Trondheim, Lewis. Mister O. NBM Publishing, 2004.
Reason read: in the spirit of cartoons I am reading Mister O. in honor of Otto Messmer’s birth month. Messmer was responsible for Felix the Cat.
This is the little story about a round little thing called Mister O. It doesn’t have a gender, but due to the Mister I am going to call it a he/him/his. Anyway, Mister O. needs to jump a crevasse of indeterminate depth. The reader never learns why Mister O. needs to do this, but one can tell he is obsessed with succeeding in this task. On his first attempt he first imagines himself covering the distance in a single leap, but when fear sets in he can’t follow through. What follows is a series of varying attempts to span the gap: filling it in with rocks, using rockets and birds to fly, rabbits to jump, farts to propel…it’s very silly. Even though Mister O. falls in this crevasse many, many times he always climbs back out. It reminded me of the very persistent Wile E. Coyote who would not and could not give up chasing the road runner. Wile E. died over and over again and yet, he came back every time. Just like Mister O.
Author fact: Trondheim has written quite a few books. This is the only one I am reading for the challenge.
Book trivia: even though Lewis Trondheim is a French cartoonist, there is not one single word in Mister O so nothing needs to be translated.
Nancy said: Pearl called Mister O “funny and heartbreaking” but I would disagree. Unless you consider the fact that when Mister O gets out of the chasm he doesn’t climb out on the side he wanted to reach and go on his merry way.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the simple chapter called “Graphica” (p 104).
~*LunaSea*~ 