Graphic novel about John James Audubon, illustrated by Jérémie Royer. It was nice to learn more about the man, how his obsession to find and document all the bird species in the United States took him on dangerous travels away from his family for so many years. While I didn’t find the artwork particularly appealing, I did feel like it conveyed a sense of how dark, wild and foreboding the wilderness must have seemed during those times. Audubon faced rough circumstances, aggressive men, bad food, illness and more in his quest. Also lack of support, when traveling companions, assistants or patrons fell by the wayside. Then there’s the overshadowing competition from his rival Alexander Wilson. I looked up Wilson’s artwork and really, I find them both of wonderful in quality. Maybe Audubon’s is more expressive (a fact that seemed to make patrons disinclined to fund his efforts). Modern readers will probably find the numbers of birds Audubon shot, and his work of taxidermy to make the specimens subjects for his studies and paintings, disturbing. Seems plenty of Audubon’s compatriots did as well. This book is just a glimpse of his life and the work he did- there’s a lot left out (not surprising) and some parts are rather fanciful, but I like that it gave me an overview of what he did and how singleminded his pursuit was. It’s nice that many words from Audubon’s own writing is included in the text, and several of his bird plates are reproduced in the back pages.
Borrowed from the public library.
2 Responses
Sounds very interesting. I don’t know much about Audubon beyond his drawings of birds. (And that he apparently killed a lot of them in order to do those drawings.)
Yes he did. It’s rather appalling- he even admitted sometimes to killing a hundred of one species (out of huge flocks, so maybe he thought it didn’t matter) in order to have a large enough sample size. Seems to me like just one or two would be enough . . .