Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine
52 Books In 52 Weeks: #19 of 52
It had been a while since a book stayed stuck in the back of my mind like Adrian Tomine’s Summer Blonde did. The reflective nature of his storytelling continued to dwell in a very active part of my brain, contemplating various degrees of significance in its four stories. It is because of the residency it took up in my waking hours that I decided to read another Tomine book in my book-a-week challenge, if only to get the confirmation as to whether or not Tomine’s other works can live up to such an insightful work as Summer Blonde. In that respect, Shortcomings is an ill-named graphic novel.
Rather than a collection of short stories, Shortcomings tells the story of Ben Tanaka, an Asian-American movie theatre manager strung up on the “race-as-a-crutch” angle to account for his personality defects, and manages to be one of the most unsympathetic characters you’re bound to meet in a book: he’s unambitious, cynical, socially awkward, hypocritical, and a grump. Yet despite his aggravating flaws, we’re drawn to hang onto Ben as his tale of self-realisation unfolds, giving him precedence to shatter his worldview and allow himself to be just as everyone else, regardless of ethnic background: human, and therefore vulnerable.
The story is brilliantly multi-layered. Mostly, it’s a love story, or a story of love lost to be exact, as Ben struggles with his relationship with his girlfriend Miko, his fantasies, and inadequacies. But it’s also a tale of identity, bringing into focus how ethnicity can war with individuality, and vice versa. Ben’s constant falling back on his heritage for his problems, everything from his job situation to his incapacity to “make it” with a white girl, turns out to be the only way he can bolster himself. Our fear of solitude and our incapacity to communicate with each other, very prevalent Tomine themes, also haunt the pages of the book. Yet even with these dense themes, Tomine adroitly infuses the tale with a surprising amount of humour, which helps develop Ben’s tale into moments of sincere exactitude.
With a cast of characters that breathes with the realism of their overall averageness, Shortcomings is a unexpectedly tragic tale of one’s incapacity to overcome oneself, lost between who we are and who we’re expected to be.
Book: Shortcomings
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
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