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The Motherless Oven #1
Öksüz Fırın
HAVA SAATİ, “SAATİ BIÇAK GEÇİYOR,” DEDİ. BEN DE BABAMI KULÜBEYE ZİNCİRLEDİM.
Scarper Lee’nin dünyasında anne babalar çocuk yapmıyor – çocuklar anne babalarını yapıyorlar. Scarper’ın babası onun için gurur kaynağı ve kendisi pirinçten yapılma bir gereç, annesi ise bakalit bir saç kurutma makinesi. Bu tuhaf dünyada gökten
bıçaklar yağıyor ve ev aletlerinin ruhları var. Ayrıca insanlar doğumgünlerini değil ölümgünlerini biliyorlar.
Lise öğrencisi Scarper’ın önünde üç haftası var. Ölümgünü yaklaşırken sıkıcı hayatından vazgeçmek ve bilinmeze atılmak zorunda kalacak; dostlarıyla olan bağları sınanacak ve bu karanlık dünyadaki otoriteye çaresizce baş kaldıracaklar.
Bu rahatsız edici ve özgün büyüme hikâyesinde Rob Davis, çarpık bir gençlik manzarasını ve aslında bizimkinden çok da farklı olmayan bir dünyayı resmediyor.
“İnanılmaz bir tınısı ve mutlak, esrarengiz güzelliği olan bir grafik roman; aynı anda hem bir büyüme hem de başa çıkma öyküsü.” –The Library Journal
“Tuhaf dünyası sizi içine alıyor ve karakterleri ilginizi çekiyor, hem dünya hem karakterler o kadar canlı ki ortaya olağanüstü bir iş çıkıyor.” –SFX
“Yeniliklerle dolup taşıyor. Davis okul macerası masalını altüst edip derinleştirerek insanın kaderinden kaçıp kaçamayacağını soruyor.” –The Independent
Scarper Lee’nin dünyasında anne babalar çocuk yapmıyor – çocuklar anne babalarını yapıyorlar. Scarper’ın babası onun için gurur kaynağı ve kendisi pirinçten yapılma bir gereç, annesi ise bakalit bir saç kurutma makinesi. Bu tuhaf dünyada gökten
bıçaklar yağıyor ve ev aletlerinin ruhları var. Ayrıca insanlar doğumgünlerini değil ölümgünlerini biliyorlar.
Lise öğrencisi Scarper’ın önünde üç haftası var. Ölümgünü yaklaşırken sıkıcı hayatından vazgeçmek ve bilinmeze atılmak zorunda kalacak; dostlarıyla olan bağları sınanacak ve bu karanlık dünyadaki otoriteye çaresizce baş kaldıracaklar.
Bu rahatsız edici ve özgün büyüme hikâyesinde Rob Davis, çarpık bir gençlik manzarasını ve aslında bizimkinden çok da farklı olmayan bir dünyayı resmediyor.
“İnanılmaz bir tınısı ve mutlak, esrarengiz güzelliği olan bir grafik roman; aynı anda hem bir büyüme hem de başa çıkma öyküsü.” –The Library Journal
“Tuhaf dünyası sizi içine alıyor ve karakterleri ilginizi çekiyor, hem dünya hem karakterler o kadar canlı ki ortaya olağanüstü bir iş çıkıyor.” –SFX
“Yeniliklerle dolup taşıyor. Davis okul macerası masalını altüst edip derinleştirerek insanın kaderinden kaçıp kaçamayacağını soruyor.” –The Independent
160 pages, Unknown Binding
First published October 7, 2014
24 people are currently reading
1621 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 299 reviews
December 10, 2014
Pro-Tip:
To understand this story, you should be one/all of the following:
1) On an acid trip;
2) One of those insufferable philosophy enthusiasts who only lives in the world of Academia and understands everything about everything;
3) Not me.
I have no idea what I just read. It was sort of like when 25 images per second are flashed in front of your face and you can grab a smile here and a postage stamp there but those are the only patterns your brain has time to process before the next second of 25 images comes racing past.
For me, this book was like that.
And yet, even though I had zero idea what was happening, despite understanding the basic premise of the overarching story (a fairly well-adjusted kid who knows his end is nigh makes friends with weird new girl and then with mentally unstable kid and they have to run away for a variety of reasons which they focus into a search for the kid's missing father (a sailing machine that we never get to see) who might be found at the motherless oven, all while keeping one step ahead of the police (old people in a slow, ticking automobile) and a vengeful monster mother), and being frustrated at the re-use of common words and ideas to describe what they don't describe in our world, or vice versa, I was compelled to read this.
I was attracted to it. I couldn't put it down even though I didn't understand it at all and it sort of felt like I was having my chain yanked.
Pike's pert nose, like Trixie Belden's. Castro's dial that acted like today's medications. The police/time that always found them, wherever they went.
Soooo...get ready to read this and to feel far superior to me in intellect and worldy understanding. Recommended to everyone who loves their philosophy degrees and being trippy.
To understand this story, you should be one/all of the following:
1) On an acid trip;
2) One of those insufferable philosophy enthusiasts who only lives in the world of Academia and understands everything about everything;
3) Not me.
I have no idea what I just read. It was sort of like when 25 images per second are flashed in front of your face and you can grab a smile here and a postage stamp there but those are the only patterns your brain has time to process before the next second of 25 images comes racing past.
For me, this book was like that.
And yet, even though I had zero idea what was happening, despite understanding the basic premise of the overarching story (a fairly well-adjusted kid who knows his end is nigh makes friends with weird new girl and then with mentally unstable kid and they have to run away for a variety of reasons which they focus into a search for the kid's missing father (a sailing machine that we never get to see) who might be found at the motherless oven, all while keeping one step ahead of the police (old people in a slow, ticking automobile) and a vengeful monster mother), and being frustrated at the re-use of common words and ideas to describe what they don't describe in our world, or vice versa, I was compelled to read this.
I was attracted to it. I couldn't put it down even though I didn't understand it at all and it sort of felt like I was having my chain yanked.
Pike's pert nose, like Trixie Belden's. Castro's dial that acted like today's medications. The police/time that always found them, wherever they went.
Soooo...get ready to read this and to feel far superior to me in intellect and worldy understanding. Recommended to everyone who loves their philosophy degrees and being trippy.
December 14, 2014
In almost every review of this comic people are lamenting that they felt like they were not smart enough to understand what they were reading. You are smart enough. The philosophy of this narrative is futility. Scarper spends his remaining two weeks asking questions to which there are no answers, on a quest to find his missing father based on the interpretation of the song of a broken God. He is trying to escape his death, but he can't. The story makes you feel trapped because it is a trap. Like Scarper, none of your questions can be answered, and as you read and come to this realisation you get scared and wonder if you've made a mistake. Like Scarper. I feel like I have reached a similar Zen state of resentment and detachment as the protagonist- there is a forest beyond the fence but I died before I jumped.
November 1, 2014
In Scarper Lee’s world, actual knives come crashing down from the sky when it rains, spinning wheels are TVs, and the weather is controlled by giant spiked mines floating in the sky, defying gravity. His parents are machines, his dad’s chained up in the shed, there are lions at the gates of his school, and a weird girl keeps following him. After his dad leaves the shed – either stolen or escaped – Scarper has to brave the strange world to get him back. But with his deathday fast approaching, will he live long enough?
Ok: The Motherless Oven is a weird book. That’ll be your reaction to the summary above and, should you choose to read it, that’ll likely be your reaction to the comic too. That said it’s much too easy to look at The Motherless Oven’s deliberately bizarre features and conclude that this is a difficult book to understand. Because if you look at it in its totality, it’s actually quite an ordinary coming-of-age story, one that’s been told a zillion times before.
It’s like if someone handed you a coat with all sorts of unusual gadgets and whimsical things attached to it – but you can still put it on. It’s still a coat. And no matter what oddities Rob Davis throws out there, The Motherless Oven is still a banal bildungsroman, albeit drawn with imagination.
The only comparison I can make with another book is Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. Burgess’ novel is told in the first person and uses futuristic vernacular without explanation as to their meaning, which is jarring at first but, the more you read on, the more it starts to make sense. In Davis’ book, the opposite happens. There are a lot of ordinary elements included amidst the zaniness – suburban life continues, there are schools, there are shops - and you’re more or less grounded from the start but it fails to make any sense as it goes on.
Scarper’s gloomy world of doom and death is like some teenagers’ views of the world which Davis presents as both metaphorical and hyper-exaggerated. Scarper’s deathday, coming at the end of his high school career, could symbolize encroaching adulthood and his escaping it could be seen as an attempt to retain the innocence of youth. The knife rain could just be his reaction to inclement weather (but who’s really that upset at the rain?!), and his parent machines are just how he sees them – he created them, they exist as things in his life, and they’re not separate entities with their own lives.
You can analyse the book in this way and break it down but where Davis and Burgess separate is that Burgess’ story was simply more interesting. I may not like Burgess’ main character or his world but I care enough to keep reading and see what happens. I finished Davis’ book but I can’t say I ever warmed to it or the characters, none of whom develop into people you care about or do or say anything compelling. The book’s point that adolescence is alienating is a mundane one and the story is a bore to read as it plods listlessly along to a flat ending.
The Motherless Oven looks and sounds like an edgy, fresh book but it’s actually a tedious coming-of-age tale with plenty of oddities to try and distract you from its emptiness. I appreciate Davis’ attempts to try and do something different, at least with the presentation, but it only emphasises how little there is to the book’s story. I can’t recommend this even to fans of indie comics - it’s much too dull a read.
Ok: The Motherless Oven is a weird book. That’ll be your reaction to the summary above and, should you choose to read it, that’ll likely be your reaction to the comic too. That said it’s much too easy to look at The Motherless Oven’s deliberately bizarre features and conclude that this is a difficult book to understand. Because if you look at it in its totality, it’s actually quite an ordinary coming-of-age story, one that’s been told a zillion times before.
It’s like if someone handed you a coat with all sorts of unusual gadgets and whimsical things attached to it – but you can still put it on. It’s still a coat. And no matter what oddities Rob Davis throws out there, The Motherless Oven is still a banal bildungsroman, albeit drawn with imagination.
The only comparison I can make with another book is Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. Burgess’ novel is told in the first person and uses futuristic vernacular without explanation as to their meaning, which is jarring at first but, the more you read on, the more it starts to make sense. In Davis’ book, the opposite happens. There are a lot of ordinary elements included amidst the zaniness – suburban life continues, there are schools, there are shops - and you’re more or less grounded from the start but it fails to make any sense as it goes on.
Scarper’s gloomy world of doom and death is like some teenagers’ views of the world which Davis presents as both metaphorical and hyper-exaggerated. Scarper’s deathday, coming at the end of his high school career, could symbolize encroaching adulthood and his escaping it could be seen as an attempt to retain the innocence of youth. The knife rain could just be his reaction to inclement weather (but who’s really that upset at the rain?!), and his parent machines are just how he sees them – he created them, they exist as things in his life, and they’re not separate entities with their own lives.
You can analyse the book in this way and break it down but where Davis and Burgess separate is that Burgess’ story was simply more interesting. I may not like Burgess’ main character or his world but I care enough to keep reading and see what happens. I finished Davis’ book but I can’t say I ever warmed to it or the characters, none of whom develop into people you care about or do or say anything compelling. The book’s point that adolescence is alienating is a mundane one and the story is a bore to read as it plods listlessly along to a flat ending.
The Motherless Oven looks and sounds like an edgy, fresh book but it’s actually a tedious coming-of-age tale with plenty of oddities to try and distract you from its emptiness. I appreciate Davis’ attempts to try and do something different, at least with the presentation, but it only emphasises how little there is to the book’s story. I can’t recommend this even to fans of indie comics - it’s much too dull a read.
February 11, 2016
Honestly, I kinda don't know where to start.
It follows the adventures of a pretty unlikeable kid in a british place with school uniforms. People create their own "parents" - they're machines. The sky rains knives as a matter of course. TV is replaced with watching "the wheel," which is vaguely kaleidoscopic. Houses have various kinds of "gods," which have functions. The police are elderly people riding around in carriages.
This kid's dad disappears, and he and a couple other kids go on the run to look for him.
The world looks pretty much like ours, although some of the machine/robots & gods look... out of place. But the way that things are structured is very very different. And sometimes words mean different things than they do in our world. And there's also some britishisms thrown in, which do nothing to clarify anything.
I don't think I've ever read anything like it.
And yes, it's confusing, and hard to explain, and not easy to follow.
But, flipping back through it, I feel nothing but admiration. The illustrations are very accessible and lovely. The creatures are downright cool looking.
It reads like one fucked-up dream.
But I think I liked it.
Kind of a lot.
It follows the adventures of a pretty unlikeable kid in a british place with school uniforms. People create their own "parents" - they're machines. The sky rains knives as a matter of course. TV is replaced with watching "the wheel," which is vaguely kaleidoscopic. Houses have various kinds of "gods," which have functions. The police are elderly people riding around in carriages.
This kid's dad disappears, and he and a couple other kids go on the run to look for him.
The world looks pretty much like ours, although some of the machine/robots & gods look... out of place. But the way that things are structured is very very different. And sometimes words mean different things than they do in our world. And there's also some britishisms thrown in, which do nothing to clarify anything.
I don't think I've ever read anything like it.
And yes, it's confusing, and hard to explain, and not easy to follow.
But, flipping back through it, I feel nothing but admiration. The illustrations are very accessible and lovely. The creatures are downright cool looking.
It reads like one fucked-up dream.
But I think I liked it.
Kind of a lot.
December 30, 2017
Review to come.
Not sure what I just read, but... I think I liked it?
Not sure what I just read, but... I think I liked it?
February 22, 2020
This was such a delightfully weird little graphic novel! I’m so glad I happened across it at the library because I probably would never have read it otherwise. You definitely have to think outside the box a little to get into this story, it’s definitely way out there! But that’s also part of what makes it so good, it could never happen but thinking about it is wildly entertaining. The artwork pairs perfectly with the story as well and really brings it to the next level. My only minor complaint is that it ended so abruptly, we really got ZERO closure. I do still think it’s worth a read though, especially if you like weird, outside the box graphic novels!
February 4, 2017
Don't go out at knife-o'clock without a table for an umbrella.
And if your "death-day" is coming up soon, make sure to brood and start hanging out with the strange duo, the tiny 'alternative' crowd at your school, two people who show up in your life under dubious circumstances and are either very untrustworthy and reckless, or the first almost honest and caring people you've met?
Oh, and have a crush on someone who doesn't do anything to earn your trust and with whom you have no comforting emotional understandings (who is perhaps even a bit emotionally abusive. How romantic!)
If you do all this, and if your parents are appliances and other strange objects made in an apparent parent-making oven by you yourself as a young child and other children, all of whom make their parents (apparently).
Well, then you have The Motherless Oven, a coming of age action-adventure tale in a world where the police are quite slow, but still menacing, and in which a brooding young man goes outside of his comfort zone and out of the borders of experience most of his kind follow all too vacuously (at least it seems so) in his last days before he is scheduled for death (all deaths are scheduled in this world, but his particularly early. He is just a teen.)
The heavy emotional toll an early death-day places on Scarper Lee causes a breach between him and his old friends and him and the world he lives in (whose borders are perhaps not enough questioned by its inhabitants) and he goes on an adventure and begins asking questions...
I'm between a 2 and a 3 on this one. The art is great. There's some nice comedy. But the relationships are frustrating and not, for me, compelling and I'm not sure I'm drawn in by the "alternative world." I think I would have found the world more engaging if the connection between Scarper, Vera and Castro made more sense.
And if your "death-day" is coming up soon, make sure to brood and start hanging out with the strange duo, the tiny 'alternative' crowd at your school, two people who show up in your life under dubious circumstances and are either very untrustworthy and reckless, or the first almost honest and caring people you've met?
Oh, and have a crush on someone who doesn't do anything to earn your trust and with whom you have no comforting emotional understandings (who is perhaps even a bit emotionally abusive. How romantic!)
If you do all this, and if your parents are appliances and other strange objects made in an apparent parent-making oven by you yourself as a young child and other children, all of whom make their parents (apparently).
Well, then you have The Motherless Oven, a coming of age action-adventure tale in a world where the police are quite slow, but still menacing, and in which a brooding young man goes outside of his comfort zone and out of the borders of experience most of his kind follow all too vacuously (at least it seems so) in his last days before he is scheduled for death (all deaths are scheduled in this world, but his particularly early. He is just a teen.)
The heavy emotional toll an early death-day places on Scarper Lee causes a breach between him and his old friends and him and the world he lives in (whose borders are perhaps not enough questioned by its inhabitants) and he goes on an adventure and begins asking questions...
I'm between a 2 and a 3 on this one. The art is great. There's some nice comedy. But the relationships are frustrating and not, for me, compelling and I'm not sure I'm drawn in by the "alternative world." I think I would have found the world more engaging if the connection between Scarper, Vera and Castro made more sense.
July 21, 2016
This is one dark acid trip of a book ladies and gents and it may mark the first time I haven't had the foggiest idea what was going on and still managed to enjoy the hell out of myself. If you'd like to take a trip to a strange little city in England where children "make" their parents and you've got to get inside at "knife o' clock" unless you want to be murdered by falling cutlery and "deathdays" take the place of birthdays then I welcome you to the world of young Scarper Lee who's death day is only weeks away.
Scarper would just as soon spend his few remaining days alive with his mates at school, placating his mum (an anxious hair dryer) and working on his father (a very impressive steam powered copper giant who is kept chained in the shed for his own protection). Alas the new girl in town, prickly Vera Pike and Castro Smith, the weirdest kid in town, have plans for him. They might know a way to help him avoid his death day. Then his father goes missing and someone has killed off one his mother's household gods! Now they're fugitives on the run from the police. And sure the police might be geriatric old ladies in slow moving model T rejects but they'll pursue Scarper and his friends forever if they have to.
Don't worry I had no idea what was going on either. Just go with it.
This was positively off the wall but still wildly entertaining. Rob Davis drops you straight into the deep end of the pool with a cinder block tied to your foot but if you give yourself up to the clever, dark insanity of his narrative and the razor sharp, starkness of his angry, angular drawings you're in for a hell of a ride.
This a very text heavy graphic novel peopled with sarcastic, sad teens navigating through young adulthood at what feels like the end of the world. Davis' characters are angry and disaffected but still hopeful that there may be more to the world than the bleak reality they're living in. Its that sense of expectation that keeps this from descending completely into the doldrums.
Davis leaves his story hanging by a thread and I will be waiting on tenterhooks for the next installment of this fascinating, dark little treasure.
Scarper would just as soon spend his few remaining days alive with his mates at school, placating his mum (an anxious hair dryer) and working on his father (a very impressive steam powered copper giant who is kept chained in the shed for his own protection). Alas the new girl in town, prickly Vera Pike and Castro Smith, the weirdest kid in town, have plans for him. They might know a way to help him avoid his death day. Then his father goes missing and someone has killed off one his mother's household gods! Now they're fugitives on the run from the police. And sure the police might be geriatric old ladies in slow moving model T rejects but they'll pursue Scarper and his friends forever if they have to.
Don't worry I had no idea what was going on either. Just go with it.
This was positively off the wall but still wildly entertaining. Rob Davis drops you straight into the deep end of the pool with a cinder block tied to your foot but if you give yourself up to the clever, dark insanity of his narrative and the razor sharp, starkness of his angry, angular drawings you're in for a hell of a ride.
This a very text heavy graphic novel peopled with sarcastic, sad teens navigating through young adulthood at what feels like the end of the world. Davis' characters are angry and disaffected but still hopeful that there may be more to the world than the bleak reality they're living in. Its that sense of expectation that keeps this from descending completely into the doldrums.
Davis leaves his story hanging by a thread and I will be waiting on tenterhooks for the next installment of this fascinating, dark little treasure.
April 10, 2015
A coming of age YA story with some crazy world-making that may make it edgy enough for some young people to like it. Teens make parents in ovens, the sky rains knives, there's a clock that tells you it is knife o'clock…. appliances have souls.. there are death days, not birthdays… but even though it is this invented kooky world, the kids all seem familiar and there's a familiar kind of resolution for a coming of age book. I thought it was pretty good, not great.
March 16, 2019
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll*
I'm really torn on what to rate this coming-of-age/youth-in-revolt tale: there was much I liked about it, and yet . . . I don't feel that it really deserves more than three stars. The story was compelling, but at the same time I had no problem putting the book down for weeks at a time. I'm curious enough about the plot to want to read the sequel, though I wouldn't pay too much for it.
It did make an interesting follow-up to my Brave New World read, however. I'm wondering if Huxley's motherless waifs ever considered making their own parents . . .
*John Lennon
I really love to watch them roll*
I'm really torn on what to rate this coming-of-age/youth-in-revolt tale: there was much I liked about it, and yet . . . I don't feel that it really deserves more than three stars. The story was compelling, but at the same time I had no problem putting the book down for weeks at a time. I'm curious enough about the plot to want to read the sequel, though I wouldn't pay too much for it.
It did make an interesting follow-up to my Brave New World read, however. I'm wondering if Huxley's motherless waifs ever considered making their own parents . . .
*John Lennon
January 13, 2017
This is a graphic novel that I just didn't understand. It's a sort of coming of age story in a bizarre setting. In this world, children make their parents, there are no birthdays but deathdays, I can't even continue. I liked the art, but the story itself didn't work for me, probably because those off-the-wall parents. There were some plot points that I enjoyed, but overall, this one left me scratching my head wondering what it is that I missed. This might actually end up with 1 star upon further consideration.
December 29, 2014
Even before writing a word here, I changed the rating from 3 to 4 stars, back and back again. It's difficult to rate this because it was entertaining and imaginative and well drawn and had some lines of just lovely writing, but at the end of the day, it doesn't make a lot of sense. BUT! It purposefully doesn't make a lot of sense. It really depends if that kind of thing is your jam.
I found myself going back of the book blurb for clarification as I read, flipping back a bit, just to remind myself what the premise was and making sure I hadn't missed anything. The entire way through the story, the world was really my focus because it's just so strange. It's a world where the parents are child-made machines and it rains knives and people know their death days. I read on waiting for the thing that made it all click and make sense, but SPOILER: it doesn't happen. There are missing pieces of the story and it stops this world from coming into focus. That is truly why you exit the story thinking, "what the hell did I just read?"
If you pluck the plot a little out of the world, things make a bit more sense. Scarper is just a "normal" dude with a great dad and school friends who just happens to be dying soon, as his graduation approaches. He teams up with some weird kids at school and together they set off an adventure to find Scaper's dad. The questions that they ask throughout their journey are also not answered, but they are more easily swallowed. These are the philosophical questions of The Motherless Oven, about whether we make or are made. About what it means to be alive and if being alive and living are the same. These kids run from the relative safety of their reality, all the while time is on their tail. Time shows up in the form of some police in cars that literally tick-tock.
The end was a gut punch. [spoiler] We're told nothing is on the other side. Nothing is beyond death, perhaps, or maybe that you can't escape the system you are in, the circular history and such. Scarier stands on fence so close and then gets knocked out just before he jumps. And then the book ends with the blackness that was promised and that's all. [/spoiler]
You won't understand a portion of this book. But it's oddly entrancing and attractive. If you go into it with the mentality, "this will be weird," or if you like weird things, this is definitely that. It's something that would be fun to read with others, or even multiple times to see if there is more you can pick out and project meaning onto. I mean, just while writing this I remembered the lions keeping the kids in school and the general message of parents kind of wearing into the ground, or of losing identity once their children are gone. On and on it goes.
I found myself going back of the book blurb for clarification as I read, flipping back a bit, just to remind myself what the premise was and making sure I hadn't missed anything. The entire way through the story, the world was really my focus because it's just so strange. It's a world where the parents are child-made machines and it rains knives and people know their death days. I read on waiting for the thing that made it all click and make sense, but SPOILER: it doesn't happen. There are missing pieces of the story and it stops this world from coming into focus. That is truly why you exit the story thinking, "what the hell did I just read?"
If you pluck the plot a little out of the world, things make a bit more sense. Scarper is just a "normal" dude with a great dad and school friends who just happens to be dying soon, as his graduation approaches. He teams up with some weird kids at school and together they set off an adventure to find Scaper's dad. The questions that they ask throughout their journey are also not answered, but they are more easily swallowed. These are the philosophical questions of The Motherless Oven, about whether we make or are made. About what it means to be alive and if being alive and living are the same. These kids run from the relative safety of their reality, all the while time is on their tail. Time shows up in the form of some police in cars that literally tick-tock.
The end was a gut punch. [spoiler] We're told nothing is on the other side. Nothing is beyond death, perhaps, or maybe that you can't escape the system you are in, the circular history and such. Scarier stands on fence so close and then gets knocked out just before he jumps. And then the book ends with the blackness that was promised and that's all. [/spoiler]
You won't understand a portion of this book. But it's oddly entrancing and attractive. If you go into it with the mentality, "this will be weird," or if you like weird things, this is definitely that. It's something that would be fun to read with others, or even multiple times to see if there is more you can pick out and project meaning onto. I mean, just while writing this I remembered the lions keeping the kids in school and the general message of parents kind of wearing into the ground, or of losing identity once their children are gone. On and on it goes.
November 5, 2014
My first thoughts when I finished this graphic novel were "What the hell did I just read? I think I really liked it but I also may have just lost my mind. How in the heck do I describe this?" It was like a literary drug trip but in a good, although frustrating at times, way? If you break down the book to it's most basic plot it's a coming of age story. We question why things are the way they are and if we have a choice in them. Scarper Lee lives in a fantastical world where children make their parents, household appliances have souls, and the weather ranges from laughing gales to storms of raining knives. It's weird and interesting and keeps you reading because you want to unravel all of the mystery. There are a lot of the mirrors being put up to society and questions the author is asking the reader to consider. The same themes of life being a circular action kept popping up. Do we create or are we created? Also, a lot of the story had to do with being controlled by others and fear of the unknown. It's definitely the kind of story that makes you think about it long after you put the book down. I feel compelled to immediately reread it in order to get my thoughts in order all over again. I believe this would be the type of graphic novel you could easily read a hundred times and it would still feel intoxicating and fresh. That being said I also felt like I wasn't smart enough for the story, but not in a bad way. More like a challenging way. You aren't given the keys to the kingdom. You're presented with all the questions but none of the answers. It was a confusing, brain meltingly type of experience and I think it needs to settle a little more. If you don't like concrete endings that answer all your questions you may not be a fan of this graphic novel. If you want to challenge your ideas of the world, while looking at some really awesome and very interestingly stylized work....totally give this one a go!
September 21, 2018
this is the kind of story i need in my life. slightly absurd, vague mystery, loveable/hateable characters A++++
October 31, 2025
What a delightfully odd world, simultaneously whimsical and earnest. Instead of water, it rains knives, those big nasty ones that Michael Myers uses to skewer people in Halloween. Instead of appliances people have kitchen gods, small sentient figures that perform mundane tasks, like egg timers and dishwashers. People watch an intricately carved wheel instead of TV and have deathdays instead of birthdays. And parents are conscious contraptions assembled out of junk. All of this is just The Way Things Are. Blades falling from the sky is as normal to the characters as water is to me.
Plot plays second fiddle to setting. The mechanical father of a doomed high schooler (Scarp only has three weeks until his deathday) runs away. Along with Castro, a special ed kid who turns out to be smart and interesting, and Vera, a fearless new girl with a cruel streak, he sets off to find his absconded dad.
After a charming and captivating beginning, Oven hit some rough patches. The plot runs out of gas halfway through. And there’s no third act, no climax. The story just stops. I guess it’s somewhat refreshing to not have everything tied up a neat little bow. But mostly it’s just weird.
Still I’m glad I read The Motherless Oven, just to have been immersed in this fascinating setting for a while.
I really liked the black-gray-white illustration. Davis had a lot of fun with the oddities of his world, and he has a knack for posture and body language.
Plot plays second fiddle to setting. The mechanical father of a doomed high schooler (Scarp only has three weeks until his deathday) runs away. Along with Castro, a special ed kid who turns out to be smart and interesting, and Vera, a fearless new girl with a cruel streak, he sets off to find his absconded dad.
After a charming and captivating beginning, Oven hit some rough patches. The plot runs out of gas halfway through. And there’s no third act, no climax. The story just stops. I guess it’s somewhat refreshing to not have everything tied up a neat little bow. But mostly it’s just weird.
Still I’m glad I read The Motherless Oven, just to have been immersed in this fascinating setting for a while.
I really liked the black-gray-white illustration. Davis had a lot of fun with the oddities of his world, and he has a knack for posture and body language.
April 6, 2023
Gökten bıçak yağmurlarının yağdığı, anne ve babaların garip konuşan objeler olduğu, küçük ev eşyalarına tanrı denilen kasvetli ütopik bir dünyada baş kahramanımız Scarper Lee'nin yaşamak için iki haftası var. Öyle bir dünya ki insanlar ölecekleri günü dahi biliyorlar. Bu "ölümü bekleme" sürecinde her şey çok normalmiş gibi kahramanımız Scarper Lee, bir dayanıklı tüketim malından hallice olan ve kaybolan babasını "arkadaşı olmayan" iki arkadaşı (Kerameti kendinden menkul Vera ve yarım akıllı dahi Castro ) ile aramaya çıkıyor.
Yazdıklarımı okurken kafanız karıştı değil mi? Kitabı okurken bu kafa karışıklığının 50 mislini yaşadım, o yüzden kitabı yarım bıraktım.
Yazar/çizer bir şeyleri anlatıyor. Ama ben, ya anlayacak kadar zeki değilim ya da farklı bir sıkıntı var.
Gibi dizisindeki replik çınlıyor kulaklarımda: "allahın dinlenme tesisinde bu ne sembolizm ya!?"
Yazdıklarımı okurken kafanız karıştı değil mi? Kitabı okurken bu kafa karışıklığının 50 mislini yaşadım, o yüzden kitabı yarım bıraktım.
Yazar/çizer bir şeyleri anlatıyor. Ama ben, ya anlayacak kadar zeki değilim ya da farklı bir sıkıntı var.
Gibi dizisindeki replik çınlıyor kulaklarımda: "allahın dinlenme tesisinde bu ne sembolizm ya!?"
October 9, 2016
I... what.
The Mother Ruins will haunt me forever. Gordon's mother.. oh my God.
The Mother Ruins will haunt me forever. Gordon's mother.. oh my God.
May 18, 2017
I started this series with the second book, The Can Opener's Daughter, first. Having now read this book some events in the other make more sense, particularly the section where the action suddenly jumps forward. The events in this book fit fairly neatly into that hole, so that's one mystery solved.
I'd have to say that, "The weather clock said, 'Knife o'clock.' So I chained Dad up in the shed," is one of the all-time coolest opening lines I've ever read. "Knife o'clock," means literally that. Knives rain down from the sky. Best to be indoors. The world of Bear Park is a strange place where knives fall, death days are scheduled far in advance, and children construct their own parents, often out of the oddest bric-a-brac. Scarper Lee's deathday is only three weeks away, so he surprises everyone--himself included--by making a couple of new friends: Castro Smith and Vera Pike. Vera has a plan to save Scarper from his fate, but it involves breaking out of school (eluding the lions, of course) and setting out to find the Motherless oven, a legendary factory where parents are created ...
Despite all the surreal elements, this reads quite well. There's a dreamlike logic to everything. Although I've not read all of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy, I'm reminded of it, a dark, distorted version of our own world. Reportedly, there is to be one more book in this series. I look forward to it with eager anticipation.
I'd have to say that, "The weather clock said, 'Knife o'clock.' So I chained Dad up in the shed," is one of the all-time coolest opening lines I've ever read. "Knife o'clock," means literally that. Knives rain down from the sky. Best to be indoors. The world of Bear Park is a strange place where knives fall, death days are scheduled far in advance, and children construct their own parents, often out of the oddest bric-a-brac. Scarper Lee's deathday is only three weeks away, so he surprises everyone--himself included--by making a couple of new friends: Castro Smith and Vera Pike. Vera has a plan to save Scarper from his fate, but it involves breaking out of school (eluding the lions, of course) and setting out to find the Motherless oven, a legendary factory where parents are created ...
Despite all the surreal elements, this reads quite well. There's a dreamlike logic to everything. Although I've not read all of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy, I'm reminded of it, a dark, distorted version of our own world. Reportedly, there is to be one more book in this series. I look forward to it with eager anticipation.
May 20, 2015
I don't know what that was, but I liked it. Poor Gordon.
May 24, 2016
Wonderfully weird, a bit like Ben Marcus meets If... I would HIGHLY recommend it, save for the fact it has one of the WORST endings I've ever read, unless of course a sequel is in the works....
September 22, 2022
Güzel ve farklı bir anlatım. Devamını sabırsızlıkla bekleyeceğiniz türden bir seri.
May 7, 2015
I'm still figuring out how I feel about this one, but it was a really cool universe.
I feel like the reader can either try to look deeper and find things to prove that the plot is really clever and mysterious, or they can take it at face value and see it as a confusing, meanderig story with a cliffhanger that makes the themes more important than the plot and characters. I feel like truly good books can be enjoyed in both ways - whether you're just reading them for what they are or whether you're looking for a deeper meaning. With this book, I felt like everything was going over my head or like I was trying too hard to make up an explanation for my lack of understanding.
*spoilers below*
So... It was a really creative universe filled with raining knives and trumpets that are dads and lions that guard schools. And I *think* there were certain quotes/ideas that the reader was supposed to pick up on to explain why the story ended and began the same way and why everything the children did seemed futile and controlled by fate. It was weird. It was unsettling. It didn't leave me fully satisfied.
107 - "It wasn't like our circular history books that begin where they end."
134 - "The way to free y'rself from any system of control is to do something useless. But do it as well as you can! That's really what does their heads in."
I feel like the reader can either try to look deeper and find things to prove that the plot is really clever and mysterious, or they can take it at face value and see it as a confusing, meanderig story with a cliffhanger that makes the themes more important than the plot and characters. I feel like truly good books can be enjoyed in both ways - whether you're just reading them for what they are or whether you're looking for a deeper meaning. With this book, I felt like everything was going over my head or like I was trying too hard to make up an explanation for my lack of understanding.
*spoilers below*
So... It was a really creative universe filled with raining knives and trumpets that are dads and lions that guard schools. And I *think* there were certain quotes/ideas that the reader was supposed to pick up on to explain why the story ended and began the same way and why everything the children did seemed futile and controlled by fate. It was weird. It was unsettling. It didn't leave me fully satisfied.
107 - "It wasn't like our circular history books that begin where they end."
134 - "The way to free y'rself from any system of control is to do something useless. But do it as well as you can! That's really what does their heads in."
February 13, 2017
Encontré este cómic de casualidad, no tenía ninguna referencia previa, empecé a leerlo y no paré más. Es una premisa muy extraña, pero que de alguna manera funciona como una suerte de novela de formación, en la cual, el protagonista, que vive en una sociedad donde los padres son artefactos mecánicos, conoce a una chica que no tiene fecha de muerte (como sí la tiene él, que morirá en una semana) y decide escapar con ella para vivir sus últimos días. El dibujo es perfecto para la historia. Me encantó.
June 18, 2017
Το διάβασα και δεν με τράβηξε ιδιαίτερα. Το σταματούσα συνεχώς και το τελείωσα λίγο ζορισμένα.
Δεν το λέω κακό, δεν θα το πω σίγουρα κάτι ιδιαίτερο. Αλλά το στυλάκι αυτό με τις πάμπολλες μεταφορές και αλληγορίες με κουράζει και το συγκεκριμένο το έκανε υπέρ του δέοντος. Σίγουρα αυτή είναι η ταυτότητα του αλλά αν δεν σου κάνει κλικ μπορεί να γίνει εξαιρετικά ανιαρό και απροσδιόριστο.
Ειδικά το όλο κόνσεπτ με τις συσκευές και τα αντικείμενα - θεούς μου φάνηκε, αντιγράφοντας τα λόγια του Clark Heinrich, "too abstract for it's own good".
Δεν νομίζω να το ξαναδιαβάσω ή να το προτείνω γενικώς, σίγουρα δεν θα επιλέξω τα επόμενα.
Πάντως είναι καλό το ότι ο Davis έχει ποικιλία θεματολογικά και σχεδιαστικά μιας και ο Κιχώτης και η ώρα των μαχαιριών απέχουν πολύ. Περιμένω μήπως βγάλει στο μέλλον κάτι που να με τραβήξει.
Edit: Ή πολύ απλά προσπεράστε το παραπάνω μπλα μπλα και μείνετε στην φράση "έκοψα λιγάκι φλέβα"
Δεν το λέω κακό, δεν θα το πω σίγουρα κάτι ιδιαίτερο. Αλλά το στυλάκι αυτό με τις πάμπολλες μεταφορές και αλληγορίες με κουράζει και το συγκεκριμένο το έκανε υπέρ του δέοντος. Σίγουρα αυτή είναι η ταυτότητα του αλλά αν δεν σου κάνει κλικ μπορεί να γίνει εξαιρετικά ανιαρό και απροσδιόριστο.
Ειδικά το όλο κόνσεπτ με τις συσκευές και τα αντικείμενα - θεούς μου φάνηκε, αντιγράφοντας τα λόγια του Clark Heinrich, "too abstract for it's own good".
Δεν νομίζω να το ξαναδιαβάσω ή να το προτείνω γενικώς, σίγουρα δεν θα επιλέξω τα επόμενα.
Πάντως είναι καλό το ότι ο Davis έχει ποικιλία θεματολογικά και σχεδιαστικά μιας και ο Κιχώτης και η ώρα των μαχαιριών απέχουν πολύ. Περιμένω μήπως βγάλει στο μέλλον κάτι που να με τραβήξει.
Edit: Ή πολύ απλά προσπεράστε το παραπάνω μπλα μπλα και μείνετε στην φράση "έκοψα λιγάκι φλέβα"
May 28, 2016
To describe it in one word: weird. This book is really odd and I mean, really odd. Maybe I would have enjoyed it had I understood it better but unfortunately I was slow on the uptake. I didn't like any of the characters and found them to be severely annoying through most of the novel.
I will say that for the beginning of the book, I did like it to some degree due to how everything was fleshed out, but after a while, things went downhill and I got really bored quickly. I think the low star rating is simply due to my personal tastes rather than the quality of the story - if your into bizarre, dark graphic novels than you might like this one a little better.
I will say that for the beginning of the book, I did like it to some degree due to how everything was fleshed out, but after a while, things went downhill and I got really bored quickly. I think the low star rating is simply due to my personal tastes rather than the quality of the story - if your into bizarre, dark graphic novels than you might like this one a little better.
December 24, 2017
Le iba a poner un cuatro pero por como ha perdurado en mis recuerdos lo subo a cinco. Un mundo igual al nuestro pero completamente diferente en el que todo el mundo conoce la fecha de su muerte y la del protagonista, un joven que va a una escuela en cuyo patio sueltan leones para que nadie escape sabe que va a ser dentro de dos semanas.
Los niños construyen a sus padres, los electrodomésticos son dioses pequeños que cantan canciones, hay lluvias de cuchillos y los aquejados del síndrme de deducción escuchan contínuamente ruido para dejar de ver con claridad como funcionan las cosas.
Muy bueno y muy triste.
Los niños construyen a sus padres, los electrodomésticos son dioses pequeños que cantan canciones, hay lluvias de cuchillos y los aquejados del síndrme de deducción escuchan contínuamente ruido para dejar de ver con claridad como funcionan las cosas.
Muy bueno y muy triste.
December 12, 2014
Weird, but in a good way. I found myself reading faster and faster in an attempt to get some of the oddities explained, but that only made the abrupt ending feel that much more like a cop-out. Nothing is explained, no loose ends are tied up, and nothing actually happens. To be fair, that is one of the themes of this book. To quote one of the best tv shows of 2014, "time is a flat circle," so nothing really begins and nothing really ends. And Motherless Oven is right there with Rust Cohle when it says that we are the creator and the creation, history is circular, and nothing ever changes.
dnf
July 21, 2015dnf 7/21/2015
This is too weird for me.
This is too weird for me.
September 21, 2022
Aşırı sembolizm barındırdığı için bir yerden sonra çok yoruyor.
Read
January 16, 2019The Motherless Oven is an odd book about a universe where children make their parents, there are knife storms, the children know when they die but don't celebrate their birthdays, and is very dystopian. Its like the dystopia for a dystopia, and it takes place in a British sounding place. The people way of speaking is very reminiscent of British slang. It's a super weird book and can be difficult to understand. The art style is a stylized realistic. I am both very confused by the book, but its kinda good at the same time. Though I was left very confused and kind of dissapointed by the end, because it ended in a sort of cliffhanger. The ending makes sense, but it doesn't feel satisfying. And yet it makes sense that this book has this ending. Maybe its showing the sadness of their world. The setting does make sense for this bonkers sorta book, and how they talk makes the book all the more better.The central conflict is Scarp's death day, and him finding his dad. But it doesn't really get resolved. I wouldn't 100% recommend this book. There are a ton of other that I would recommend before this one. But if super odd book suit your fancy, then go right on ahead and read this one, because its definitely weird.
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