May Book Review: Shortcomings

Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings

A selfish prick that takes no joy in life nor love finishes last in both.

Surprisingly, this is not as satisfying of a premise as you’d like to believe.

Adrian Tomine tells the story of Ben Tanaka in graphic novel form. Ben is the Japanese-American manager of a small movie theatre, with a severe inferiority complex. His professional ambitions are trumped only by his self-sabotage of the relationship between him and his girlfriend, Miko. Time and time again, he proves to be uncaring and apathetic to their relationship, and his white-girl fetish certainly doesn’t make things easier. What follows is a journey towards self-destruction, as much as it is a story of self-discovery.

When he and Miko decide to break-up so she can pursue a film internship in New York City, he begins an uncomfortable foray into dating outside his race. Eventually, he heads to New York to win Miko back, only to find that life moved past him as he stood still. Through most of the story, his lesbian best friend, Alice, is there to serve as his antithesis. She creates the balance between sensibility and outrageousness. Alice is also the key to much of Tomine’s humor, and the scene where she drags Ben to church to falsely convince her parents of her heterosexuality is priceless.

Tomine incorporates a simple, black and white drawing style. It pushes no boundaries, and doesn’t require much use of the imagination, but there’s no arguing its effectiveness. Clear, bold lines and simple textures don’t distract from the story, but enhance it, by lending itself to Tomine’s comedic timing.

The dialogue’s font is an example of this: Tanaka uses simple word bubbles that emerge from their heads, but small changes in the font help express communication in profound ways. Not translating the text when they speak another language, using broken lines around word bubbles when they’re whispering, and the occasional bolded word, all bring the elements of a comic and novel together.

Tomine’s fatal flaw doesn’t lie in his art or storytelling ability, but on a much more basic level: his protagonist is too flawed. It’s not that Ben is an unrealistic character - quite the opposite in fact. Ben exemplifies many qualities of members in the Asian American community, from his insecurity to his jealousy, as well as his hypocritical views on interracial dating. But the degree to which he takes his self-denial and selfishness prevents readers from developing any sense of sympathy for him. There’s no desire to see him succeed. You don’t want to see him grow up, or become a better man. Ironic tragedy is only tragic when you want the protagonist to win the girl.

Our author left the “sweet” out of the bittersweet. Because of it, we’re left without a character we can root for. And for any piece of fiction, that’s the greatest tragedy of all.

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

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