The Listener

by David Lester

I want to start this review by thanking the nice people at Arbeiter Ring Publishing for sending me a copy of this dense and challenging graphic novel.

The Listener is an incredibly ambitious piece of work.  As it says on the cover, it explores the themes of memory, lies, art, and power through a parallel narrative.  In the story set in modern times, we follow Louise, a Canadian artist who is touring Europe in the wake of a tragedy inspired by her art.  Her story is interlaced with the stories of Marie and Rudolph, journalists who witnessed the rise to power of Adolph Hitler's Nazi Party because of events that happened in the small German state of Lippe.

These stories are all compelling, especially the depiction of the propaganda engine of the Nazi Party in the early 1930s, which relies heavily on actual quotes from the principal players and the press of the day (always signified with an asterisk).  I knew a little about how Hitler had manipulated the political system in Germany to achieve power, but I hadn't been aware of exactly how it was done before reading this book.

While I enjoyed reading The Listener, the book definitely has its flaws.  I think that the story here became victim to the ambition of Lester to cover such a wide variety of topics and ideas.  The early scenes with Louise were difficult to follow, as her motivations were only slowly revealed to the reader.  Likewise, entire scenes seemed designed simply around the artist's wish to drop a name or have her visit a particular gallery, without it adding any real significance to the story.  Similarly, there were times where I found Lester's sketchy drawings difficult to follow.

In all though, this is a book that should be praised for its ambitions, not condemned for them.  It does remind me of a lot of left-wing publications I read when I was younger which would have benefited from some severe editing and a shorter page count, but in the final analysis, this is an interesting attempt to push comics into an area they rarely go.