Patience

Patience by Daniel Clowes (2016) There’s an equally good chance that time travel is both an impossibility, and… has always existed (and is the reason why things are so weird). I’m not too worried about it—I can enjoy most attempts to portray time travel in movies and books—and this is one of the better versions I’ve come across. It’s ultimately best to not resist too much with what you perceive as logic, and just let the author sweep you along with a good yarn. If you feel the high of inevitability on the last page—even if it’s bit of a magic trick—then you’re in. Along the way, it’s a lot of fun. The story is really pretty complex, so it’s impossible, as you go along, so see what’s going to happen next—but as it all falls together, it’s satisfying to see the convoluted systems of cause and effect in the structure. Good characters, too, particularly Patience, whose complexity gets revealed little by little, and Jack, who’s not as smart, but through a lifetime of experience and desperation gets to be the ultimate badass. It’s pretty much sci-fi film noir—or noir graphic novel, of course—with basic, hardboiled dialog, and commonplace locations, like cheap restaurants and diners, nightclubs, and bleak Middle-American landscapes. Really, you could see it as a movie—I wonder if a film version was discussed?—it’s all right there. I suppose… what would be the point? How would a movie—I mean, besides the glamour of movie stars—improve upon it—but isn’t that always the case?

9.19.23