Will Sargent reviewed The sculptor by Scott McCloud
Review of 'The sculptor' on 'Storygraph'
2 stars
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did.
I didn't like the protagonist. I didn't like the manic pixie dream girl love interest. I didn't like portentous Uncle Harry. I didn't like the false dichotomy. I didn't like the superpowers. I didn't like the intrigues of the art world. I didn't like the ending.
There's a statement about books that I like from lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me/
"Paying attention is the foundational act of empathy, of listening, of seeing, of imagining experiences other than one’s own, of getting out of the boundaries of one’s own experience. There’s a currently popular argument that books help us feel empathy, but if they do so they do it by helping us imagine that we are people we are not. Or to go deeper within ourselves, to be more aware of what it means to be heartbroken, or ill, or …
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did.
I didn't like the protagonist. I didn't like the manic pixie dream girl love interest. I didn't like portentous Uncle Harry. I didn't like the false dichotomy. I didn't like the superpowers. I didn't like the intrigues of the art world. I didn't like the ending.
There's a statement about books that I like from lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me/
"Paying attention is the foundational act of empathy, of listening, of seeing, of imagining experiences other than one’s own, of getting out of the boundaries of one’s own experience. There’s a currently popular argument that books help us feel empathy, but if they do so they do it by helping us imagine that we are people we are not. Or to go deeper within ourselves, to be more aware of what it means to be heartbroken, or ill, or six, or ninety-six, or completely lost. Not just versions of our self rendered awesome and eternally justified and always right, living in a world in which other people only exist to help reinforce our magnificence, though those kinds of books and comic books and movies exist in abundance and cater to the male imagination."
The Sculptor is about an artist rendered awesome. He doesn't listen. He doesn't grow. He doesn't see. He doesn't imagine experiences outside his own. Instead, he suffers dramas, and creates Great Art. It's an artist's self-indulgent wish fulfillment.
Apart from that, it was okay.