Review - La Perdida by Jessica Abel
March 24th, 2008 John Posted in Comic Books, Reviews |
When the search for self involves a perceived community, the need to belong can often blindside the seeker to the reality of that community — in “La Perdida,” Jessica Abel takes this thought and expands it into a methodical examination of the roads we take and how we end up on them. It’s a tale of perception and self-deception, where paths in life are revealed to not have one certain beginning that can be pinpointed, but a ever-moving journey where the turn-offs are as blurry sometimes as the scenery out of the window.
Carla is an American girl whose estranged father is Mexican — her search for identity brings her to Mexico City for an unplanned and slightly reckless visit to her perceived past, one that lives more as a dream in her desires for what is lacking than anything in her real life. An outsider in the United States, Carla is quick to define herself as different that the other Americans who litter the city, who separate themselves from the natives and form little ex-patriate communities. She is, after all, a real Mexican, returning to the homeland — she is one of the people.
But does she actually know who the people are?
Much of Carla’s perception of Mexicans comes from two characters she becomes intertwined with — Memo and Oscar — and their characterizations of the Americans who initially host her introduction to the country. Overly conscious of not seeming cool to Memo and Oscar because of being perceived as clinging to the expatriate community, Carla allows herself to fall under the allure of the two. Memo is a combative intellectual communist who seems to do little more than sit around and complain about capitalism, all the while banking on his dangerous charms to bed women. Meanwhile Oscar becomes a simple-minded boy toy for Carla, with an impossible desire to become a dee-jay, a vision of America as the land of dreams and a notion that Carla might just be his ticket out of Mexico.
“La Perdida” unfolds in a casual way — the beginnings of Carla’s journey are low-key, if it were a film you would believe it to be unscripted, and they represent Carla’s uneasy relationship with the world around her, so well realized through Abel’s pen. And though she begins her journey with energy and interest, the confusing mush that lurks within her spirit can’t be molded by the outside world, unless it leaps on it like Memo and Oscar. It becomes apparent that Carla is too passive in her journey, too willing to define herself by what others give her, too willing to allow other people’s visions of what she should be act as blinders for her own eyes.
It’s all a train wreck waiting to happen — you just don’t imagine the enormity of the wreck even as you watch it happen in slow motion, over pages and pages. Such is the beauty of Abel’s narrative — it’s a story that unfolds, never stating its intentions upfront, never clinging to a cliche. You’re never sure what you think is happening is actually happening — as a reader you are, much as you would in real life, acting on total instinct, deciphering the meaning of situations, reading between the lines and second guessing your preconceived notions of all the players involved.
This is really the meat of what Abel is getting at — if “La Perdida” is anything, it is a testament to the importance of knowing yourself and a suggestion that part of such knowledge is the ability to listen to your instinct and find its applicability to the life you’re leading rather than glide on self-deception. Abel’s book is also about the nature of helplessness, how it can be an illusion when in fact there are moments upon moments that a person can take charge of a situation and can reverse the inevitability of their future regrets — it’s just other people’s visions obscuring your own view of the exit signs.
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