Crenshaw's Books & Decks

The Sculptor tells the story of David Smith, a young sculptor struggling in his personal life and in his professional life as an artist as he is short of money, has no family and, despite its undeniable talent, his work is not being shown or showcased by any important art gallery and this despite his best friend Olly being part of the Art Gallery network.. He is at breaking point when his deceased uncle Harry visits him  and offers him a solution to solve his struggle with Art, and the lovely cheery young actress Meg crosses paths with him.

The book is drawn in a beautiful evocative duotone in indigo blue hues that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also the perfect tone to create the mood that this story needs, a mix of blues song with an underlining and sometimes upfront sadness and personal stress, and also the magic of this indigo child, indigo child understood here as a gifted guy with supernatural abilities and enhanced ways of perception.

McCloud artwork is really that of a Master regarding use of colour, composition, framing and style.

McCloud depiction of New York urban area is absolutely glorious and masterful. He looks at the city as both as an insider and an outsider, because some of the images are really those that anybody visiting the Big Apple for the first time would take with them, the overwhelming but thrilling presence of concrete, steel and skyscrapers. On the other hand, MCloud knows the city and is also able to depict its more rural or parkland areas with freshness and a great bucolic feeling, which is used as an emotional counterpoint to the urban settings, where most of the story happens.

As an insider McCloud shows the New York of the New Yorkers, the ambience of the city, but also the city of the people. Every secondary or tertiary figure and passer-by character depicted in the streets is fully there, even those in the background. Their body language, clothing and attitude tell a story of who they are and we can look at them as individuals that happen to cross the vignette, not as mere accessories to the main character or the image. This is one of the reasons I love reading comics on digital format as the zooming allows us to do that easily, and fully be there within the image, and notice the tiniest scratch or detail.

There are a few surreal  images depicted in the book, many of them truly impacting and beautifully drawn. There is a strong presence of oneiric elements as well. I one of my previous reviews, I mentioned the fact that Magic Realism can be easily mixed up with fantasy and surrealism to describe Latin-American novels as deniable part of the genre. Here we have the contrary case, this is, to me, an undeniable Magic Realism work, even if North-American, and not many people are focusing on that. So, which elements are part of the Magic Realism genre in The Sculptor?
> Fantastical elements (levitation, premonitory dreams, etc.), TICK
> Real-word setting, TICK
> The story is told as is nothing extraordinary was taking place, magical events are accepted in the same plane as those that aren't, TICK
> Use of multiple planes of reality, in this case the oneiric and the awakened state, TICK
> Metafiction, that is, the narrator intentionally exposes themselves as the author of the story, TICK
> Heightened awareness of mystery, TICK
> Social critique, In this case about how the art market works, TICK

On  the other hand, there are important literary connections the reader will make at the beginning, or at least I did, that of the Faustian-like plot being the most important.

I thought that the narrative and characterisation of The Sculptor did not match the finesse of the artwork. Although I liked the overall plot and ending, some characters are a bit clichéd, like Olly and Finn.The character of Meg seemed me a bit non-believable, a good-Samaritan Lolita, but it turns out that the character hides some surprises and is based on MCloud's wife and on their own love story. Ouch! However David and Harry's characters are roundly profiled and created.

The beginning of the book was exhilarating, witty and interesting, then turned into a boring immature love story to gain momentum again and end brilliantly.  The book mixes dialogues that deal with what Art is and is not, how Art is produced, how Art is sold and marketed and what makes a successful artist. On the other hand we see how life and Art mix in intricate ways, how the artist's life and the artist' art feed each other, and how most talented artists would not make it.

The ending was genuine and the one that I wanted to see. Some rules can't be broken ever, some thing simple are that way, as the character personifying Death would say. And changing the end to please readers would have been an artistic betrayal to the author's own vision and the inner logic of the story.