Building Stories
Chris Ware
Pantheon, 2012
Reading Ware's Rusty Brown recently reminded me that I had never gotten around to Building Stories. Physically it's like the anti-library book: a box containing fourteen printed works in various sizes, shapes, and formats. Having worked in libraries for years, I can think of no way to safely circulate a copy of it, and would be surprised if any library has (although I'm sure there are research collections that own copies in non-circulating special collections). And while I can imagine a digital edition of it, one does not exist as of this writing. So I bought a used copy (it has to be said that the retail price is a bit prohibitive, even if it is probably more than justified by the cost of printing and producing the unusual package). The story centers around the residents of a three-story Chicago apartment building (which at one point serves as narrator, a literal rendition of "building stories"): a 30-something woman who has not found her mission in life, nor someone to share it with; a couple, possibly married, who have drifted apart; and the building's landlady, an elderly woman who has lived alone for decades.
But the narrative branches off in all directions (not least because there is no prescribed path through it). The main protagonist is an unnamed woman who lost a lower leg in a childhood boating accident (never shown explicitly, and often just referred to as "the accident"). Unsure of her physical attractiveness anyway, she often obsesses on her disability--although ultimately she does find partners, including the husband who figures into the latter part of the story. As a male author, it is notable that Ware devotes so much of the book to telling women's stories.
Her story goes back to her childhood, then her high school and college years. She was an art student, and had her first serious relationship. When she moves into the apartment house she begins working at a florist shop, and discovers a talent for floral arrangement. Later she moves to the suburbs with her husband, we watch her child grow up, a friend commits suicide, her longtime pet cat dies...a whole succession of life events.
The collection includes a comic book devoted to the couple upstairs in the apartment building (which shows their courtship, as well as the apparent collapse of their relationship). Another comic book tells the landlady's story, from her life as a young woman to her marriage and widowhood managing the apartment building. There are also a book and a newspaper devoted to the story of Branford the bee. Taken by themselves they may look like an irrelevant side story, but they are also part of the relationship between the protagonist and her daughter (as bedtime stories), as well as a commentary on family, which is one of the themes of the book.
As usual Ware's art is rich and diverse, made even more so by the different presentation formats. I do wish he would use much less tiny print! It's a genuine struggle to read sometimes. The more you read, the more the story broadens and deepens. It does not need a large cast to maintain interest: in fact it could be argued that focusing on a few characters in depth is a source of strength. Watching them go through their lives and experiencing their internal monologues produces a rare sense of intimacy. I felt I really got to know these characters. I was almost sorry to get to the last piece, and look forward to reading it again, probably in a slightly different order. I do think that the suggested reading order on the bottom of the box was helpful. It would have been confusing to have started somewhere other than the two books that are suggested, although reading about the protagonist as an adult first might have given an interesting perspective.
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