Writer: Mary M Talbot
Artist: Bryan Talbot
Dotter of her Father’s Eyes is one of the more interesting comics to have been released recently, and it starts with the way the title is set out. On the book it is “Dotter of her Father’s Eyes”, a lower case “h”, where one would normally expect “Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes”. It’s a small thing, and something I only noticed when I was looking at the cover as I started to write this, but it’s a good example of how much this book rewards close and repeated readings. The lower case here is significant as the whole book is about gender, about the oppression of women during the twentieth century and their changing status.
The book deals with Mary Talbot’s upbringing and her relationship with her father, a leading Joycean scholar, in parallel with that of James Joyce’s tragic daughter Lucia. The narrative rarely takes place in the present, but in an early scene where Mary is chatting to two of here colleagues about Lucia Joyce who ask if she is finding parallels, she replies:
“I bloody hope not! She spent most of her life in mental institutions.”
As the story goes on though, we do find some parallels, but the gender has changed. Lucia is oppressed and opposed in her creativity, and dealt with coldly, by her mother, who seems bitter that Lucia is, initially at least, able to be more independent than her mother could ever have dreamed of being. It isn’t spelled out in the book, but one gets the impression that her mother’s deep lying resentment comes from having the burden of being responsible for raising a family whilst her husband indulges every artistic whim, dragging the family hither and thither with little to no security other than can be obtained by his reputation as a Modernist genius.
Lucia has a talent and a drive for dance, and it is her relentless pursuit of this, which only mirrors her father’s relentless pursuit of literary perfection, which results in her persecution and mental instability. Ultimately she is betrayed by her father, on whom she should have been able to rely as a fellow artist, in this exchange:
“Lucia, dearest, this latest obsession is doing you no good. You have to stop. Find some other creative outlet. This dancing is too much for you.”
“But it’s my life, Babbo. How can I not dance?”
“Lucia, Lucia. Be content. It’s enough if a woman can write a letter and carry an umbrella gracefully.”
Although Lucia is not committed to an asylum until her brother does it after she attacks her mother during an argument, it feels like this is where she is broken. The one person you would expect support from, who seems to pride himself on how unconventional he is, reveals his own conventional prejudices on a woman’s place in society.
As mentioned before, there do appear to be parallels between Mary and Lucia. These help show how the role of women in society has changed somewhat over the years, but more importantly also help bring home the impact of these attitudes due to Mary being brought up in a “normal” (for want of a better word) household in the north-west of England. For somebody like me, from a similar area if not era, Mary’s story brings the message home very effectively.
Mary’s story shows her father, her “cold mad feary father” to be emotionally distant and angry, with the occasional bouts of closeness. He is emotionally and physically violent towards his daughter, and loves to put her down. Two instances of this come to the fore immediately. The first is when Mary’s mother is reading out her good school report which states that Mary always tries, to which her father retorts, “Mary is always trying. How true!”. this scene goes on to show him decrying all women using a latin phrase from a poem. When he should be building up his daughter’s confidence, he seems to wish to demolish it simply so he can, in his own eyes, look clever. The other is when she completes her BA at Preston Polytechnic, whilst she has a young family to tend to, and to which he says, “B.A? Bloomin’ Awful!”. However unlike Lucia, Mary is empowered to stand up for herself, to defy this misogynist:
“No, Dad. Brilliant Achievement!”
To be honest, the emotional response in the reader at this point is to cheer her to the rafters.
There are other obvious parallels between Lucia and Mary’s experiences. Mary too desires to be a ballerina. In a class at her primary school the children are being asked what they wish to do when they grow up. A girl who answers that she would like to be a nurse gains approval, “Well that’s a nice job for a girl...". Mary makes a rather innocent but cutting answer:
“And Mary, what about you?”
“I want to be a ballerina, Sister Bernadette.”
“Well now, that’s pretty, I suppose. And if God doesn’t want you to be a ballerina, what else would you like to do?”
One scene that does need to mentioned is the rather horrific birth scene. I was born in the same era as Mary and Bryan’s sons in 1970, and the thought that women had to experience such neglect for the physical and emotional well being during birth such a short time ago is quite appalling.
In all of this I have failed to mention Bryan Talbot’s artwork. In most cases with an artists so well known, you could say that it was in his usual style and up to his usual standard. Unfortunately that is never the case with Mr. Talbot. It is up to his usual standard in every way. In terms of pure storytelling, this is a comic which a lot of artists would do well to study. Clear and concise, it gets all the information required over to the reader so that you are never forced to read a page two or three times just to understand what is going on at the most fundamental level.
Any reader of Bryan’s though would understand that the man has no set style. He has a huge range, using what is most appropriate to the story being told, whether that is the intense science fiction action caperings of Luther Arkwright, the distressing but uplifting “Tale of One Bad Rat”, the experimental “Alice in Sunderland” or sundry others. In this he has used a ligne clair style for the most part, with deviation for some of the more emotionally dramatic sequences involving Lucia. Particularly effective is the page design for Lucia’s committal to asylum.
Overall there is so much to this book that it will take me a few more readings to fully appreciate everything that is being said. There is a lot more to it than I have mentioned here, and I look forward to Mary M Talbot’s historical graphic novel. If it is a fraction as good as this then it will still be better than 99% of everything else.
The book deals with Mary Talbot’s upbringing and her relationship with her father, a leading Joycean scholar, in parallel with that of James Joyce’s tragic daughter Lucia. The narrative rarely takes place in the present, but in an early scene where Mary is chatting to two of here colleagues about Lucia Joyce who ask if she is finding parallels, she replies:
“I bloody hope not! She spent most of her life in mental institutions.”
As the story goes on though, we do find some parallels, but the gender has changed. Lucia is oppressed and opposed in her creativity, and dealt with coldly, by her mother, who seems bitter that Lucia is, initially at least, able to be more independent than her mother could ever have dreamed of being. It isn’t spelled out in the book, but one gets the impression that her mother’s deep lying resentment comes from having the burden of being responsible for raising a family whilst her husband indulges every artistic whim, dragging the family hither and thither with little to no security other than can be obtained by his reputation as a Modernist genius.
Lucia has a talent and a drive for dance, and it is her relentless pursuit of this, which only mirrors her father’s relentless pursuit of literary perfection, which results in her persecution and mental instability. Ultimately she is betrayed by her father, on whom she should have been able to rely as a fellow artist, in this exchange:
“Lucia, dearest, this latest obsession is doing you no good. You have to stop. Find some other creative outlet. This dancing is too much for you.”
“But it’s my life, Babbo. How can I not dance?”
“Lucia, Lucia. Be content. It’s enough if a woman can write a letter and carry an umbrella gracefully.”
Although Lucia is not committed to an asylum until her brother does it after she attacks her mother during an argument, it feels like this is where she is broken. The one person you would expect support from, who seems to pride himself on how unconventional he is, reveals his own conventional prejudices on a woman’s place in society.
As mentioned before, there do appear to be parallels between Mary and Lucia. These help show how the role of women in society has changed somewhat over the years, but more importantly also help bring home the impact of these attitudes due to Mary being brought up in a “normal” (for want of a better word) household in the north-west of England. For somebody like me, from a similar area if not era, Mary’s story brings the message home very effectively.
Mary’s story shows her father, her “cold mad feary father” to be emotionally distant and angry, with the occasional bouts of closeness. He is emotionally and physically violent towards his daughter, and loves to put her down. Two instances of this come to the fore immediately. The first is when Mary’s mother is reading out her good school report which states that Mary always tries, to which her father retorts, “Mary is always trying. How true!”. this scene goes on to show him decrying all women using a latin phrase from a poem. When he should be building up his daughter’s confidence, he seems to wish to demolish it simply so he can, in his own eyes, look clever. The other is when she completes her BA at Preston Polytechnic, whilst she has a young family to tend to, and to which he says, “B.A? Bloomin’ Awful!”. However unlike Lucia, Mary is empowered to stand up for herself, to defy this misogynist:
“No, Dad. Brilliant Achievement!”
To be honest, the emotional response in the reader at this point is to cheer her to the rafters.
There are other obvious parallels between Lucia and Mary’s experiences. Mary too desires to be a ballerina. In a class at her primary school the children are being asked what they wish to do when they grow up. A girl who answers that she would like to be a nurse gains approval, “Well that’s a nice job for a girl...". Mary makes a rather innocent but cutting answer:
“And Mary, what about you?”
“I want to be a ballerina, Sister Bernadette.”
“Well now, that’s pretty, I suppose. And if God doesn’t want you to be a ballerina, what else would you like to do?”
“Draw a pension, Sister.”
This is an allusion to a remark made by one of her working class neighbours who where looking after her whilst her mother was at work after school. Class runs through this as well, which is to be expected of a story emerging from Britain, but it is pretty much subsumed by that of gender. After all women where subject to prejudice and misogyny regardless of what class they belonged to.
One scene that does need to mentioned is the rather horrific birth scene. I was born in the same era as Mary and Bryan’s sons in 1970, and the thought that women had to experience such neglect for the physical and emotional well being during birth such a short time ago is quite appalling.
In all of this I have failed to mention Bryan Talbot’s artwork. In most cases with an artists so well known, you could say that it was in his usual style and up to his usual standard. Unfortunately that is never the case with Mr. Talbot. It is up to his usual standard in every way. In terms of pure storytelling, this is a comic which a lot of artists would do well to study. Clear and concise, it gets all the information required over to the reader so that you are never forced to read a page two or three times just to understand what is going on at the most fundamental level.
Overall there is so much to this book that it will take me a few more readings to fully appreciate everything that is being said. There is a lot more to it than I have mentioned here, and I look forward to Mary M Talbot’s historical graphic novel. If it is a fraction as good as this then it will still be better than 99% of everything else.
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