Reseña de ARC:Blossoms in Autumn

 +Digital ARC gently provided by Netgalley and publishers. My thanks and my thoughts all mine+

 

Blossoms in Autumn 

by 

Zidrou

Aimée de Jongh (Illustrator)

 141 pages

Published March 20th 2019 by Europe Comics

Original Title: L'obsolescence programmée de nos sentiments

ISBN13: 9791032805862

Edition Language: English

BLURB:  Ulysses, a widower for several years, loses his job as a mover at age 59 and loses his sense of being. Mediterranea, 62 and never married, loses her mother and officially becomes the oldest member of her family. Fate brings them together and helps them to much more than just heal

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Graphic novel. Literatura francesa.

Art - 3.5 / 5

Story - 1 / 5

There are many things in the story that rubs me the wrong way, so... it's not of my liking. And since this is just my personal taste, well, that.

Blossoms in Autumn, -which in French is called "The programmed obsolescence of our sentiments"- is about two aging people who know each other and get together. Ullyses with 59 years old is lay off from a moving company, the loneliness and emptiness of his days is well told. While Mediterranea, with 62 years, still works in a cheese factory, she is going through her own crisis of loneliness after the death of her mother whom she cared for.

Newsflash - Life does not end at 50, or at 60. And I must say (coming from a family that mostly lives after the 90s and a hundred years) not even after that. And yes, they still have sex in some cases. I mean, my maternal grandfather was a hardworking , mean, and lecherous man until the day he died at 96 years old.

But it is Ulysses wich bother me. He repeats again and again that 'he hate reading'. STRIKE ONE. I don't know if that hints at problems like dyslexia? but srly? not good.

I guess that with the fairy tales, the SnowWhite bit and the apple, hints to lost opportunities or something like that. Or waiting too much for something to happen and grasp the Now. The 'they live happily forever'?. But it was weird , specially that ending /SPOILERS--->with the row machine, to me is like that something never happen, after the bleeding probable she has ovary cancer and that pregnancy was wishful thinking and Mediterranea see her opportunity to have children ending. But we know that women don't need to get married to have children, nor even get pregnant.<---SPOILERS/

[with the row machine, to me is like that something never happen, after the bleeding probable she has ovary cancer and that pregnancy was wishful thinking and Mediterranea see her opportunity to have children ending. But we know that women don't need to get married to have children, nor even get pregnant. (hide spoiler)]

That point , add with the frankly masculine point of view of the thing... with the female friend ... the woman he pays for sex when the photograph of the family beside the bed (really?), and she feels sad because Ulysses leaves her (really?) . Just not believable. Also the behaviour of the guy, with the magazine and crass opennings, and the thing with cheese in her hair? Nope , nope, nope.

Not of my liking indeed.

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Dos personas de edad madura se conocen y enamoran. Uno es jubilado a la fuerza de una empresa de mudanzas debido a su edad, es viudo, y no sabe que hacer con su vida a los 59 años. Conoce por casualidad a Mediterranea, quien nunca se caso y fue antes modelo de revistas usando poca ropa., trabaja en una queseria todavia a los 63 años.

Hasta ahi todo bien. PERO la forma en que se desarrolla la historia, y más que nada todo el machismo y la vulgaridad de Ullyses me dan tirria y me molestan. El final tampoco ayuda que se va para un lado muy poco .... no se si apunta a una imagen literaria pero esa idea ... no.

No me gusto y no lo recomiendo.

Por otra parte , el dibujo es interesante, asi que mostrar que los mayores tambien tienen sexo, lo cual es ninguna novedad! pero igual , siguiendo el formato parece que fuera más dura con la forma de la mujer que con la del hombre.

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