is using the phrase ironically, but it sure doesn’t come across in that manner.

I have to admit, part of the negative impact of stating his beliefs rests on his own shoulders. Not because of what he has to say, but because of his audience- which he obviously miscalculated. The bread and butter of the comic’s industry was superhero stories, which naturally attracts the kind of people who want to be, or pretend to be, superheroes. Not to delve into stereotypes here, but from my personal experience many many collectors are beta kucks without much experience in wooing women, who views the female sex as one would an alien species, and who truly believes all of the chivalric claptrap various media sources spew out about “what women really want”.

Thus any attempt for them to jump up and join the bandwagon in “defending women’s honor” will not be missed. Especially when the need to actually exert themselves doesn’t extend beyond rubbing their greasy fingers over a keyboard to register their “outrage”. Then they can imagine from the safe confines of their well farted-in chair that they are noble heroes doing good. This is where the male feminist deludes himself that they are doing more than sucking up to women in order to try to get laid. Its simply another way of trying to take down a guy in order to step up in line, but safer because the other guy can’t hit back.

The overly long annotations are none the less interesting and detailed in the author’s obsessive pursuit of the stories behind the stories of Hemingway’s life. Though I have to say I’m not exactly convinced by some of the conclusions he reached, specifically about Hemingway’s homosexality or bisexuality. While the author is not the only one to make this proclamation, the evidence he offers here is rather thin, as few chunks taken from here and there which if viewed alone might indicate something, but in a wider context the same chunks they might indicate something else- maybe Hemingway just liked women with short hair- and most of the “evidence” comes from Hemingway’s own writing, so at most it seems a fantasy, rather than a predilection.

However the detail into which the author goes is impressive, detailed, and interesting. His distaste for Hemingway’s literary style is well founded and one that I agree with. Or at least Hemingway’s style worked best in short stories- short sentences for short stories- but failed absolutely in novel form. The Old Man and the Sea is a dreadful book. Also the readers might be interested to learn that Sim’s opinion on Picasso is ranked down there with Hemingway. All of this he blames on the corrupting influence of Gertrude Stein. While I’m not one hundred percent convinced of this, his reasoning is very interesting and requires more thought.

[Tom Ewing · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're going to 'do' Fitzgerald in a comic, then it follows you have to 'do' Hemingway - this at least seems to have been Dave Sim's idea in Form And Void, the third book of the wider Going Home novel. Sim had never actually read Hemingway (nor have I!) and was horrified and disgusted by what he found, picking up, as other critics have, on Hemingway's sublimated confusion over sexuality and gender. The Man's Man Sim was hoping to find was, in his eyes, a terrible fraud, and by the end of "Ham Earnestway"'s appearances in Form And Void he couldn't wait to be rid of him and wife Mary.

Sim digs into these feelings in the extensive notes to Form And Void. I haven't read those notes in full either - just enough to confirm they're packed with Sim's usual obsessive loathing of women (and now gays). In any case, by this stage he's a bad, fussy annotator of his own work. The comic stands by itself and it's the comic I'm reviewing.

And the comic, once again, is good. Perhaps Sim's disgust with "Papa" was creatively productive, contributing to the atmosphere of Form And Void, which is unique within Cerebus - closer to the kind of clammy dread you get in a Charles Burns book or some Dan Clowes comics. Sim's art style shifts gears, the blacks becoming starker and heavier, dominating the page and making the art feel colder and more abstract: Mary Earnestway's beak-like features drawn angular, half in darkness, making her into an almost demonic figure.

If Going Home was Sim doing a romance comic, Form And Void is his try at a horror comic, Cerebus' take on The Shining. The setting is a snowed-in hunting lodge, in which Cerebus and Jaka are wintering on their way north. The other guests are Ham and Mary Earnestway, a famous writer and his wife, though African porters from the Earnestways' last safari drift in and out of the action at significant moments (it seems unclear at times whether they're 'real' or not, but Form And Void dissolves time - the setting for Mary Earnestway's narrated section is clearly 20th Century Kenya, a place reachable by airship from Cerebus' world, a disjunction which adds to the comic's eerie, ambiguous tone)

Cerebus is thrilled that Ham Earnestway is his fellow guest - the man is Cerebus' literary hero, and he fondly imagines ball games and fishing trips with this great macho writer. But something is terribly wrong. Hemingway's speech is rendered as stark black type in the midst of a void - he is barely present, lost in his "black ass" depression after being crippled during a disastrous safari. As the atmosphere in the hunting lodge deteriorates, Mary narrates the story of that safari, a lion hunt, and its aftermath.

Form And Void is up to this point one of Cerebus' most experimental, disjointed narratives, and one of its most successful - the story works mostly on the level of vibe, an increasing sense of dread and wrongness. Sim's decision to use Mary Hemingway's own words is a strong one - just as with Robbie Ross' letters in Melmoth, her clear, unaffected language is what the safari hunt sequence needs, and prevents Sim's tendency to overwrite his pastiches from marring the comic. The plain speaking also hides what's being revealed - the primal taboo of eating lion meat, which symbolically foreshadows Cerebus own later downfall. Mary's revelations bring on the violent climax of the hunting lodge sequence -

And the comic suddenly jumps forward and shifts location, in one of the most effective transitions Sim ever pulls off. Suddenly Cerebus and Jaka are in a blizzard, trapped in a tent, freezing to death. In the teeth of starvation the narrative breaks down even further, and in a series of tiny panels across mostly white pages we gradually piece together why they fled the lodge, the gravity of their situation, and Cerebus' attempts to salvage it. The blizzard sequence is perhaps the last truly exceptional bit of comics-making in Cerebus - after this Sim will continue to use comics pages in a way nobody else has, but not in a way anybody else would or should. But for me it gets a lot of its power following on from the rest of Form And Void - a different kind of horror, but also the payoff to the wider dread that's been building all through the book.

The end of Going Home - the post-blizzard return to Cerebus' home town - feels like an anti-climax, a return to the actual storyline after the fever-dream plotting and experimentation of the rest of Form And Void. It's a grim, unhappy ending - how could it not be? But it's not a disappointment, and it fits the themes of the book: Cerebus' agony as his ideals of a life of manly simplicity fail to take reality into account, and it becomes increasingly obvious, even to him, that Jaka isn't going to fit into the world of Sand Hills Creek. What is a disappointment, after her portrayal in Going Home, is Jaka herself - she's understandably miserable for most of the book but in general takes a back seat as Sim explores the Earnestways and his protagonist, and by the end she's slipped back into one-dimensionality.

Form And Void is a difficult, depressing, sometimes ugly comic - backed up with vastly more unpleasant notes, which as I say you should avoid - and not one I'll be in a hurry to re-read. But it's the artistic high point of late Cerebus - bold, original, well-structured, thematically consistent. It's also Dave Sim's last work where the walls between his head and his story are strong enough (DON'T READ THE NOTES) to leave his ability, not his obsession, in the driving seat.

[Gilly Singh · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only redeeming feature of this volume is the artwork, the lettering and interesting use of panels in some places.

Otherwise, the story meanders and has an unsatisfactory ending. I would only recommend to those who are in for the long hail and insist on reading the entire saga.

[slauderdale]

Another reviewer, Dominick, said of Sim's lengthy notes,
Sim's extrapolation from Mary Hemingway to all women ... well, as Sim is fond of saying in the notes, "words fail me." We get further evidence of Sim's ... shall we say highly creative way of linking unrelated events and people. We get laughable inconsistencies, such as Sim's condemnation of Hemingway for trying to create his own religion, while ... Sim was creating his own religion. or Sim's contempt of Hemingway's self-pity, while repeatedly articulating how he saw himself being viewed by the comics community as "foolish Dave Sim, the evil misogynist," supposedly ironically, but really expressing how butt-hurt he felt at not being lauded as the truth-speaker he thinks he is. Most ironic on this front, perhaps, is his comments, when talking about Mary Hemingway, about how one can be telling a different story than one thinks one is telling-and about how surprisingly differently people can read the same story--without any evidence of self-awareness. Sim's wacky theory of reflection is perhaps best demonstrated by the way his own obsessions and blind spots are manifested in his story and his characters, while he thinks he is being totally rational.

To which I said, Yup.

In addition to blind spots, obsessions, magical thinking and self-pity, throw in a powerful penchant for verbal tics, with "Words fail me," "foolish Dave Sim the evil misogynist" and "What a mind-boggling gender" repeated ad nauseum.

So much for the notes. I wonder how this portion of the Cerebus narrative would have turned out had Sim written about an author whose work he enjoyed, or at any rate viewed as a legitimate writer, instead of feeling compelled to stick with the "typist" Ernest Hemingway. I actually found the story (stories?) in this volume fairly compelling. The weird arc with the Ernestways is repellent but not dull, and then Cerebus, in a fit of horrified illogic, rousts Jaka from the camp and nearly gets them both killed in a blizzard (Jaka puts them in further jeopardy when she eats some of their reserves, but since Cerebus is the one who landed them in the shit to begin with...) After they get out of THAT one they have to make a second escape from Gertrude Stein (LOL) before she and the other Cirinists can find an implicating firearm left in the twain's abandoned tent, and then comes the fateful arrival at Sand Hills Creek.

Others refer to continued tweaking of Jaka's character, but I actually found Jaka more sympathetic in this volume than in the previous volume. For better or worse she threw her lot in with Cerebus at the end of the previous volume, and she continues to stick with him despite his many misgivings about her. (Which, if she *is* reading his mind, as I think her statement re: "If any phrase or any sentence could be considered as 'mouthing off'" implies, she does in the face of much provocation.) This may not say much for her judgment, but she doesn't come off as flighty, shallow, spoiled, or whatever Sim or Cerebus may throw at her, even with the biscuits. So when Cerebus tells her to scram at the end, and Gertrude shows up with Missy and a ride out of there, honestly, I was relieved. I don't know what happens to Jaka or if we find out, but at this point anyway I think she is better off.

[Rockito · Rating 3 out of 5]

Form and Void is the third-part of the whole "Going Home" story arc. If the previous was some sort of love letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, this one is a mocking letter to the "typist" Ernst Hemingway using an analog called "Ham Ernstway". I haven't read anything written by the latter (or the former for that matter) but judging from the few excerpts Dave put in the bookl, EH's style seems indeed to be pretty boring. Aside from showing the last nail in the coffin of Cerebus' and Jaka's relationship this book features a anotations in the form of "To Ham & Ham not" in which he explains which part of this story are based on real (or "real") life events of Ernst and Mary Hemingway. This part it's pretty interesting, with Dave making comments (although some pretty baseless) about The Hemingways sexuality, their huge egos and that he considers Mary "killed Ernst" (as in facilitated his suicide) but unfortunaly, like pretty much every one of Dave's manuscrits, it's goes on and on and on on the same points (Which ironically is a thing he claims women do). Also, like most of twitter edgy boys, he says some pretty derogatory things about women, homosexuals, etc. and then goes about how "They stop talking to you because they can't take differing opinions", like calling somebody a "Degenarate" is just an opinion, in a classic "So much for the tolerant left" moment. I guess some people might feel attacked by Dave's word but to me is funny how somebody can go around these things and pretend they're not inflamatory.

For some reason people seem to think Hemingway was "one of Dave's heroes" when just from the comic book part of this story it's pretty obvious he isn't. Still is pretty weird how Dave wanted to show us how "useless" Mary Hemingway was by writting her as a compelling character (Which he did with every women in Cerebus).

Good stuff.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're going to 'do' Fitzgerald in a comic, then it follows you have to 'do' Hemingway - this at least seems to have been Dave Sim's idea in Form And Void, the third book of the wider Going Home novel. Sim had never actually read Hemingway (nor have I!) and was horrified and disgusted by what he found, picking up, as other critics have, on Hemingway's sublimated confusion over sexuality and gender. The Man's Man Sim was hoping to find was, in his eyes, a terrible fraud, and by the end of "Ham Earnestway"'s appearances in Form And Void he couldn't wait to be rid of him and wife Mary.

Sim digs into these feelings in the extensive notes to Form And Void. I haven't read those notes in full either - just enough to confirm they're packed with Sim's usual obsessive loathing of women (and now gays). In any case, by this stage he's a bad, fussy annotator of his own work. The comic stands by itself and it's the comic I'm reviewing.

And the comic, once again, is good. Perhaps Sim's disgust with "Papa" was creatively productive, contributing to the atmosphere of Form And Void, which is unique within Cerebus - closer to the kind of clammy dread you get in a Charles Burns book or some Dan Clowes comics. Sim's art style shifts gears, the blacks becoming starker and heavier, dominating the page and making the art feel colder and more abstract: Mary Earnestway's beak-like features drawn angular, half in darkness, making her into an almost demonic figure.

If Going Home was Sim doing a romance comic, Form And Void is his try at a horror comic, Cerebus' take on The Shining. The setting is a snowed-in hunting lodge, in which Cerebus and Jaka are wintering on their way north. The other guests are Ham and Mary Earnestway, a famous writer and his wife, though African porters from the Earnestways' last safari drift in and out of the action at significant moments (it seems unclear at times whether they're 'real' or not, but Form And Void dissolves time - the setting for Mary Earnestway's narrated section is clearly 20th Century Kenya, a place reachable by airship from Cerebus' world, a disjunction which adds to the comic's eerie, ambiguous tone)

Cerebus is thrilled that Ham Earnestway is his fellow guest - the man is Cerebus' literary hero, and he fondly imagines ball games and fishing trips with this great macho writer. But something is terribly wrong. Hemingway's speech is rendered as stark black type in the midst of a void - he is barely present, lost in his "black ass" depression after being crippled during a disastrous safari. As the atmosphere in the hunting lodge deteriorates, Mary narrates the story of that safari, a lion hunt, and its aftermath.

Form And Void is up to this point one of Cerebus' most experimental, disjointed narratives, and one of its most successful - the story works mostly on the level of vibe, an increasing sense of dread and wrongness. Sim's decision to use Mary Hemingway's own words is a strong one - just as with Robbie Ross' letters in Melmoth, her clear, unaffected language is what the safari hunt sequence needs, and prevents Sim's tendency to overwrite his pastiches from marring the comic. The plain speaking also hides what's being revealed - the primal taboo of eating lion meat, which symbolically foreshadows Cerebus own later downfall. Mary's revelations bring on the violent climax of the hunting lodge sequence -

And the comic suddenly jumps forward and shifts location, in one of the most effective transitions Sim ever pulls off. Suddenly Cerebus and Jaka are in a blizzard, trapped in a tent, freezing to death. In the teeth of starvation the narrative breaks down even further, and in a series of tiny panels across mostly white pages we gradually piece together why they fled the lodge, the gravity of their situation, and Cerebus' attempts to salvage it. The blizzard sequence is perhaps the last truly exceptional bit of comics-making in Cerebus - after this Sim will continue to use comics pages in a way nobody else has, but not in a way anybody else would or should. But for me it gets a lot of its power following on from the rest of Form And Void - a different kind of horror, but also the payoff to the wider dread that's been building all through the book.

The end of Going Home - the post-blizzard return to Cerebus' home town - feels like an anti-climax, a return to the actual storyline after the fever-dream plotting and experimentation of the rest of Form And Void. It's a grim, unhappy ending - how could it not be? But it's not a disappointment, and it fits the themes of the book: Cerebus' agony as his ideals of a life of manly simplicity fail to take reality into account, and it becomes increasingly obvious, even to him, that Jaka isn't going to fit into the world of Sand Hills Creek. What is a disappointment, after her portrayal in Going Home, is Jaka herself - she's understandably miserable for most of the book but in general takes a back seat as Sim explores the Earnestways and his protagonist, and by the end she's slipped back into one-dimensionality.

Form And Void is a difficult, depressing, sometimes ugly comic - backed up with vastly more unpleasant notes, which as I say you should avoid - and not one I'll be in a hurry to re-read. But it's the artistic high point of late Cerebus - bold, original, well-structured, thematically consistent. It's also Dave Sim's last work where the walls between his head and his story are strong enough (DON'T READ THE NOTES) to leave his ability, not his obsession, in the driving seat.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

We've jumped on from the end of 'Fall And The River'. Cerebus and Jaka are now travelling with Ham Ernestway and his wife Mary. Ham is of course a Hemingway pastiche, and Cerebus, who we shouldn't forget is still a little gender confused after Astoria's revelation back in Reads, hero worships this manliest of men. It's nor reciprocated though. Ham is taciturn and uncommunicative at the best of times, and it is left to Mary to do most of the talking.

And that's where things go wrong for this book. What Mary largely chooses to talk about it is a journey she and Ham took to a continent that doesn't half look like our Africa , whereupon Dave embarks on his reinterpretation of the real Mary Hemingway's African journals. It is, of course, brilliantly composed and drawn, but it has no connection at all to the Cerebus story, not even the tangential brushed kiss of Melmoth.
For a good chunk of this book, it feels as though Cerebus has become an encumbrance to Dave, and he is telling the story he wants to tell while inwardly cursing his 300 issue promise. It's a hint of how Dave's post-Cerebus career could have turned out - he could have pioneered and mastered the biographical comics form. The sequence goes on for dozens and dozens of pages. It's very well done, but it's not particularly interesting, and it tells us nothing about Cerebus, nothing about Jaka, and nothing about their relationship.

After the tale is told, the party retire. Later that night, Cerebus hears a gunshot, and finds Ham dead from a shot to the head. It is strongly implied that Mary has, at the very least, facilitated his suicide. This sends Cerebus into deep shock, and he blinks in and out of coherent thought for a while. When he regains his balance, we find him and Jaka in a raging snowstorm, trapped in a flimsy tent with dwindling supplies. Things are looking bleak, until Cerebus dreams of Rick, looking like he did back in Jaka's Story but with wounds to his hands that suggest the Cirinists have crucified him (I'm pretty sure this was hinted at earlier in Going Home, but I can't remember where). Dream Rick tells Cerebus how to reach safety, and also tells him that someone will come to him with a book. Oh my, will they. Will they ever.

Cerebus follows the advice, and, buoyed by the miracle, the couple progress through an increasingly desolate northern landscape until they reach Sand Hills Creek. Cerebus does not get the welcome he expected. His parents have died during his long absence, and his not being there to attend them makes him anathema to a small town rooted in old ways. An angry Cerebus drives Jaka away, back into the arms of the Cirinists who have been shadowing them all the way. A solicitous Mother hands her Missy (who had been left behind in the tent), Jaka clutches her to her breast and is driven off, inconsolably weeping. And that is the last we ever see of her.
Goodbye, Jaka. Wherever you ended up, I'm sure you came to like it more than you would have Sand Hills Creek. It was never going to work out with you and Cerebus, and I think both of you knew it. All the little nags and needles you threw at each other over the last two books showed that, no matter how good a game you both talked. That's the story of these last two phonebooks, really. A doomed romance, with both parties telling each other it's working. I don't know if Dave is writing from experience, but it feels painfully true. We always talk about his technical artistic skills, but he's not too shabby as a writer either.

Cerebus, meanwhile, is overcome with rage and grief. He rends his clothes, he prostates himself in the dirt, he howls. Aaaand that's where we end this book. It's interesting that there are a number of natural endpoints built into this last third of the storyline. You could choose to finish at the end of Minds. If you want a happy ending, then stop when Cerebus and Jaka walk off into the sunset at the end of Rick's Story. Or finish here, with Cerebus alone, broken and bereft. It's certainly the end of the storyline in some ways, with the next volumes moving us well away from the Estarcion we have known so far. But I've been promised Cerebus dying alone, unmourned and unloved, godammit, and I'm sticking around to see it.

The first half of Going Home was pleasantly better than I remembered. I can't say the same about this one. For me, it's the tipping point where Dave's magpie tendency to put whatever caught his fancy at a particular moment into the book finally overwhelms the story, exquisitely produced as it may be.
His decision to add an appendix detailing all his research into Mary Hemingway and her journals doesn't add to my enjoyment. He uses it to launch a sustained attack on Ernest's literary merit, and Mary's - well, everything. It comes off as nasty, a vituperative character assassination, and is exactly the sort of thing that gets him labelled as Dave The Crazy Evil Misogynist. Once again, it's also not reflected in the book itself. In the appendices, Dave is clear that he considers Mary domineering, self important and almost totally lacking in self awareness, while in the book she comes over as a strong woman, with good advice for Jaka on gender equality, dealing with a depressed and useless man. I don't know how he does it, but it's a hell of a trick.

(There are nuggets in the appendices, especially the translation of the guides' Swahili. Worth wading through the other stuff for)

On to Latter Days, then. In memory, it is by some distance the worst of all the phonebooks. Ulp.

[Jonathan Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The weaker half of Going Home although the ending is so fantastic and heartbreaking. It is interesting how Sim is trying so hard to destroy the character of Jaka with several out of character moments but failing. Jaka is too strong and well built of a character for your attempts, Mr. Sim. Funny enough, reading this series so far is such a fascinating contradiction because Sim might rant about women being creative soul sucking voids but the most complex well written characters are the women.

[Joyce · Rating 1 out of 5]

just when you think dave sim can't take it any further he literally straight out says women's place is secondary to men, along with a whole raft of other insane shit (MLK ceded leadership of the civil rights movement to secular communists?? and then it failed because feminism overtook it as a social force??) i hate hemingway as much as sim does and was annoyed to find i agreed with him even on that front

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moving focus from Fitzgerald to Hemingway Sim continues to explore the theme of great male writers and their wives.

[Ryan]

The story stopped long ago and I’m just in it for the art

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of the same sort of insanity with some Ernest Hemingway references, and even more essays that are just verbose and thinly-veiled misogynistic polemic. Some good artwork but just doesn't seem to go anywhere. Not much more to say about it.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ernest Hemingway for some reason

[Robert Hudder · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am really frustrated reading the end notes to this volume. Fine, Hemingway was a typist. The exasperating part of this author is the making of an argument that starts out fine and then veers into that this must follow when it doesn't.

I'm thinking about his idea of equality and saying that women aren't equal but then that they should be when it comes to certain parts. I must remember that he is a proponent of mens' rights and that some of the nuttiness does show in his character of Cerebus. I always read Cerebus as a flawed character and caricature of masculinity. A portrait that is pitied, comical and lovable at the end of the day in the same way that Homer Simpson is lovable. He is trying to do the right thing but just fucks it up. It is this masculinity that is balanced with the fact that he was born an hermaphrodite.

I just worry that Dave Sims might point out that the only flaw with Cerebus is that sometimes he embraces his feminine side. I identify with Cerebus and share some of his flaws but I can't take the Sims road and blame female culture for making me a pussy. Seems weird that someone who credits male superiority ends up sounding whiny. Would a real male whine his way into superiority?

So, if you are going to read the book, you may want to skip the endnotes unless you like writing rants on goodreads.

[Sean Samonas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have a much better title for this book. It should just be "A biography of Ernest Hemingway with some other stuff about an aardvark I used to enjoy writing about."

Again, the frustrating thing about Sim is that on its own this wouldn't be so bad. I would never have read it, but I'm not going to knock on him liking Ernest Hemingway. If you want to write about a person, go ahead and do that. Why Dave felt the need to simply take over his own comic so he could do so is baffling.

Nothing that happens in this comic has anything remotely to do with the main plot until about the end. Once we leave the Hemingways behind, we can finally get back to the resolution of the story and enjoy it. As much as we can, at least. Suffice it say again, that I will caution you against reading any further as the author completely loses all sense of telling a cohesive story.

You have been warned.

[Warhorus · Rating 4 out of 5]

While continuing to suffer from the misogyny that the later entries in the Cerebus arguably suffered from, I found this book a step up from the preceding volumes overall. Unlike some of Sim's previous story arcs involving semi-biographical accounts of authors, this one actually managed to keep Cerebus and Jaka involved without completely digressing from the main story (like in Melmoth). He managed to weave his desire to paint a snapshot of Hemingway's final days while at the same time continuing to develop the dynamics between Jaka and Cerebus, even managing to include a few scenes that were able to generate some emotional gravitas. That kind of weight is sorely missing from the previous few volumes and was nice to have back.

At the end of the day though, if you've made it through the series this far, chances are you're committed enough to the story that no review is really necessary.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not that the drawings aren't beautiful or that the sequential art isn't plotted innovatively or that Sim's research hasn't resulted in a work that feels rich and multitextured. It's that this book seems to have been written almost entirely out of Sim's contempt: for Ernest Hemingway, for Mary Hemingway, and for women in general. There's not much else to it, and Sim's and Gerhard's craft can't hide the underlying pettiness of the book.

There's some good stuff in here, mostly in Cerebus's unrequited fanboyism for Ham Ernestway and the development of Cerebus's relationship with Jaka (although the latter is marred by an increasing intrusion of Dave-Sim's-problematic-feelings-about-women into Jaka's composition as a character). It's not nearly enough to redeem the work.

[C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sims starts to slip away from plot again - Cerebus and Jaka hook up with Hemingway (and the reader starts to tire of Sims sticking all his favorite authors in the story). Half this story is what I wanted - more Cerebus and Jaka, as their relationship is riviting and heart-breaking. The other half is all about Hemingway, and I could give a fuck. The Cerebus/Jaka story has your heart in your throat at the end when it finally looks like its over for good.

[Sardonyx · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story itself was alright. The artwork and lettering was as lovely as always. As I am unfamiliar with Ernest and Mary Hemingway's history, a lot of the story was lost on me until I read Dave Sim's accompanying notes. I would have been much more fascinated with it if he didn't keep referring to his "evil misogynist Dave Sim" self through out it (yeah, I get it, move on already) and after a while, his descriptions of Ernest and Mary's interactions came across as gossipy and mean.

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

All right, this is where I gave up on Cerebus and Sim. I wanted to listen to his anti-feminist views even though I didn't agree with them, but I didn't want to spend my time reading about how the feminist movement is responsible for his bitterness.
If you want to find out what I'm talking about, read the avclub's interview with Dave Sim. avclub.com

[Hazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cerebus continues to work it's way back up to the adventurous interesting stories of the first few books, but I do not believe it will make it before the end. This book is completely unbroken by pages of text, something we have not seen since reads. It does have a large section toward the end of the book on Hemingway, but if a reader chooses they can just skip this.

[Bill Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Form and Void stars Ham Ernestway and his wife, as they travel and hunt in Africa. It ends with Cerebus and Jaka parting. There is a lot of crazy on the pages, and artistry in the panels. The work is dense and the ending, inevitable.

Form and Void is a masterpiece by an artist that has a grip on the world that is far different than mine.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

i find that my enjoyment level of sim's literary parodies is staked almost entirely on my personal enjoyment of the author's work. i'm not a very big hemingway fan, so most of this story doesn't do too much for me.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just find the later volumes of Cerebus dull.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is reading of a whole other definition. Just because its written mostly in pictures doesn't mean it's simple. Just because its cartoons doesn't mean it contains less subtle content.